DOE ON TRIAL: FORMER ENERGY SECRETARY O'LEARY TESTIFIES

[GACMail98@aol.com]

[Note:  The date of this press release is an obvious typo.  It probably should
be 5/20/98. ]

Government Accountability Project

and

Project On LIBERTY AND THE WORKPLACE

PRESS RELEASE

Immediate Release
6/20/98 
                                                                              
For More Information Bob Seldon, (202) 955-6968; or Tom Carpenter (206)
292-2850, 

DOE ON TRIAL: FORMER ENERGY SECRETARY O'LEARY TESTIFIES 
Blows the Whistle on Reprisals Against Whistleblowers

Washington, DC. Former Secretary of the Department of Energy will testify in a
precedent setting trial on May 21, 1998 in US District Court, Washington, DC
under Judge Stanley Sporkin. In scathing testimony recorded in advance,
O'Leary summarizes DOE's treatment of dissenting employees. 

The trial stems from DOE's attempts at silencing a key source for public
information about health and safety violations at Oak Ridge Nuclear Facility.
The agency has scheduled safety specialist Joe Carson for an involuntary
transfer from Oak Ridge, TN to a desk job in Germantown, Md. 

This trial is the latest legal obstacle facing the DOE. Two weeks ago, Judge
Thomas Hogan issued a temporary restraining order on the agency in the case of
Larry Cornett, an environmental scientist who refused to condone falsified
environmental impact statements. Proceedings under Judge Sporkin are also
underway to hold current Secretary Pena in contempt of court for failing to
adhere to a judicial order to implement a viable environmental impact
assessment program. 

"The Department has been steadily losing ground in legal battles recently,"
says Carson's attorney Robert Seldon of Project on Liberty and the Workplace.
Wednesday's trial could prevent the DOE from gagging one of the country's most
prominent, knowledgeable critics of DOE's lax attitude toward nuclear safety. 

"O'Leary's testimony is as rare as they come. These hearings should expose the
true objective for Carson's relocation and provide a forum for public
judgement of DOE's approach to safety and health concerns at Oak Ridge."
states Seldon. The DOE is desperately trying to portray this as a routine
personnel dispute, according to co-plaintiff Tom Carpenter of the Government
Accountability Project. "These retaliatory actions have been DOE's modus
operandi since the Cold War." he says.

The Carson case is unique in other aspects. Most whistleblower lawsuits
involving government agencies are heard in administrative courts where Carson
has already prevailed three times. This case will be tried in a civil court
and will focus on First Amendment issues and public access to
information provided by Carson and DOE employees like him. Carson's case,
therefore, has also become a referendum on DOE's commitment to the Openness
Initiative and "zero tolerance for retaliation" implemented under former
Secretary O'Leary. . 

Among the comments made by Secretary O'Leary: 

              "...[W]hat I was after was what I then knew and know even more
deeply after having spent four years in the Department of Energy, as the
longest Secretary of Energy in this history of the government, has been a
practice of repeated and long-term reprisal that visits the employee in the
place that he or she is most vulnerable and that is, first of all, in the
questioning of the employee's competence to do his or her work, and once that
happens to any employee, that individual is almost dead in terms of promotion
or having people even attend what is being said." 

              "I had representatives of the unions who were the spokespeople
for the security or guard force tell me that they knew that this withdrawal of
security was used as a reprisal to so-called whistleblowers. So my sense by
year two was that this was a systematic way to force reprisal on individuals
who made themselves heard and didn't follow the so-called party line." 

              "I can recall stories, and I'm trying to think of locations --
South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington State, Ohio, of employees being stopped
in the parking lot, threatened by some of their colleagues, and more often
than not the theme of what they told me would be "You are 'messing with' our
livelihood here. Don't you know that this is about our work?" Let's see, I'm
recalling a conversation in  Hanford. I can't remember the year wherein an
employee believes that she or he was forced off the road and others are told
stories about  driving home late at night from work and having people point
shotguns at them and the like." 

Click here to read the transcript of O'Leary's deposition
See the USA Today Articles on O'Leary's testimony 
Click here to read more about d more about Joe Carson 

[This and more information on this case is available at the GAP website
http://www.accessone.com/gap/www/O'Learypr.htm  ]