The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog

EPA Sends a Message With BP Suspension

The federal contracting community is abuzz today with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) announcement that energy company BP P.L.C. and several of its affiliates have been suspended from federal contracting.

The EPA justified its action citing BP’s “lack of business integrity” as demonstrated by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. That one incident killed 11 people and caused a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, for which BP recently pleaded guilty to 14 criminal counts and agreed to pay more than $4.5 billion in penalties. BP still faces civil lawsuits filed by the federal and state governments.

The suspension prevents BP from getting new contracts. It does not affect BP’s existing federal contracts, a point BP makes abundantly clear in its public statement today. The suspension will be lifted when BP can show the EPA that it is responsible and meets federal business standards. In the meantime, the Department of Interior has also disqualified BP from winning new leases to drill for oil or gas on federal land.

Oil and Gas Industry Loses Latest Round in Battle with SEC

By MIA STEINLE

In an attempt to combat corruption in resource-rich developing countries, two years ago Congress ordered U.S. corporations to disclose payments they make to foreign governments for the extraction of oil, gas, and minerals.

As supporters of the law saw it, the lack of transparency had allowed corruption to flourish and an elite few to profit from natural resources that should have benefited entire nations.

But the extractive industries protested that the requirements would damage their business, and they sued to block the rule that the Securities and Exchange Commission wrote to implement Congress’s mandate.

This week, the SEC stood its ground and refused to put the rule on hold while industry groups challenge the agency in court.

Washington Post Series on U.S. Nuclear Arsenal Requires Closer Look

By PETER STOCKTON and LYDIA DENNETT

Two weeks ago, The Washington Post ran a two-part series by Dana Priest examining the current U.S. nuclear arsenal and the cost of modernizing it. The first part, “Aging U.S. nuclear arsenal slated for costly and long-delayed modernization,” focused on the long delays and rising costs of modernizing U.S. nuclear warheads and facilities. The second, “The B61 bomb: A case study in costs and needs,” focused specifically on the oldest nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal, the B61. In both articles, the extraordinary cost of modernizing and maintaining our stockpile of nuclear warheads is highlighted. However, there is a significant lack of context in the articles: they heavily quote nuclear weapons complex officials who have strong bureaucratic interest in promoting the notion that our nuclear arsenal is outdated and unreliable unless more money is poured into programs, even though that view is not supported by any concrete data.

We don't need to spend over $350 billion building unnecessary nuclear Taj Mahals and refurbishing far more warheads than the U.S. intends to maintain in the nuclear stockpile. Instead, we should be investing in real national security priorities that meet the needs of our troops and address the realities of our modern world, not in the ghosts of a Cold War that has been over for more than 20 years.

Several Top Federal Contractors are also Top Polluters

By NEIL GORDON

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story listed Textron as the number two polluter. Textron has since submitted upated information to the EPA, which removes Textron from the top 100 list.

Whenever someone puts out a best/worst ranking of corporations, the first thing the Project On Government Oversight does is check to see if any of the contractors in our Federal Contractor Misconduct Database are in it.

This week, the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst published its fourth Toxic 100 Air Polluters list of the worst corporate air polluters in the United States. Sure enough, General Electric is the second worst air polluter.

Sixteen other contractors in our database also made the top 100. As you would expect, the fossil fuel companies are in it (ExxonMobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Valero Energy, and Chevron), as are fossil fuel industry services provider Halliburton and the company whose main product runs on fossil fuel, General Motors. The ranking also contains several defense contractor heavyweights: Boeing, United Technologies, Northrop Grumman, Honeywell International, and General Dynamics.

The list is based on air releases of hundreds of chemicals fr om tens of thousands of industrial facilities across the country. The ranking takes into account the quantity of releases, the toxicity of the released chemicals, and such factors as prevailing winds, the height of smokestacks, and the number of people at risk.

Workers at Tennessee Nuclear Facility Say Safety Takes Backseat to Deadlines

By MIA STEINLE

Some workers who are designing and building a major nuclear weapons facility for the government say they feel pressure to put deadlines ahead of safety, according to a recent Department of Energy report.

“Interviewees indicated that schedule pressures can inhibit reporting of concerns,” the report said.

“The heavy emphasis on performance metrics and cost, often at the perceived expense of understanding and developing the right technology, has created issues for the completion of the project,” the report said.

The June report focused on part of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., that is intended to consolidate operations involving bomb-grade uranium for the nation’s nuclear arsenal. When completed, the Uranium Processing Facility will be used for the assembly, disassembly and storage of bomb components and of bomb-grade uranium, according to its website.

The report was posted on a government web site just days after a major security breach at Y-12 last month, when three protesters, including an 82-year-old nun, broke into a high-security area of Y-12. The anti-nuclear activists bypassed security guards and several fences to enter the complex, the Knoxville News-Sentinel reported. The new uranium facility is being built in the same high-security area.

Where's the Oversight at Nuclear Labs? Hands-Off Approach is Recipe for Disaster

Energy Secretary Steven Chu has preached a hands-off approach to contractors at nuclear facilities. It's not working.

 

By PETER STOCKTON and LYDIA DENNETT

As the saying goes, “The fish rots from the head down.” This is certainly the case at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., where an 82-year-old nun and two accomplices recently broke in, raising serious questions about the Department of Energy’s (DOE) security strategy.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement provided to the Knoxville News Sentinel on Monday: “The department has no tolerance for security breaches at any of our sites, and I am committed to ensure that those responsible will be held accountable.” But there is no denying that Y-12 was a giant failure of federal oversight. Now the people being axed are lower-level employees rather than those who have allowed the security standards to fall far below acceptable levels, such as Secretary Chu, himself.

Secretary Chu should be the first on the chopping block. He has been preaching for years that government overseers should get off the back of the contractors and everything will be fine. Then, of course, he is shocked when Y-12 is successfully attacked by an 82-year-old nun.

After only one year in the position, Secretary Chu’s deputy secretary, Daniel B Poneman, sent a memorandum (PDF) to the department with a safety and security reform plan aimed at curtailing pesky government oversight. “Contractors are provided the flexibility to tailor and implement safety programs in light of their situation without excessive Federal oversight or overly prescriptive Departmental requirements,” the memo said.

It should be clear by now that the current culture at DOE and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is to take their orders from contractors and provide little or no oversight. As the previous head of contractor-operated laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Secretary Chu made clear his disdain for federal oversight, DOE insiders told the Project ON Government Oversight (POGO). In fact, he’s been successful in creating a culture of federal hands off the contractors in the weapons complex.

Healthcare Bill for Camp Lejeune Water Contamination Victims Signed Into Law

By ANNA MEIER

For thousands of former Marines and their families, Monday marked a milestone in an ongoing fight for truth and justice. In an Oval Office ceremony, President Obama signed into law the Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act (H.R. 1627), which will provide healthcare for those exposed to contaminated water while living at Marine Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

“I’m still in shock,” Mike Partain, a breast cancer survivor born at Camp Lejeune, told The Kansas City Star on Monday. “We’ve been fighting for justice for so long—fighting the juggernaut of the Marine Corps. They should have quashed us a long time ago.”

Retired Marine Corps Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger has led the charge. The title of the new law that would provide healthcare for Camp Lejeune veterans and their families is named for his daughter, Janey, who passed away from leukemia in 1985 at the age of 9, while they were living on the base. Since Ensminger first learned about the toxic water 1997, he has tirelessly sought answers to why so many have fallen ill and died.

Y-12 Nuclear Facility Goes on Lockdown After Security Breach

 

In this National Nuclear Safety Administration photo from 2010, officials at the Y-12 nuclear facility show off "state-of-the-art security technology."

 

By JOE NEWMAN

As officials at the Y-12 nuclear weapons facility sort through their recent security breakdown, they've decided it might be best to move all of their nuclear materials, including highly-enriched uranium, into their on-site vaults.

The Knoxville News Sentinel's Frank Munger reported that the "security stand-down" is expected to last into next week. The federal contractor that runs the Oakridge, Tenn., facility made the decision with the support of the National Nuclear Security Administration. Munger writes:

According to the federal NNSA, "This is being done to address additional security training and execution deficiencies identified by the contractor after Saturday's incident. However, all nuclear materials at Y-12 are in safe, secure storage and we remain entirely confident in the security of Y-12's facilities."

The Saturday "incident" involved three peace activists, including an 82-year-old nun, who cut through three fences surrounding the facility, posted a banner on one of the buildings and poured human blood on the premises, according to the News Sentinel's orginal story about the break in.The activists were arrested under federal trespassing charges and are expected to appear in court Thursday.

The Project On Government Oversight's Peter Stockton, an expert in nuclear security, told Munger that the security breach could be a sign of a much bigger problem.

"The DOE's unprecedented response to last weekend's break-in, alarming as that incident initially appeared, suggests that it has revealed even more drastic flaws in the security at the Y-12 facility," Stockton said via email. "At this point we can only guess what those flaws might be."

Joe Newman is the director of communciations for the Project On Government Oversight. Image is from Flickr user NNSANews.

Follow @JFNewman

Mission Impossible? Not for 82-year-old Anti-Nuclear Weapons Activist

Michael R. Walli, 63, Megan Rice, 82, Greg Boertje-Obed, 57, succeeded in a disarmament action at the Oak Ridge Y-12 Nuclear facility before dawn.

 

[Update: The federal contractor who runs the Y-12 facility has put the complex under a "security stand-down," the Knoxville News Sentinel reports. Click here to read more.]

By MIA STEINLE

When a nuclear weapons facility can’t stop infiltration by an octogenarian nun, it’s time to reassess its security standards.

The 82-year-old nun, accompanied by two other anti-nuclear activists, broke into Tennessee’s Y-12 National Security Complex early Saturday morning, the Knoxville News Sentinel first reported.

“The Department of Energy has repeatedly claimed that security at the site, which houses 300 to 400 metric tons of bomb-grade uranium, is robust enough to defend against more than a dozen heavily-armed terrorists with inside knowledge of security procedures” Peter Stockton, a nuclear security expert at the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), ironically observed.

“It looks like the Boy Scouts could have done a better job” securing the site, he added.

After cutting through three fences surrounding the facility, the activists “posted a banner on one of the buildings and poured human blood on the premises,” the News Sentinel reported. The activists were arrested under federal trespassing charges and will remain in jail until a hearing this Thursday, according to the newspaper.

Contractors at Nuke Facilities Mishandled Explosives, Report Says

By MIA STEINLE

Contractors at several government nuclear facilities have routinely mishandled explosives, unnecessarily endangering the lives of employees and the public, according to an inspector general's report released today.

The Department of Energy inspector general reported that the contractors that operate four sites that handle nuclear materials did not fully comply with the department’s explosives safety manual -– a nearly 500-page guide to handling and storing explosives. The sites in question are Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories, which perform nuclear weapons missions; Idaho National Laboratory, home to nuclear energy programs, among other science missions; and the Savannah River Site, which performs nuclear waste repurposing and cleanup.

The report said that management at the sites “took immediate action” in response to the inspector general recommendations, resolving many of the issues the report details.  Among these issues were incorrect signage that misrepresented explosive hazards and the storage of combustible material in explosives bunkers.

Nuclear Weapons Lab Underestimates Risk of Radiation Leak, Study Finds

By MIA STEINLE

One of the nation’s main nuclear weapons labs has sharply underestimated the amount of radiation that could leak from the facility as a result of an earthquake, according to a federal advisory panel.

The radiation could be more than four times as intense as the Los Alamos National Laboratory predicted in a safety analysis last year, according to a recent report by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.

The New Mexico laboratory’s analysis included “multiple, substantial deficiencies,” wrote Peter S. Winokur, chairman of the advisory board. The higher estimate calls for “additional safety controls” and “prompt action,” he added.

The report’s findings raise questions about the safety and reliability of Los Alamos, which says its work includes ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.

Navy Avoids Giving Members of Congress Camp Lejeune Water Contamination Docs

By DANA LIEBELSON

The Navy continues to play games when it comes to releasing critical information about the water contamination at Camp Lejeune—this time, by dodging the document request made by nine Members of Congress, the Project On Government Oversight learned today. But the fight for more information on Camp Lejeune is far from over.

The bipartisan group of lawmakers sent a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in March, asking him to deliver them a comprehensive set of records related to Camp Lejeune within two weeks, unredacted. You wouldn’t think that the Navy would be able to weasel out of that request, but they did anyway -- by invoking the Privacy Act.

“Because this repository contains [personally identifiable information], we may not release un-redacted records without an official request from a committee or subcommittee of jurisdiction in writing” Under Secretary of the Navy Robert O. Work wrote in a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.