Panel Expands Inquiry of Fraud at Los Alamos Lab

A House committee is expanding its inquiry into fraud and credit card abuse at Los Alamos National Laboratory, saying it is apparent that the abuse is more widespread than first thought.

The committee issued a sweeping demand for new documents, including reports to lab director John C. Browne on the alleged irregularities, and a breakdown of whether computers missing from the nuclear lab contained classified information.

Ken Johnson, spokesman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said three investigators are being sent to the lab and will begin their work Monday.

“It is apparent that the amount of fraud and abuse at [the lab] is much more extensive and includes many more employees than we had originally at first believed,” said the letter, signed by committee Chairman Rep. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-La.) and other senior members.

The letter to Richard C. Atkinson, president of the University of California, which runs the lab, expressed frustration at “the apparent failure of the University of California and [the lab] to sufficiently address these issues over the past several years.”

In the letter, which was sent Tuesday and released publicly Friday, the panel also requested documents on the firing of two investigators, who were dismissed after blowing the whistle on lab management practices and materials from its auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Lab spokeswoman Linn Tytler said late Friday: “We will fully cooperate with the committee and supply all of the requested documents.”

Johnson said the expanded request for documents was a result of questions raised by documents received from an earlier request by the committee, press reports, and information from Los Alamos employees “suggesting that the problems are more prevalent than first reported.”

Danielle Brian, executive director of the Washington-based watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, which has worked with Los Alamos whistleblowers, said the letter was an encouraging sign.

“We think its a great start. It’s obviously a serious investigation,” she said.

The Los Alamos lab grew out of the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb during World War II and has been a key part of the country’s nuclear energy and weapons programs.

The FBI, the Energy Department’s inspector general, and the Senate Finance Committee are also investigating the allegations of fraud, theft and cover-up at the nuclear weapons lab. Three lab employees are on administrative leave after initial phases of the investigation.

The two investigators who were fired, Glenn Walp and Steven Doran, had sounded alarms about misuse of the credit cards and missing equipment, including some from sensitive areas of the lab.

Walp submitted a report to Los Alamos authorities in March that listed 263 computers as missing since 1999, many of them presumed stolen. In all, about $2.7 million worth of equipment is unaccounted for, according to Walp’s reports.

On Oct. 31, FBI agents armed with search warrants scoured the homes of Los Alamos employees Peter Bussolini and Scott Alexander and found thousands of dollars worth of goods that may have been acquired by abuse of lab purchase orders.

A third employee may have used her government credit card to buy a Ford Mustang with custom equipment.