Los Alamos Fraud Inquiry Expanded

A House committee is expanding its inquiry into fraud and credit card abuse at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, saying it is apparent 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 concerning the alleged irregularities, and a breakdown of whether computers missing from the nuclear lab contained classified information.

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

“It is apparent that the amount of fraud and abuse at LANL 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 LANL to sufficiently address these issues over the past several years.”

The letter was sent Tuesday and released publicly Friday.

In the letter, the committee also requested documents regarding the firing of two investigators who were dismissed after blowing the whistle on the lab’s management practices and materials from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the auditor for the lab.

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 whistle-blowers, said the letter was an encouraging sign.

“We think it’s 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.