Reid seeks additional investigation of DOE

Monday, Feb. 26, 2001 | 11:25 a.m.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has called for another congressional investigation into a six-page anonymous letter that claimed Department of Energy officials are mismanaging the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository project.

The senator on Friday requested the General Accounting Office probe issues raised in the letter about qualifications of top government managers of the project, which is studying the mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The author is unknown. Officials who have reviewed the letter had said the information in the letter indicates someone with an insider's knowledge of the DOE.

The GAO is the investigative arm of Congress.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., had asked the GAO on Feb. 12 to expand an investigation into a possible conflict of interest between the DOE and the nuclear industry because a two-page anonymous memo spelled out how to sell a repository at Yucca Mountain.

Reid initiated the earlier DOE inspector general's probe of that memo.

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