April 15, 2008
Washington, D.C. – Nevada Senators
Harry Reid and John Ensign, along with Reps. Shelley Berkley, Jon Porter, and
Dean Heller, today called on the Department of Energy (DOE) to recuse the law
firm Morgan Lewis & Bockius from any additional work on Yucca Mountain
because of conflicts of interest recently investigated by the DOE's Inspector
General.
A copy of the letter signed by the entire Nevada Delegation and
sent to Samuel W. Bodman, Secretary of the DOE, follows:
Dear Secretary
Bodman:
As you may know, the Department of Energy's
Inspector General recently completed a review of alleged conflicts of interest
involving the Department's legal services contractor for the Yucca Mountain
Project. We write today to request that you recuse this law firm – Morgan Lewis
& Bockius (Morgan Lewis) – from any additional work related to the
Yucca
Mountain
project.
In the Inspector General's report on this
investigation, he noted that by selecting a law firm "which represented
utilities in spent nuclear fuel litigation against the Government," the
Department "accepted a firm with a conflict of interest." It is our view that
the Department of Energy made a mistake in waiving this conflict of interest,
and in so doing did not serve the public interest. While the Inspector General
acknowledged that the Department 'checked the boxes' in its procurement and did
not break any laws, he also explained that DOE failed to provide adequate
documentation of its decision to hire Morgan Lewis.
The
Department set aside the Competition in Contracting Act to give Morgan Lewis
this contract, potentially worth over $100 million, in a closed no-bid process
that only involved two other law firms. With inadequate explanation, the
Department reversed its policy of excluding from consideration any law firm that
represents utilities in spent nuclear fuel litigation. In 1999, the
Department's policy was that it "cannot afford a public perception that its
licensing decisions regarding the repository were influenced by a firm that owes
loyalties to the nuclear utilities." However last year, the Department hired
Morgan Lewis – a law firm with at least a dozen lawsuits against DOE involving
spent nuclear fuel acceptance issues – to help prepare its license application
for Yucca
Mountain. The Department
might have checked the boxes in hiring Morgan Lewis, but it is clear that the
public interest was disregarded to hire a law firm favored by the nuclear energy
industry.
The Department of Energy does not serve a specific
industry, it serves the country and the American public. It is utterly
disingenuous for the Department to claim that there are no other law firms with
extensive experience in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's regulatory process
that do not have a conflict of interest. For that reason, we request you to
immediately terminate the Department's contract with Morgan Lewis, and begin a
competitive procurement process if the firm's replacement is deemed necessary to
comply with current law.
Should you have any questions,
please contact Dayle Cristinzio/Alex McDonough (Senator Reid, 202-224-3542), Pam
Thiessen (Senator Ensign, 202-224-6244), David Cherry (Congresswoman Berkley,
202-225-5965), Shannon Meade (Congressman Porter, 202-225-3252), or Greg
Facchiano (Congressman Heller, 202-225-6155). We appreciate your attention to
this matter.
Sincerely,
Harry Reid
John
Ensign
U.S. Senator
U.S.
Senator
Shelley Berkley
Jon Porter
Dean Heller
U.S. Representative U.S. Representative U.S. Representative