The Energy
Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act is a compensation program that provides a lump-sum
payment of $150,000 and prospective medical benefits to employees (or certain of their survivors) of the
Department of Energy and its contractors and subcontractors as a result of cancer caused by exposure to
radiation, or certain illnesses caused by exposure to beryllium or silica incurred in the performance of duty,
as well as for payment of a lump-sum of $50,000 and prospective medical benefits to individuals (or certain of
their survivors) determined by the Department of Justice to be eligible for compensation as uranium workers
under section 5 of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
The Federal
Employees' Compensation Act (FECA), 5 U.S.C. 8101 et seq., establishes a comprehensive and exclusive workers'
compensation program which pays compensation for the disability or death of a federal employee resulting from
personal injury sustained while in the performance of duty. The FECA, administered by OWCP, provides benefits
for wage loss compensation for total or partial disability, schedule awards for permanent loss or loss of use of
specified members of the body, related medical costs, and vocational rehabilitation. The Black Lung Benefits Act provides monthly cash payments and medical
benefits to coal miners totally disabled from pneumoconiosis ("black lung disease") arising from their
employment in the nation's coal mines. The statute also provides monthly benefits to a deceased miner's
survivors if the miner's death was due to black lung disease.
Employee Benefit
Security
The Employee
Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) regulates employers who offer pension or welfare benefit plans for their
employees. Title I of ERISA is administered by the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) (formerly the Pension and Welfare Benefits
Administration) and imposes a wide range of fiduciary, disclosure and reporting requirements on fiduciaries of
pension and welfare benefit plans and on others having dealings with these plans. These provisions preempt many
similar state laws. Under Title IV, certain employers and plan administrators must fund an insurance system to
protect certain kinds of retirement benefits, with premiums paid to the federal government's
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). EBSA also administers reporting
requirements for continuation of health-care provisions, required under the Comprehensive Omnibus Budget
Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA) and the health care portability requirements on group plans under the Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
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