12f 22f/Po

DRAFT +2/32-++80Interior, TIA
R. VAN CLEVE

To the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate
Dear

:

The Secretary of the Interior is required by section 102 of Public
Law 96-205 to submit to the Congress by January 1, 1981, apian for health
care and related programs for people of the Marshall Islands.

Owétng-te

the-current—trancitiente—s_newAdministratton;—and—te—eur—desireLo afford
THE

WEFW

FLEX!' Bier ry

tohat Administration as much #reedem-of-actten as possible, we are submitting at this time only a preliminary report, with the expectation that
a final plan will be submitted to you sometime after the Inauguration.
I should like to set forth below certain of the key provisions of the
statute a statement of some of the areas in which the statute presents

problems of construction¢ information concerning the Interior Department's
efforts to implement the statutes and brief summaries of the proposals we
have elicited to form the basis for the plan to be submitted later to the Congress
The statute
Section 102 of Public Law 96-205 contains the following provisionsy
relevant to our current undertaking:
-- The plan required of the Secretary of the Interior results from the
United States’ nuclear weapons testing program conducted in the Marshall
Islands during the period 1946 to 1958,
-- The beneficiaries of the plan are to be "the people of the atolls
of Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap, and Utirik and...the people of such other
atolls as may be found to be or to have been exposed to radiation from the

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