Porter wants Yucca e-mailers to go public

Suzanne Struglinski

Monday, April 11, 2005 | 9:45 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Interior Department does not want three federal scientists who exchanged e-mails about falsifying documents on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository to testify before a congressional panel, but Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., hopes they will come forward on their own.

Due to ongoing investigations into the alleged falsifications, the department believes it is "inappropriate to require the individuals identified by the subcommittee to testify in a public hearing," according to a letter sent to Porter on Friday.

On Thursday, Porter had sent a letter asking Joe A. Hevesi, Alan L. Flint and Lorraine E. Flint to meet with subcommittee staff and appear before the House Federal Workforce and Agency Organization Subcommittee at a hearing Wednesday.

The letter named the employees under investigation for the first time. The subcommittee had redacted names from e-mails it released to avoid compromising investigations. It is not clear which person wrote which e-mail messages, so what part Hevesi and the Flints played in authoring them is unknown.

The three are listed on USGS Web sites as research hydrologists working in Sacramento, Calif.

Messages left at their homes Sunday went unreturned.

Chad Bungard, the subcommittee's deputy staff director and chief counsel said the staff is still trying to figure out a "game plan" for Wednesday's scheduled hearing. He called subpoenaing the scientists "an option, but probably a last resort option." He said all three are free to show up on their own.

"If they have nothing to hide they can come on their own," Bungard said. Porter is interested in why they wrote they e-mails and why they felt they needed to change information, Bungard said.

In the letter to Porter, Matt Eames, the Interior Department's Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs office, wrote that at this time, the department could not predict what the investigations would find related to the three scientists Porter invited to testify.

"To be clear, the Department is not defending any particular conduct or prejudging the outcome of the investigation, our sole aim is to assure that the investigation proceeds expeditiously and without impediment," Eames wrote.

Last month, the Energy Department announced it had discovered e-mails written by USGS employees that may affect the Yucca Mountain project data.

The redacted e-mails, released by the subcommittee, show Yucca Mountains scientists discussing how to "fudge" information, make numbers up and get around a Quality Assurance program in place to review and document scientific work for proving that the mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, could contain 77,000 tons of radioactive waste.

The U.S. Geological Survey Web site indicates that Hevesi and the Flints, a married couple, authored reports on water flow rates and climate change in the desert Southwest. Their work is also part of a document database built by the Energy Department to support the Yucca Mountain repository.