Joe Carson Comments on CHE's Statement
April 16, 2000
To: Harry Williams, President,
Coalition for Healthy Environment (CHE)
Re: Comments on your proposal for a DOE workers/families/residents compensation billDear Harry,
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to comment on your legislative proposal for compensating the victims of DOE's unsafe and unhealthy operations.
I find a glaring omission in what Secretary Richardson said on Wednesday and in the proposed legislation that has been discussed. It's an omission present in your proposal too. I'm glad Sec. Richardson apologized to the sick workers on behalf of the President, Vice President and DOE. I'm glad that there is political will to compensate the victims of DOE unsafe and unhealthy operations. But not all the victims became ill. I suggest the most heroic and deserving victims of DOE's unsafe and unhealthy operations were the few safety professionals who spoke out about them and paid with their careers, savings, reputations, jobs, and frequently more.
They deserve an apology, they deserve to be rehabilitated, and they deserve to be compensated for doing their duty at tremendous cost.
I think all the ill workers/residents should recognize that they are not the only victims of DOE's ES&H programs. People like me, David Hackett, Floyd Glenn, Sherrie Farver and many, many others were systemically silenced by DOE and its contractors for doing our duty and speaking out about our safety concerns, as our loyalty to Country and professions required. We were betrayed by others who put self-interest ahead of the common good and their professional obligations.
Careers/lives were shattered for many of the DOE safety professionals (and other concerned employees) who acted on their concerns and who put duty before personal gain. Sec. O'Leary, seven years ago, spoke of "righting past wrongs" to DOE whistleblowers. Her attempts floundered when DOE's General Counsel, Robert Norhaus, threatened her with criminal prosecution if she attempted to make DOE liable for the career damage (and more) it caused its conscientious safety professionals over the years.
These horribly wronged safety professionals, who paid with their careers (and frequently more) to try to prevent the illnesses the government is now apologizing for and promising to compensate, need to be "rehabilitated." The government ruined them with the type of malice one would expect in the Soviet Union under Stalin. The government was wrong, those people were just trying to be loyal Americans and ethical and competent safety professionals and they paid very dearly for their convictions in wanting to prevent people from getting ill/killed by DOE's unsafe and unhealthy operations.
DOE's whistleblowers need to be "rehabiliated" and compensated too. Any law that doesn't address that fact is incomplete and, I think, morally wrong. We all have done this together out of solidarity to "do the right thing." I think it's the right thing to rehabiliate and compensate DOE's other victims - the concerned employeees whom DOE ruined, sparing no expense, for their offense of putting duty to the health and well-being to workers and citizens ahead of self-interest.
This, more than external regulation of DOE, should be a key point in any compensation bill for the victims of DOE's unsafe and unhealthy operations, at least as I see it.
Sincerely,
Joseph P. Carson, P.E.
DOE safety engineer and "six-time prevailing" whistleblowerJoseph P. Carson, P.E.
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"A Call for Accountability, Competency, and Ethics in DOE"