Firm's hiring is legitimate, but not fully documented

摘要

The department of Energy's failure to document its decisions behind awarding a contract to the law firm of Morgan, Lewis and Bockius LLP to assist in preparing a license application for the Yucca Mountain repository is "disturbing," the agency's Office of the Inspector General (IG) said in an April report. Overall, however, no evidence of a possible conflict of interest in the hiring of the law firm was brought to light by the report. The contract, awarded in September 2007, has a five-year performance period and a five-year option period. Its total value is over $100 million. The 23-page report, Review of Alleged Conflicts of Interest Involving a Legal Services Contractor for the Yucca Mountain Project License Application, is available online at . The report was compiled at the request of Nevada's congressional delegation, which in December 2007 expressed concern about a conflict of interest related to the contract. The delegation's concern focused on three primary areas. First, Morgan Lewis represented commercial utilities that had filed lawsuits against the federal government over the acceptance and disposal of spent fuel. Second, the law firm had performed lobbying activities on behalf of the industry' s trade group, the Nuclear Energy Institute. Third, the DOE had hired Morgan Lewis in 2001 to evaluate the "safety-conscious work environment" at Yucca Mountain. The delegation noted its concern that Morgan Lewis could be placed in a position of reviewing its own prior work, and that it may have "looked past critical flaws" in the DOE's quality assurance program.