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| | | published Monday, January 03, 2011 | 773 Views :: 0 Comments | |  |
| From The Independent Thursday, December 30, 2010
Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) filed litigation in the federal court for the Northern District of California against the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) and its National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for what it alleges are numerous failures to comply with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). FOIA requires federal agencies to respond to public requests for information within 20 days.
According to the lawsuit, in seven separate instances the DOE and NNSA failed to provide responsive, unclassified documents regarding operations at the agenciesí Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) as required by law. The information that is the subject of the litigation is overdue by time periods ranging from six months to more than three years.
The group's lawsuit asks the judge to issue a court order appointing a Special Counsel to investigate the alleged pattern of abuse when DOE and NNSA failed to comply with the law. The Special Counsel would then determine whether disciplinary action is warranted and against whom.
"The DOE and NNSA are egregiously out of compliance with the law," noted Tri-Valley CAREs' Staff Attorney, Scott Yundt. "This frustrates the public's basic right to know. The information is of urgent importance to the community, and involves Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory plutonium transport, bio-warfare agent experiments, hazardous materials usage, worker exposures, financial irregularities involving Lab management, start up plans for the 'Tritium Facility Modernization Project,' and a proposal for future research and development."
Attorney Iti Talwar, a member of Tri-Valley CAREs' Board of Directors who helped prepare the litigation filed today, stated "By dragging its feet for up to three years and more, and not providing the requested information, the government has not only violated the law but has potentially degraded the value of the information sought, which is often time-sensitive. In some cases, public comment timeframes have elapsed and projects have gone forward while the group's information requests went unanswered."
Tri-Valley CAREs brought similar FOIA litigation in 1998, 2000, 2006 and 2008. "We should not have to file lawsuits in order to obtain public information," said Talwar. "Congress enacted the FOIA specifically so that organizations like Tri-Valley CAREs would have free access to unclassified, non-exempt records that disclose the operation of the government." Requested documents were provided in response to settlement in each of the previous FOIA lawsuits.
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