Berkley: Bechtel shouldn’t get bonus

Suzanne Struglinski

Friday, Jan. 28, 2005 | 9:51 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The company that has the contract to create a nuclear dump inside Yucca Mountain should not receive any part of its $15.3 million "performance-based incentive" bonus because the deadline for the license application was missed, Rep. Shelley Berkley said Thursday.

Under its contract with the Energy Department, Bechtel SAIC LLC was supposed to get $15.3 million if it turned in a completed license application by Nov. 30, 2004, but the department announced about a week prior to that date that it would not turn in the application.

It is not clear if the department will give Bechtel a portion of its fee. The company will receive about $1.75 billion during the next five year for working on the project. Department officials have said the lack of a license application was due to legal and regulatory problems, which were out of Bechtel's control and are considering what to do about the bonus.

Berkley wrote incoming Energy Secretary Sam Bodman on Thursday saying it is "especially egregious" that Becthel would receive a bonus even though it failed to do its work.

"It is unconscionable that DOE is using taxpayer and ratepayer money to award Bechtel enormous bonuses for unfulfilled obligations when our nation is running a deficit of $7 trillion and there are a number of underfunded priorities," Berkley told Bodman.

The Energy Department would not comment on the letter and Becthel SAIC in Nevada refers calls on the contract to the department.