The IG's report found that from August through December 1990, the Air Force implemented a plan to provide financial assistance to the McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Company, to ensure the contractor's continued performance on the C-17 program. This assistance came at a time when McDonnell Douglas appeared to be in financial straits and to have run out of money to continue the C-17 program.
Representative John Conyers, D-Michigan, chair of the Government Operations Committee, and Representative John Dingell, D-Michigan, chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who have held hearings on the C-17 program, called for SEC and Justice Department investigations.
The IG's report found that "expedited government payments were made that exceeded appropriate amounts by $349 million. Financing provided also exceeded the fair value of undelivered work by an additional $92 million."
"Improper contracting actions reduced contractor financial risk on the C-17 Program by $1.6 billion and created a false appearance of success to facilitate both the contractor obtaining additional financing through commercial sources and issuance of debt securities, and the Air Force securing additional funding from Congress," the IG's report found.
The Air Force is conducting its own investigation of the report's findings and is preparing for a March 17 hearing that Conyers' Government Operations Committee will hold on the C-17 program. McDonnell Douglas is still reviewing the report and will soon submit comments to the Pentagon.
Nissan had issued three previous voluntary recalls to address fire problems, none of which corrected the problem at the root of the fires - excessive engine compartment temperatures. Nissan has admitted to the government that extreme engine compartment heat is a problem in the vans.
The company's three prior recalls only replaced engine compartment components that Nissan claimed had "inadequate heat resistance." According to Sean Kane, a senior associate with Ralph Hoar & Associates, Nissan replaced those components that are most susceptible to high heat, but not other components that are also failing. At least four (G)XE vans have caught fire since the last recall.
Kane also provided information indicating that Nissan officials are secretly purchasing burned vans from salvage yards and preparing them for shipment to Japan. Nissan claims that it had salvaged the vehicles for inspection, to check into what caused the fires. "But if Nissan was looking to just check," says Kane, "[it] wouldn't purchase the vans from a wrecking yard; [it] would purchase them first-hand from the owners who suffered a fire problem with the vehicles."
"We strongly resent any implication that our actions were motivated by anything other than the safety of our customers," says a Nissan prepared statement.
The petition cites Nissan and NHTSA documents, former Nissan officials and employees and minivan fire cases to establish that Nissan had prior knowledge of excessive engine compartment temperatures that could cause fires.
The radioactive material, cesium-137, was first discovered at the end of the work day on December 29, 1992. A pipe at the worksite was found dripping radioactive waste. The pipe had been originally cut open during construction on December 23.
"These people were exposed over a six-day period before it was detected," says Jackie Kittrell, a Knoxville attorney who represents whistleblowers at the Oak Ridge Laboratory. According to Kittrell, "Cesium has a half-life of about 30 years. It probably won't get out of the body of an adult" within his or her lifetime. "The health effects probably won't be known for another five or 10 years."
Technicians from the Oak Ridge lab discovered that the leak had contaminated 19 of the 28 workers on the site. Cesium was found in the homes of three of the workers and in the clothing and cars of others.
According to Kittrell, the contaminated employees are carpenters who were working in a trench when they were exposed to the pipe dripping cesium. Prior to working on the project, the employees were told the area was clean of radioactivity. Most of the workers were employed at Tomahawk Construction, a subcontractor employed on the site by M.K. Ferguson, the construction contractor working for DOE. The leak came from the Analytical Chemistry Division, a laboratory building run by Martin Marietta.
"If they had a health physicist person or any kind of monitor they would have been able to detect that that was a hot pipe, but they didn't because subcontractors operate under different safety rules than contractors," Kittrell says. "A lot of workers feel that this is a real problem because DOE can get the job done much cheaper and with less stringent safety precautions by hiring subcontractors."
- Ben Lilliston