The U.S. health secretary said Tuesday he is denying a request from Colorado's congressional delegation for immediate aid to all former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons workers with radiation-related cancers.

So those lawmakers say they plan to introduce new legislation to help the ill workers. The lawmakers also are eyeing changes to the law that created the national compensation program, which has come under growing criticism for failing ill weapons workers.

"I am disappointed in the decision because Rocky Flats workers, who are among our country's heroes of the Cold War, will not have their medical issues effectively addressed," Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., said in a letter to Michael Leavitt, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Rep. Mark Udall, an Eldorado Springs Democrat whose district includes the former weapons complex northwest of Denver, said it was time for Congress to act: "If the Bush administration will not do the right thing by these workers, I hope Congress will."

Jennifer Thompson, a former Flats worker, filed a petition with a presidential advisory board two years ago to help all sick Flats workers. The board recommended to Leavitt that only a small group receive expedited medical coverage and $150,000 each in compensation. Records of those workers' exposures to highly dangerous neutron radiation are missing.

Leavitt agreed with the advisory panel and will forward the recommendation to Congress.

Thompson said the workers will file an appeal of Leavitt's decision within 30 days. A panel appointed by Leavitt will hear the appeal.

"I don't know how you can get an independent decision when the person who made the decision appoints the people to review it," she said.

If Congress goes along with Leavitt's recommendation, help would go to Flats workers with any of 22 radiation-related cancers who worked from 1952 to 1966 . The size of that group is not known but it is expected to be small.

The rest of more than 22,000 former atomic bomb makers from Rocky Flats will have to try to prove that their work made them ill. One in 10 Rocky Flats workers who qualified for compensation died before getting it.

Frankl@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5091