WASHINGTON -- A House chairman plans to summon Energy Department officials to a hearing in a new bid to break a stalemate between DOE and Congress over access to Yucca Mountain documents.
Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., will schedule a hearing in about three weeks after DOE once again this week resisted a demand to turn over a 5,800-page draft license application for the proposed nuclear waste repository, a spokesman said Wednesday.
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Porter, chairman of the federal workforce and agency organization subcommittee, said he wants to examine the document as part of an investigation of scientist e-mails that suggested quality assurance documents might have been fabricated.
Department officials have challenged whether the document is relevant to the probe.
Also, DOE general counsel David Hill said in a letter to Congress on Tuesday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled last week that the document was not required to be made public.
Porter has uncovered further information that justifies access to the repository documents, spokesman T.J. Crawford said. He would not say what was discovered.
"We will have a hearing and will present additional information and ask DOE for a full explanation of why they feel that we should not see the draft license," Porter said.
In the letter sent to Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., Hill said DOE plans to supply other documents the panel has requested, including new e-mails uncovered in the fall.
The repository would be built about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
