Porter demands deadline be set on Yucca e-mails

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, July 14, 2005 | 11:16 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., plans to subpoena the Energy Department unless the department by Monday hands over documents related to an investigation of Yucca Mountain worker e-mails.

Porter first requested the documents April 7, as part of a congressional investigation of e-mails that suggest quality assurance documents were falsified. The Energy Department has declined to release the documents, and it missed a Porter-set deadline Wednesday.

Energy Department officials have suggested that Porter's staff could view the documents at the department, which Porter said was insulting to Congress.

"We have asked for a public hearing so that the public can see this information," said Porter, who is leading the investigation as chairman of the House Government Reform subcommittee on the federal workforce and agency organization.

Porter said the department has denied even simple requests that include acronym lists and Yucca program organizational charts that include names.

Porter also has requested records, including correspondence and e-mails, relating to the employment status of three Yucca workers named in the e-mails who continued to work on the Yucca project, at least as of March 9.

The documents will help Porter's committee piece together a puzzle that could show program mismanagement, Porter said.

Porter doesn't expect the department to meet the Monday deadline, he said.

"In my mind, they are hiding something, and they don't want the public to see these documents," Porter said. "Enough is enough."

The Energy Department objected to Porter's committee disclosing to the public the documents it has already given the panel. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- not Porter's panel -- has the jurisdiction for deciding whether certain Yucca documents ultimately should be made public, department lawyer Eric Fygi told Porter in a June 24 letter.

Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson today declined to say if the department planned to give the documents to Porter's panel by Monday. Porter sent a letter to the department Wednesday requesting the documents by 4 p.m. Monday. The department is preparing a response, Benson said.

At issue in Porter's investigation are e-mails written between 1998 and 2000 by at least three scientists working on Yucca water flow studies. Such studies are vital to the Yucca project, which aims to construct a leak-proof, national repository for the nation's most radioactive nuclear waste in tunnels under Yucca.

The existence of the e-mails was disclosed by the department in March. Investigations by the inspectors general with the Energy Department and USGS are ongoing.

Nevada officials believe the e-mails are damning to the overall case made by the department that Yucca is a safe repository site. The Energy Department and other project supporters say the e-mails are not proof that any actual Yucca data was falsified. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has said initial investigation has shown that the science supporting Yucca as a safe waste site was not compromised.

Porter's committee has held two hearings on the e-mails, including a hearing June 29 in which one of the e-mail authors, U.S. Geological Survey scientist Joseph Hevesi, testified that he did not falsify Yucca quality assurance documents.