Editorial: No crimes at Yucca?

Friday, April 28, 2006 | 7:32 a.m.

On Tuesday the Energy Department announced that the U.S. attorney's office in Nevada would not file criminal charges against scientists working on the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository who had falsified data.

This wasn't just any ordinary paperwork that had been falsified - this was data that involved how fast water can travel through the mountain and ultimately corrode canisters containing nuclear waste if a dump is ever built.

The Energy Department's inspector general, who worked with the FBI and the U.S. attorney on the criminal investigation, issued a five-page memo to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman outlining the probe's findings. The memo, however, is terribly vague regarding the evidence that had been gathered during the investigation, including how widespread the falsifying of data was.

There also wasn't an adequate explanation as to why such activities are legal. In the eyes of the federal government, apparently, falsifying data is legal and par for the course at Yucca Mountain.

The inspector general's report did note that the falsified data undermined public confidence in Yucca Mountain. Of course, public confidence in the repository, which has been riddled by politics and bereft of quality scientific work, has been undermined since its inception. It was the discovery of e-mails written by scientists, which talked about the falsifying of data, that provided a smoking gun about just how corrupt and shoddy the work has been at Yucca Mountain.

Bodman certainly hopes this report is the end of the controversy over the falsifying of data. And we're sure President Bush, who wants the dump built, would like to see the controversy go away, too.

The release of the inspector general's report on Tuesday was interesting, if not curious: It came one day after Bush had been in Las Vegas for a fundraiser for Rep. Jon Porter, who chairs a House subcommittee that is investigating the very falsifying of data in the inspector general's report. Imagine how the release of the report prior to Tuesday would have affected the public's reaction to the president's visit here.

The bottom line is that Nevada's congressional delegation needs to push for a public accounting from the U.S. attorney and the inspector general as to exactly what happened with the falsifying of the data and, just as important , why such actions didn't constitute criminal behavior.