Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Porter's House panel to hire investigator

Scientists' e-mails will be one focus for new staff member

WASHINGTON -- A House subcommittee announced plans Tuesday to hire a full-time investigator to scrutinize controversial Yucca Mountain e-mail messages and analyze management practices in the nuclear waste repository program.

The investigator will lead an examination of e-mails that mention falsifying documents within the Energy Department project, said Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., the subcommittee chairman.

Porter said he will tell the staff member to delve into Yucca Mountain licensing, treatment of whistle-blowers, worker health concerns and other aspects of the project that have been challenged by critics.

"You name it, anything to do with the Yucca Mountain Project," Porter said. "We will start with the information we have, but every time we turn over a stone, we find more."

Porter said he sought permission to add a staff investigator to build Yucca Mountain expertise on the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce and Agency Organization.

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., chairman of the Government Reform Committee, signed off on the staff change, Porter said.

An attorney with investigative experience will be sought to work at least through the end of next year, he said.

The subcommittee traditionally has focused on matters of government pay, job classifications and benefits. But Porter, who became chairman earlier this year, has asserted jurisdiction over federal worker practices at Yucca Mountain.

The second-term lawmaker, like most of Nevada's elected leaders, is a critic of the government plan to develop a nuclear waste disposal site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Nevada's five-member congressional delegation was scheduled to meet today to develop strategies to keep pressure on the Energy Department after the e-mail disclosures last month.

The subcommittee held a hearing earlier this month on the e-mail messages and has requested the Energy Department and the U.S. Geological Survey gather Yucca Mountain personnel documents for the inquiry.

Inspectors general within the Energy Department and the Department of Interior are investigating the e-mails, in which authors wrote of making up names and dates and keeping ghost workbooks to satisfy quality assurance requirements for the climate and water infiltration research they were conducting.

Three scientists employed by the U.S. Geological Survey have been identified as principal authors of the messages, which were written between 1998 and 2000.