Skip to main content

Another set of unfulfilled NNSA FOIA requests go to District Court

Another set of unfulfilled NNSA FOIA requests go to District Court

On May 9, 2019, my Attorney for FOIA matters filed "Rivera v. National Nuclear Security Administration et al" in CA Northern District Court. The complaint alleges failure to provide timely responses to 4 NNSA FOIA requests. In summary, the FOIAs requested the following records:

1. NNSA LFO Contracting Officer review of legal fee reimbursement allowability based on DOE Acquisition Letter AL 2016-06 that 
requires review of underlying contractor misconduct in whistleblower cases 

2. Career indefinite employee and supplemental labor employee lay offs at LLNL from June 1, 1984 to November 1, 2013

3. Records relating to the LLNL HEAF 10kg port glass rupture during an August 30, 2013 experiment 

4. Legal fee reimbursements to LLNS for the period of May 18, 2018 to January 18, 2019 related to my whistleblower case

https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/28150710/Rivera_v_National_Nuclear_Security_Administration_et_al

In my previous CA Northern District Court FOIA related proceeding regarding whistleblower related expenses, the NNSA did not provide the requested internal aggregate man-hour charges (available through project/task records) of LLNS employees related to my whistleblower case. These expenses may include internal man-hours charges for strategy meetings, testimony, depositions, coaching, statement construction, statement edits, investigation guidance etc., all charged to LLNS contracted funds. The use of contracted funds for this purpose did not require the oversight or approval of the NNSA. As such, these aggregate internal time charges were directly extracted from contracted funds without the need of a reimbursement allowability process. 

Anthony Rivera

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hmm. There seems to be some kind of FOIA release:

https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2018cv01016/322761/40/0.pdf
Anonymous said…
According to the DOE Acquisition Letter AL 2016-06 requirements, the NNSA LFO Contracting Officer could have determined some or all of the legal fee reimbursements to LLNS were unallowable due to underlying contractor misconduct. However, if contractor misconduct was indeed confirmed, there doesn't appear to be a financial risk to LLNS to pay back those aggregate internal employee man-hours leveraged to help defend themselves against the whistleblower. Looks like DOE Acquisition Letter AL 2016-06 does not come close to capturing all tax payer funded expenditures that serve to incentivize contractor whistleblower retaliation.
Anonymous said…
This non-disclosed "under the radar" man-hour expenditure will further infuriate HSGAC Senators that are trying to prevent contractor incentives for whistleblower retaliation.
Anonymous said…
Yawn......
Anonymous said…
Why would anyone care about ruptured port glass at HEAF? Does anyone even use HEAF anymore?
Anonymous said…
"Yawn......"

Absolutely right! So what if LLNS used 300-500k of contracted funds to defend themselves against a whistleblower without the need of NNSA approval. Contractors are the winners babe! The NNSA doesn't need to know the details because we are in charge!
Anonymous said…
Ruptured port glass? Switch to sherry.
Anonymous said…
"Ruptured port glass? Switch to sherry."

Good one

Popular posts from this blog

Plutonium Shots on NIF.

Tri-Valley Cares needs to be on this if they aren't already. We need to make sure that NNSA and LLNL does not make good on promises to pursue such stupid ideas as doing Plutonium experiments on NIF. The stupidity arises from the fact that a huge population is placed at risk in the short and long term. Why do this kind of experiment in a heavily populated area? Only a moron would push that kind of imbecile area. Do it somewhere else in the god forsaken hills of Los Alamos. Why should the communities in the Bay Area be subjected to such increased risk just because the lab's NIF has failed twice and is trying the Hail Mary pass of doing an SNM experiment just to justify their existence? Those Laser EoS techniques and the people analyzing the raw data are all just BAD anyways. You know what comes next after they do the experiment. They'll figure out that they need larger samples. More risk for the local population. Stop this imbecilic pursuit. They wan...

Trump is to gut the labs.

The budget has a 20% decrease to DOE office of science, 20% cut to NIH. NASA also gets a cut. This will  have a huge negative effect on the lab. Crazy, juts crazy. He also wants to cut NEA and PBS, this may not seem like  a big deal but they get very little money and do great things.

tcp1 looking good

I just received my annual TCP-1 letter from LLNS and a summary of the LLNS Pension Plan. Looked in pretty good shape in 2013. About 35% overfunded (funding target attainment percentage = 134.92%). This was a decrease from 2012 where it was 51% overfunded (funding target attainment percentage = 151.59%). They did note that the 2012 change in the law on how liabilities are calculated using interest rates improved the plan's position. Without the change the funding target attainment percentages would have been 118% (2012) and 105% (2013). 2013 assets = $2,057,866,902 2013 liabilities = $1,525,162,784 vs 2012 assets = $1,844,924,947 2012 liabilities = $1,217,043,150 It was also noted that a slightly different calculation method ("fair market value") designed to show a clearer picture of the plan' status as December 31, 2013 had; Assets = $2,403,098,433 Liabilities = $2,068,984,256 Funding ratio = 116.15% Its a closed plan with 3,781 participants. Of that number, 3,151 wer...