Nevada wants Yucca lawyers probed

Mary Manning and Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, July 31, 2001 | 10:55 a.m.

The law firm hired by the Energy Department to review Yucca Mountain documents -- and is now the focus of conflict-of-interest charges -- has begun an internal examination of the charges, the firm's chairman told the Sun today.

Meanwhile, Nevada officials say they are considering asking for an official outside investigation into the Chicago-based law firm, Winston & Strawn.

The DOE hired the firm for $16.5 million in September 1999 to complete legal work for the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository project. The DOE has been studying Yucca to determine if it is safe for permanent burial of the nation's high-level nuclear waste.

The DOE hired the 850-lawyer firm to review a Yucca license application that the department is preparing to submit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC would have to approve a license before any waste is buried at Yucca Mountain.

But Nevada officials say Winston & Strawn appears to have a conflict of interest because it was also a registered lobbyist that urged Congress to support the speedy construction of a nuclear waste repository at the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The law firm, on behalf of the nuclear power industry trade group Nuclear Energy Institute, lobbied Congress, the NRC and the Environmental Protection Agency on various nuclear issues, according to congressional records.

Nevada officials have said Winston & Strawn cannot independently and impartially serve as legal counsel to DOE in reviewing Yucca documents because for six years it was also a pro-Yucca lobbyist for NEI, the most vocal Yucca proponent in Washington. The DOE is by law required to be an impartial Yucca manager, not align itself with pro-Yucca forces, Nevada officials say.

"I think it is a clear conflict of interest, even if technically it doesn't violate the law," Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said last week.

Winston & Strawn officials had declined to comment, but following a Sun story Sunday and other media reports including a Monday article in the Chicago Tribune, Winston & Strawn Chairman James Thompson, a former Illinois governor, today denied the allegations.

"We're currently looking at every document we have regarding this, just to double check," Thompson said. "We don't want to embarrass the Department of Energy or the administration. But as of now, we are convinced that there is not a conflict of interest."

Thompson said a report from the firm that examines whether a conflict existed would be forthcoming, "hopefully soon so we can all get on with our lives."

Meanwhile, Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn said Monday he is drafting a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham requesting a department investigation.

"I think this is a very unfair situation," Guinn said.

Winston & Strawn severed its relationship with NEI on July 11, the week after the Sun began seeking comment about the potential conflict of interest.

Attorney James Curtiss of Winston & Strawn's Washington office signed the lobbying termination report filed with Congress this month.

Thompson said he did not know for sure why the firm cut its ties to NEI, but he said it was probably because the firm had "long ago" finished its lobbying work for the organization.

Thompson declined further comment until the firm's internal report is complete, and also because the firm is involved in a conflict-of-interest lawsuit in a separate matter, he said.

A team of "seven to 10 lawyers and legal assistants" is at work on the Yucca application, according to a court document filed by Winston & Strawn partner J. Michael McGarry in a separate conflict-of-interest case against the firm.

The $16.5 million Yucca contract is for an estimated 38,900 hours of legal work, which likely would take at least five years.