*(MSPB Docket Nos. SL-1221-94-0179-W-1; AT-1221-95-1197-W-1; and AT-1221-96-0948-W-1. DOE has now paid over $50,000 for Mr. Carson's attorney fees)
Dear Secretary O'Leary,
On January 2, 1990, I took an oath of allegiance to the US Government on becoming an employee of the US Department of Energy (DOE). All my actions as a DOE employee are and have been rooted in my desire to faithfully serve with integrity, honoring my oath and with the "Code of Ethics of Government Service" by 1) obeying the law, 2) obeying Agency regulation, 3) telling the truth, and 4) doing my job efficiently.
In December 1991, I voiced concerns about wasteful and abusive practices in the use of support service contractors in my program, the Office of Environment, Safety, and Health (EH) Residents. These individuals were being used for the purposes described in DOE Order 3304.1, "Employment of Experts and Consultants," but in ways that clearly violated the DOE Order.
When I voiced my concerns, I was unaware that DOE's annual budget for support service contractors had risen from 50 million dollars in 1985 to almost 800 million dollars in 1991. Unwittingly, I had voiced concerns about something that had become a huge "slush fund" that DOE managers could direct to their close personal friends and previous colleagues. You have testified to Congress on several occasions about the "lack of discipline" you found as Secretary in the DOE's use of support service contractors.
In reprisal for my voicing concerns, DOE has engaged in an "ethics cleansing" campaign against me for over four and a half years. In confronting it, I have incurred costs of over $30,000, have spent over 3000 hours of personal time, and have possibly ruined my 20 year career in nuclear power. However, Secretary O'Leary, the cost of DOE's whistleblower reprisal campaign against me has quite plausibly been much higher to other DOE and DOE contractor employees who have or will pay with their lives in resulting additional workplace fatalities.
As you know, DOE is self-regulating in nuclear safety and worker safety. Neither the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) nor the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has jurisdiction in DOE facilities. I'm one o f DOE's few field-based" independent" internal nuclear and worker safety assessors, assigned to the DOE's Office of Environment, Safety, and Health (EH). I'm the last line of defense in DOE for worker, facility, and public safety, no one in DOE looks over my shoulder.
As an essential part of the whistleblower reprisal campaign against me, management officials in the Office of Assistant Secretary of Environment, Safety, and Health suppressed knowledge from DOE line management of numerous valid and significant safety deficiencies that I had independently identified and documented.
This was done in order to justify the fraudulent "unacceptable" performance rating I received from those officials. How can DOE line management be responsible for safety when knowledge of independently identified safety deficiencies is withheld from it? I consider the actions of the EH officials involved to be treacherous. They betrayed their oaths of allegiance and advanced their whistleblower reprisal campaign against me by allowing DOE facilities, DOE workers, and the public near DOE sites to remain at increased risk.
I was present in November 1993 when you pledged "zero tolerance for whistleblower reprisal in DOE." It's nice rhetoric, Secretary O'Leary, but my reality is that DOE still has "zero tolerance for whistleblowers." The most dismal thing about this situation is the counsel of despair I would offer, based on my experience and that of many other DOE whistleblowers, to any colleague in DOE who was considering voicing a reasonably evidenced concern - "look the other way, if you can live with yourself." It is that dismal in DOE, Secretary O'Leary, your rhetoric and good intentions notwithstanding. It has to change.
I have three reports to make: 1) to my fellow citizens of this great country, 2) to my professional community of professional engineers, and 3) to my faith community.
Citizens - there is a cancer present in our increasingly technological society. Individuals who have direct responsibilities for our health and safety are too often justifiably afraid of whistleblower reprisal to voice concerns about safety deficiencies in their workplaces - be it food processing plants, water treatment plants, airline maintenance, health care, highway inspection, nuclear power plants, etc. There is frequently a legitimate tension between safety and efficiency in our society's workplaces, but it's illegitimate to attempt to resolve this tension by silencing those who raise legitimate safety concerns. The plight of Americans who have lost their livelihoods by placing allegiance to the common good above personal consideration should shame all of us. It is that bad, America.
Professional Engineers (P.E.) - As a condition of our State
licenses, we are bound by the "Code of Ethics for Engineers"
which states as its first fundamental canon, "Engineers shall hold
paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public in the
performance of their professional duties." Adherence to the
Code of Ethics of Engineers is also a requirement for
membership in the major Engineering Technical Societies.
We must do a better job of protecting our Code of Ethics by collectively acting to protect our colleagues who risk their livelihoods by adhering to our Code of Ethics. What's a Code of Ethics worth if the people who have pledged allegiance to it will not actively support those who risk much to adhere to it?
Christians - Who have careers in a profession - we, as other professionals, spend the best hours of the best days of our lives either preparing for or pursuing our careers in our chosen profession. Too often, too much we have abnegated our call to be "salt, light, and leaven" in our professions.
Conclusion: DOE's current estimate of the cost to remediate its sites is about 180 billion dollars. What are the implications of my story on this staggering cost? I think there are several:
-
Whistleblower reprisal in DOE is alive and well and distorts everything DOE
does. Workers are afraid to voice safety concerns for fear of reprisal (I
couldn't have found so many obvious safety deficiencies in DOE otherwise;
many fellow workers have confirmed this). "A stitch in time saves nine," so to
speak, and now DOE has to deal with situations that are much worse,
technically, than would have existed had there not been such a fear of
reprisal for voicing recognized safety concerns.
- DOE has made many people very rich, frequently as a direct result of flagrant violations of safety rules - greed by managers was the root cause of fear of reprisal in the workers. Now the same managers and companies, In many cases, expect another "windfall" for correcting the situations they created - almost literally like "paying the killer to find the body."
Secretary O'Leary, you made a public commitment to change DOE's repressive culture and protect DOE's ethical employees in November 1993. My situation offers you and DOE an opportunity of cleanse itself of a repressive and coercive culture that is an insult to every taxpayer and every ethical DOE employee. Here are DOE's options in my case:
-
Publicly admit fault in my case, agree that a number of my safety finding
were suppressed within EH, and agree to make fair restitution for the costs I
have or can reasonably expect to incur for my loyal and efficient service in
DOE, or
- Be publicly found at fault, compounded by DOE's continuing campaign of reprisal against me.
It's past time for you and this Agency to step up to the plate about this matter, Secretary O'Leary.
Sincerely,
Joseph Carson, P.E.
EH Resident, Oak Ridge
Internet: jpcarson@mindspring.com;
fax (423) 966-1675
World Wide Web: http://www.carsonversusdoe.com