The U.S. Senate approved a bipartisan plan Wednesday to reform a compensation program for sick atom-bomb makers that has spent nearly $95 million on paperwork and paid only four workers.

The proposal sailed through the Senate on a voice vote, despite the Bush administration's opposition. Not one senator rose to speak against it.

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky, the plan's prime sponsor, said the program "is completely broken and the Department of Energy has done an abysmal job running it."

Congress created the compensation program in 2000, saying workers at plants such as Rocky Flats near Denver risked their lives from exposure to radiation and toxic chemicals to build nuclear weapons. Many died young, and others suffered from cancer and other illnesses they blame on the job.

The program is split between the Department of Labor and the Energy Department. Lawmakers had complained that the Energy Department has paid only four people $140,000 in claims in four years. The Department of Labor, on the other hand, has paid 11,000 people a total of $834 million.

The reform transfers the Energy Department part of the program to the Labor Department. It also promises the federal government will pay valid claims. The federal budget already covers the claims in the Labor Department half of the program.

The Energy Department has been allocated $95 million during the past four years for the complex process of searching out records of radiation and toxic-chemical exposure. Doctors then decide if that caused a worker's illness. The Energy Department has ruled on only 681 of 24,000 pending cases, and winning only provides workers with the opportunity to file for workers' compensation.

In Colorado, where 1,700 former Rocky Flats workers have applied for help, no company is willing to pay their claims without a fight, according to the General Accounting Office. Rocky Flats workers expect to have to sue the insurance firms that covered the plant to collect.

The Bush administration has opposed the bipartisan plan, saying the Energy Department has improved its claims processing. It says transferring the program to the Labor Department will slow the approval of claims.

But none of the six senators who spoke for the plan had any intention of giving the DOE another chance.

"Many of these workers are dying and should not have to wait any longer for the DOE to get its act together to pay these claims in a timely manner," Bunning said.

"We have kept them waiting too long," said Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio. "They sacrificed their health and even their lives, in many cases without knowing the risks they were facing. They have paid a high price for our freedom, and the nation has a moral obligation to provide for these Cold War veterans."

The reform is attached to the Defense Authorization Bill, which is expected to pass the Senate soon. The House-passed defense bill doesn't include this amendment; rather, it keeps the program in the Energy Department and makes only smaller changes, such as raising fees paid to medical experts who review claims. The two versions must be reconciled in a conference committee.

The Senate amendment does not solve another problem with the program: missing exposure records. Worker activists at Rocky Flats hope to prove the weapons plant did not keep accurate records of their exposures. In that case, all sick workers would qualify for help without having to prove individual exposures.