Nevada Sen. Harry Reid urged a presidential advisory board Thursday to grant special status to the state's Cold War warriors so they can receive compensation for illnesses regardless of a 250-day work requirement.

Giving credit to former Nevada Test Site workers for helping win the Cold War, Reid, D-Nev., said they risked their lives conducting nuclear weapons tests that involved cancer-causing radiation and chemicals.

"Now these men and women face deadly cancers. Many have already passed away or lost their loved ones, just waiting for their country to acknowledge them," he said during a videoconference transmitted to the Las Vegas meeting of the Presidential Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health.

The board, which advises the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, has granted what's called "special exposure cohort" status to workers from the above-ground nuclear testing era, 1951 to 1962, if they have certain cancers and worked at least 250 days at the test site.

But Reid, echoing his past sentiments and concerns of former workers and survivors, wants the 250-day requirement removed.

His staff is also preparing a petition to extend the status to test site workers from the below-ground nuclear testing era, 1963 to 1992.

If the board rejects his requests, an aide to Reid said the senator will propose legislation to change the Labor Department's Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program so that the status puts former test site workers on par with those from other nuclear weapons sites. That would mean streamlining the process for former workers and survivors to obtain automatic $150,000 compensation checks plus medical expenses rather than having to prove their claims through an expensive time-consuming, dose reconstruction process.

"Many, tragically, have already died while waiting for their compensation, stuck in a bureaucratic nightmare of obstruction and delay," Reid said.