KENTUCKY’S
KING
workers who developed cancers
or other illnesses from radiation
exposures, and up to $250,000
in compensation for medical
problems caused by other toxins.
Spouses and children were also
eligible for the program, which
cost the federal government more
than $9.5 billion.
But the legislation was not
a high priority on Capitol Hill.
When the bill stalled, Bill Richardson, then President Clinton’s
energy secretary, credits McConnell with pushing it through. “I
remember the bill was in trouble,”
Richardson told HuffPost. “There
was some last-minute shenanigans, and McConnell got it done.”
At least to Richardson, McConnell claimed to have worried
about safety at the plant. “McConnell talked to me about this
issue,” Richardson says. “He was
pretty outraged, but he basically
said that he had been trying to
work [on this] and I was the first
secretary to listen.”
After the bill became law and
the entitlement was put in place
in 2001, McConnell and his wife,
Elaine Chao, who was President
George W. Bush’s labor secretary at the time, flew to Paducah
and awarded the first $150,000
HUFFINGTON
08.11.13
check and a folded American flag
to Harding’s widow. The money
was nowhere n V"V