Friday, April 01, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Federal agencies criticized

Energy, Interior officials ignore panel's requests for e-mails

Rep. Jon Porter House panel chairman plans hearings Tuesday

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Jon Porter charged Thursday that government agencies are stonewalling Congress by not allowing the public release of e-mails that suggest Yucca Mountain documents may have been falsified.

Porter, R-Nev., said a confrontation is looming after Energy Department and Interior Department officials did not send a House subcommittee redacted copies of the e-mails and other documents at the heart of the allegation.

"DOE and (the Interior Department) are not being cooperative," said Porter, the subcommittee chairman. "We requested redacted documents to make sure we could preserve an ongoing criminal investigation and they have not complied with our request."

The agencies did turn over unredacted documents, but Porter said that only filled part of the request.

Porter said the development complicates plans to make the e-mails public in advance of a hearing scheduled for Tuesday.

Without redaction of certain names and potentially incriminating material, the documents contain information that might jeopardize investigations being conducted within the two departments, and now at the FBI, he said.

FBI officials Thursday confirmed it has become involved in pursuing the Yucca Mountain allegations, raising the possibility of criminal activity within the nuclear waste project.

"We are involved. We have been assisting the Department of Energy in looking into the matter," said David Schrom, an FBI spokesman in Las Vegas, who declined to disclose further information.

Porter said attorneys with the Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce and Agency Organization were examining the dispute with the federal departments. He said he planned to have the documents released today one way or another.

"I'm not surprised and it is to be expected, because that is how (the Energy Department) has operated in the past," Porter said. "At this point, we are going to force them to provide redacted versions or redact them ourselves."

The Energy and Interior departments acting jointly sent unredacted material to the House subcommittee this week.

Porter said he examined more than 90 pages of e-mail messages and internal memos.

He said the documents chronicle 30 to 40 e-mail conversations plus memos in which officials ponder initial courses of action when the potentially harmful information surfaced last month.

Porter said Thursday the material he reviewed was "very disturbing and very damning." He wouldn't describe the documents in detail, however, citing the dispute over their release.

Energy Department spokesman Mike Waldron said Thursday that DOE "has been working to provide the committee with as complete documentation as possible."

Responding to Porter's charge, Waldron said DOE officials were not stonewalling.

"When this situation came to light (Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman) personally issued a statement explaining what the problem was," Waldron said. "It is in the department's interest to comply with Congressman Porter's request in the most complete manner possible."

One DOE official said department officials concluded, "It would not serve the purpose of any investigations for (documents) to be made public in a redacted form."

Controversy has been simmering since Bodman and Charles Groat, the head of the U.S. Geological Survey, disclosed on March 16 that a worker had indicated in electronic messages between 1998 and 2000 that he fabricated documentation of work at the nuclear waste site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Officials with the Geological Survey said the fabrication dealt with processing data used in computer models that attempt to predict how surface water will move through the mountain under certain climate conditions.

Water flow is a key issue in determining whether a Yucca Mountain repository can be deemed safe. Nevada leaders who have long fought the project have charged the allegations cast a long shadow over the entire project.

Nevada's senators said they welcomed the FBI's pursuit of the allegations.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said FBI participation underscores the significance of the matter, potentially raising it to criminal levels.

Reid called for the Energy Department to put the Yucca program "on hold" while multiple investigations continue.

"Falsifying legal documents is clearly a crime, and should be prosecuted," Reid said. "Falsifying these particular documents, and creating fake scientific data about the storage of nuclear waste would have also put the health and safety of Nevadans in grave danger."

Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., had urged the FBI and the Justice Department to enter the case.

"The FBI's involvement in this investigation is very important to ensuring that the truth is revealed," Ensign said. "For too long, the Department of Energy has run this show with little or no oversight from outside agencies."