ML20055G788
| ML20055G788 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | South Texas  |
| Issue date: | 11/09/1988 |
| From: | Earnest A NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION IV) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20055C208 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-89-540 NUDOCS 9007240177 | |
| Download: ML20055G788 (93) | |
Text
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o UNITED STATES
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NUCLEAR REGULATORYCOIOUSE0N _
B .........................................................
INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEM OF: )
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ALONZO BRUCE EARNEST O .
t November 9, 1988
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DATES ?[
LOCATION: Arling, ton, Texas . ,
1 through 90 h
, .r PAGES: -
...................................................A., ,
HERITAGE REPORTING CORPORATION. ~
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- G 1228 L Seen. N.W.,2 m
$8$72@[7900720 IM O'C' E GARDE 89-540 PDR G83) M
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! BEFORE THE 2 ' U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION:
-x 1
4 -
Interview oft 8
1
-5L ALONZO BRUCE EARNEST' 2
_------x f
7 Conference Room 807 611 Ryan Plaza 8 Arlington, Texas 9 Wednesday, November 9, 1988 10-11 The Interview of Alonzo Bruce Earnest 12 commenced at' 3:10 p.m. , pursuant to agreement.
'13 APPEARANCESt 14 For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:-
15 SHARON CONNELLY, Director DONNA ROWE,; Investigator 16 Office of Inspector and Auditor-Nuclear Regulatory Commission 17 Bethesda,-Maryland 18 For the Witness, ALONZO BRUCE EARNEST -
19 - WALTER-DRESSLAR, Attorney 3636 Executive Center Drive, Suite 201 20 Austin, Texas' 78731
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'cf Heritage Reporting Corporation
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I P R-O C E E D I N G S .
2 MS. ROWE Today is November the 9th,' 1988.
.s 3 The' time is now 3:10 p.m.
4 My name is Donna Rowe. I am a_ Criminal 8 Investigator with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ~, l 6 Of fice of Inspector and Auditor.
7 other_ parties present include'Mr. Alonzo i 8 : Bruce Earnest, Mr. Walter Dresslar, his NTEU representative,
? ' and Ms~. Sharon Connelly, Director of the Office of Inspector j
10 and Auditor. :.
il We are seated in Region IV, the regional L
q 12- office, and the purpose of this interview is to address l 13 allegations concerning.Mr. Earnest's conduct, primarily f- 14 . associated with the South Texas investigation, in addition
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p 15 to-his. procurement of baseball caps.
g 16 For the_. record, would you please state your- +
17 full -- I'm sorry.
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18 I have provided you with the OIA Rights-L l' Advisement. I will now read them into the record and ask 20 you to sign it at this time. \
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21 I am an Investigator with the Office of 22 Inspector and Auditor. One of my functions is to investigate 7
23 the possibility of criminal violations of federal statutes.
24 You have a right to remain silent if your 25 answers may tend to incriminate you. Anything you say s
- Herttoge Reporting Corporailon
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6 may be used as evidence, both in an administrative proceeding f
2 or any' future criminal proceeding involving.you.
3 If-you refuse to answer the questions posed to you on the grounds that the answers may tend to
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" ' 4 5 incriminate you, you cannot be charged solely for remaining 6 silent.
1; E 7 However, your, silence can be considered 8 in an administrative proceeding for its evidentiary. value
' that is warranted by the facts surrounding your case, f
to I see that you have already signed the warning, il That-means, does it not,.that you understand it.-
12- MR. EARNEST: I fully understand the warning,
, [. 13 MS ROWE Okay'and'I'll ask Mr. Dresslar 14 to witness it for us.
15 Whereupon,.
16 ALONZO : BRUCE EARNEST,.
17 the witness hereinbefore named, having been first duly _
18 sworn to= testify the truth, the whole truth and nothing 19- but the truth, was examined and testified on his oath' as 20 follows:
21 EXAMINATION 22- BY MS. ROWE:
,.g
-v 23 0 for the record, would you state your full 24 name?
. 25 A Alonzo B. Earnest. !
Heritage Reporting Corporation v.n mae,
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k And your: address?;
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N 3 g And your. occupation?- ..
, 41 A Physical security specialist..
g- g How long have you worked in-that capacity?
6 A Three years for this_ Agency.
1 g Is that the length of your tenure with the 8 Agency totally?
9 A Three years, two months, approximately.
Before we go -- we had done 10 MR. DRESSLAR:
il this before for the other two gentlemen, also.
12- Again, Mr.-Earnest was given some criminal warnings'in addition to administrative warnings.
We would 13 14 like to know what is the potential for criminal misconduct 15' or allegations.
You used .the word " procurement." of course, 16 -
, 17 that's a technical word.and in some uses,a term of art 18' in the Federal Government.
-.-- 39 What do you mean and what 'is the criminal-
- 20. allegation and upon what-statute is it based?
21 MS. ROWE There are --
,, 22 MS. CONNELLY: A.t this point we're looking
.s 23 into whether any of Mr. Earnest's business activities are 24 in violation of any criminal statute.
2s_ Tile WITNESS: What criminal statutes are Heritage Reporting Corporoflon tim ir. a
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-5 I we talking about?
L 2 MS. CONNELLY: At this point we are going-3 to conduct the investigation and try to get at the. fact,s
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4 and then we can narrow it down to determine specifically 5 what we're talking about.
6 THE WITNESS: In other words, find out the-7 facts and then go hunt up the law that you're going to 8 prosecute me under; is that correct? Is that a synopsis 9 of whatLyou're saying?
10 MS. CONNELLY: If the facts are a violation 11 of the law, that would be our --
12 MR. DRESSLAR: Do'you have any idea,of what 13 kind of law you're talking about?' I mean, again, we're 14' going to get into the area of a fishing expedition if you
'Is 9 have no idea-of a basis for criminal misconduct at this 16 point.
17' MS. CONNELLY: We'd like to proceed with 18 the questioning and then at that point --
19 MR. DRESSLAR: That's not a good way to N go. I mean, if you want answers, it's best to know what 21 the basis of these allegations are. You could at least-
..., 22 give us the idea what criminal misconduct you're looking at.
QL-23 MS. CONNELLY: Mr. Dresslar, for the record, 24 would you please clarify for us what capacity you are serving 25 in here today?
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-6 I MR.'DRESSLAR'~That's already been said 2 on the record.- She said I.was a union representative.- -!
I MS. CONNELLY: You're the union representative.
4 Then we would ask that you allow us to proceed with the a
5- questioning.
4- MR. DRES'SLAR : Well, I think he has a ri'ght 7 to be told what the basis of the investigation is. k
'8 You've said something in general, "Any criminal ,
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' statute on the books we'xe looking at."
,. I think you can l -<
L 10 be a little'more specifie *.han that, in all fairness:to-Il the employee.
12 THE WITNESS: And, also, I believe I,have l 4
-13 a right to have counsel availabl ; is that correct?
14 MS. CONNELLY: Are we--talking about legal 1 l
15 -counsel?
16 THE~ WITNESS: Yes.
17 MS. CONNELLY: You certainly do. Is Mr. .
is~ Dresslar serving as your legal counsel? ,
19 THE WITNESS: Mr. Dresslar, would you be 20 my legal counsel?
21 MR. DRESSLAR: I can't take any money. L
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.m - 22 THE WITNESS: If you'd like for me to wait,
.U 23 I'll.go get a lawyer.
24 MS, CONNELLY: If you would like to have
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25 a lawyer present, that's all right.
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7 1 MR. DRESSLAR: Even if I am not serving in a 2 criminal, legal represent ation capacity, an employee has a
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3 right to know the basis of an investigation.
4 MS. CONNELLY: We' re \ooking into Mr. Earr.sst 's 6 business activities, and we'd like to ask questions 6 regarding those business activities: and Mr. Earnest car, 7 choose to answer or not to answer those questions.
8 MR. DRESSLAR: Is that a conflict of interest, 9 violation of procurement statutes? What might it be? It's 10 a wide range.
11 MS. CONNELLY _ This is a fact-finding interview.
12 MS. ROWE 1 told you all that on the phone, 13 ' remember?
14 THE WITNESS: Sure. But why the warning if it's a 15 f act-finding interview? If you're asking for facts, I'll 16 give you facts. If you' re investigating me with an eye 17 towards prosecution for a crime, then I havet a right to be 18 informed of the crime for which I am being investigated.
19 1 believe, based on my 20-some-odd years of 20 c iminal justice work and investigations, that that does 21 come under the constitutional rights. Correct me if I'm N q wrong, sir.
23 MR. DRESSLAR: Wells he'has a right t o know, 24 period, what the basis of the allegations are.
25 MS. CONNELLY: We have an allegation that Mt .
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1 Earnest is attempting to contract with the government.
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L, 2 THE WITNESS: I can answar that one: No. !
i 3 . MS. CONNELLY4 All right. And we have a number of 4 questions that we'd like to ask about that.
5 MR. DRESSLAR: If we' re of f the record --
1 i 6 MS. CONNELLY: No, we're nott we're on the record. I 7 SY MS. CONNELLY 1 i
8 Q Mr. Earnest, you either will answer our questions 1
9 or you will not answer our questions. Let's not waste !
l 10 everyone's time here.
11 MR. DRESSLAR: I agree. Let's not waste 1 12 everybody's time. Why don't we just get it all on the 13 table, instead of the game.
l 14 MS. CONNELLY: Can we proceed with our questions, 15 please.
I 16 MR. DRESSL%R: That's up to Mr. Earnest.
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17 I think Le has a right to be told. If we're l
18 talking about procurement of baseball caps and attempting to !,
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l 19 contract with the U. S. Government without the attendant i 20 procurement regulations outside of those regulations, I 21 don't think he has a problem with answer those, do you?
22 THE WITNESS: No, I don' t.
23 MS. CONNELLY: All right. We'll proceed with the 1
l- 24 questioning then.
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I 9 1 BY MS. CONNELLY:
2 Q Mr. Earnest, do you operate a business known as 3 Earnest Hat & Trophy Shop?
4 A No. If that's the name that you've been given, 6 it's titenr: ect.
6 BY MS. kOWE:
7 Q What is the name? I s --
8 A Are you asking me if I have a businJss? No, I do I"Y "" N 4 M t e not. d . A **I f 10 __,_.,w. - - -
11 MR. DPESSLAR: Let them ask the questions.
12 THE WITNESS: Go ahead.
13 BY MS. CONNELLY:
14 Q Are you engaged in any business activities outside 15 your NRC employment?
16 MR. DRESSLAR: Could you define " business" for us?
17 THE WITNESS: Please.
to For example, I occasionally sell puppies.
19 BY MS. CONNELLY:
20 Q Do you?
21 A Sure. I have a litter of nine right now.
22 Q Do you make a profit from those puppies?
23 A Uh-huh, yes, occasionally. Yhey're very expensive 24 puppies.
25 Q What's your income per year from the sale of those
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10 1 puppies? illgs A 2 A 1 couldn't give you a factor on that, because any l 3
eh' time I have one it's an accident. We are not in the j
l 4 businesss It's just when we have them, we sell them and ger ]
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6 g Let's take it year by year. Have you sold any of j 7 those puppies in 19887 8 A No.
P Q In 19877 10 A Yes.
i 11 Q Did you make a profit from the sale of those i
12 puppies? +
13 A God, I don' t know. I'd have to look up all the 14 vet bills, if I could find them, and find out.
15 Probably , ,
16 Q In 19867 17 A I don't remember.
18 0 1985?
19 A I don't remember. Somewhere in that time frame I to probably had a litter.
21 Q When did you join the Agency? l 22 A September of 1985.
23 0 All right. So basically what we' re talking about 24 today then would be from September 1985 to date.
25 A Uh-huh.
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11 1 Q Are you engaged in any other act'vities in which 2 you make a profit?
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3 .A No.
4 o Do you have a financial interest in any 6 businesses?
6 A No. Does that include IRA's, things like that?
7 Q No. Businesses. An IRA would be considered an 8 i nves tment .
9 A No.
10 o okay. There was a requisition processed in Region 11 11 to purchase baseball hats from you.
12 A That's correct.
13 Q Was it your intention --
14 A Well, I say that's correct. Somebody has told me 15 that's correct.
16 0 You were not aware o he requisition? ,
17 A No. 4-ted in individual cal 1# e.
18 Q Who called you?
19 A 1 don' t know. I might have the name up there on a 20 note, but I don' t know. It was some lady who called me and 21 asked me if I would sell them some baseball caps, which I 22 have.
23 And I said, "Sure, if you want them, I'll be glad 24 to," because I knew -- Bill Stansberry had called me about 25 the same time and said, " Hey, the Region wants to buy a I
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o 12 l 1 hundred baseball caps."
2 I said, you know, that's a pain in the butts'I've 3 got to put these things tog +ther. I don't make a proiIt.
4 I've never sold one for a profit yet.
L 6 BY MS. ROWE:
i 6 Q Where are these hats manufactured?
7 A Taiwan or somewhere. Do you want one of them?
L e I'll bring you one down.
9 Q Don't you know where they're manufactured? How do 10 you get them?
11 BY MS. CONNELLY:
12 o who do you buy the hats from?
13 THE WITNESS: I buy the caps from diff erent --
14 MR. DRESSLAR: Ask one question at a time.
15 MS. CONNELLY: Yes.
16 BY MS. CONNELLY:
17 0 Who do you purchase the hats from?
18 A Suppliers.
l to 0 Which supplier do you purchase from? '
L to A Oh, different ones. I'd have to go home and get 21 my address book out and find out. There's one in Palestine; 22 there's one here in Fort Worth. It just depends on who has 23 got them and available at the time when somebody wants some.
24 Q How many times since you joined the NRC have you 25 Purchased these hats?
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13 1 A one time.
2 Q Have you sold any of these hats to people within 3 the NRC7 4 A Yes.
5 Q Who have you sold the h to to p e A Mr. Stewart Ebnett[from the Division of 7 Reactor -- or Special Projects in Washington called me up 8 and asked me if I would send them a hundre aps I did.
o Q And did you charge Mr. Ebnett$ for these hats?
to A Well, they asked me to send a request for payment 11 to a Mr. Richardson. I was paid for approximately half of 12 th em .
Cf8 13 Q Is it your understanding that Mr. Ebnettg was 14 buying these through the Agency?
A Yes, he said he was going to try to. I said, 15 16 "Well, be informed: I'm not filling out at.y bids or 17 anything like that because I'm not making a nickel on them.
18 I'm doing this as a favor."
is I gave a bunch of them out. I said, "Why don't to you try locally?"
21 He said, "Well, they charge us too much, and I 22 haven't found anybody that will make them for us."
23 I imagine they do. I imagine they charge double what I did because I was giving them to them a st. p
{pdd 24 25 Q You did sell the hats to Mr. Ebnettf at cost?
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g A I sold them to somebody up there. I got a 2 Personal check from somebody for half of them.
3 Q What was your cost on that particular batch of 4 hats?
5 A It runs approximately $4 a cap. .
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et-6 Q How much did- you sell them to Mr. Ebnettg for?
7 A Four-fifty.
a Q What was the 50 cents for?
g A For my 15-year-old sont he did all the work to putting them together.
11 Q What precisely did your son do to the caps?
12 A He takes the patch and the little cap machine and 13 the cap, and he puts the patch on the cap. Then he boxes 34 them up ready for shipment -- or he boxed them up to ship, 15 and I don't remember whether -- I think I went down and 16 mailed them.
17 0 Is your son in the business of selling baseball 18 hats?
19 A No. My son is in the business of being a 16-year-20 old student.
21 Q So who paid the money to purchase these baseball 22 hats for sale?
23 A I did, t if er 24 Q Who else besides Mr. Ebnett) in the Agency did you 25 sell hats to? /
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3 A Oh, let's see. There was a group out at Comanche 2 Peak that called me up and asked me if I would sell them 3 some caps. They came in and got a bunch, and I gave them 4 some .
5 Let's see....
6 Q Who was it at Comanche Peak? When you say "a 7 group," did an individual approach you?
e A Mr. Hale and Mr. Bob Warnick, all of that bunch g out there got caps.
3o Q How many? Did you sell these in bulk?
33 A 1 don't remember, ma'am. It couldn' t have been 12 over 10 or 15.
33 0 10 or 15 hats?
34 A Uh-huh. That was the first group that I had made 15 up.
16 o no you recr.11 what you paid for those hats?
gy A I really don't recall.
18 Q Is it common to tack the 50-cent charge on?
3, A I haven't but that one time because he did the go work. I didn't have the time or the inclination..
21 Q Anybody else in the NRC that you sold hats to?
22 A There might be a few around here, but most of them 23 I gave away. Almost a hundred of them.
24 Q Who did you give those hats to?
25 A Well, let's start with the chairman of the
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16 3 Commission. '
2 Q Was this a personal gift to the Chairman? j A
3 one of the resident inspectors out at one of~the i 4
plants said, " Hey, the Chairman is coming out and I'd like
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$ to have one of your caps." d i
6 I said sure. So that night I made one up with all .
t 7 sorts of scrambled eggs on the bill for him and gave it.to i l
a the resident, and the resident gave it to him, and the 1 j
Chairman sent me a letter thanking me for the cap.
l 10 The same thing was done for at least one, maybe ;
it two other commissioners: Carr and Roberts, I think.
12 Q In the case of the other two Commissioners, did 13 you present the hat to them personally? ,
14 A No.
t 33 o What were the circumstances under which they i 16 received hats?
17 A The same things the residents asked me. I 18 Q All right. Who else have you given hats to?
A 19 11[et'sstartwiththeRegional. Administrator m+
o go *kle 1:: 1, the Deputy Regional Administrator. In fact, 21 if you want to see his, it's in a picture up on the wall up 22 th e re . .
23 Q What are the circumstances under which you gave a 24 hat to the Regional Administrator --
g A
25 Walked in and tossed it te him, the Deputy,
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3 because he's on the sof tball team of which I was a member -- ,
g still am. I gave the whole softball team caps because it
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3 was a Region IV Atom Smasher sof tball team.
4 Q So the Deputy Regional Administrator has his hat ;
as a result of being on tha softball team? l 6 A Yes, but he would have got one regardless.
7 Q You would have given him one anyway? l e A Sure. I gave the to any d ,that e.Ke for onedPi
& H. ifeft e Q
%$n. vi Xb But you did not give on to the oeputy Regional g
to Administrator --
it A Yes, I did. I t ry y. opdy ;
l- 12 else gave them to them. d!c , , bo ht them from me.. I gave ,
l I j 33 them out.
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,,,, 34 I also passed out the uniforms when they came in. ,
15 BY MS. ROWE 16 Q The jackets? t 37 A Shirts is all we got.
i BY MS. CONNELLY: I 18 !
3, Q Uniforms for the baseball team?
l po A Uh-huh. ,
l- 21 Q Did you play any role in procuring those uniforms? I 22 A I sure did. ,
1 23 Q What did you do? <
24 A I caliod the company and got them to make up some .f 25 shirts, and everybody paid the coach for the shirts. I me W
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3 wasn' t the coach.
2 O Who Paid for those shirts?
3 A Everybody on the team did.
4 Q Everybody on the team paid for their own shirt?
5
- 1. Just like 1 did.
MR. DRESSLAR: Aren't y'all getting a little far 6
7 off now?
g MS. CONNELLY: All right. Now --
MR. DRESSLAR: Aren't y'all getting a little far 9
10 Off "0WI gg MS. CONNELLY Excuse me, if I could continue.
MR. DRESSLAR: Aren't y'all getting a little far 12 33 off now?
34 MS. CONNELLY: I'd like to continue with the 15- questioning.
MR. DRESSLAR: Why don't you ask him about the 16 baseball caps? Don't y'all feel a little bit foolish in 37 18 this whole thing?
3g BY MS. CONNELLY:
go Q All right. Mr. Earnest --
MR. DRESSLAR: Don't you?
21 22 BY MS. CONNELLY:
23 o Mr. Earnest --
MR. DRESSLAR: Huh? Ms. Connelly?
24 MS. CONNELLY: Let's go of f the record.
25 M
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3 (Discussion of f the record.]
2 MS. CONNELLY: On the record --
3 MR. DRESSLAR: We're going to do it right. --
4 Internal Af fairs isn't going to scare me. And if I want to 5 interrupt and suggest thtt you clarify a question, I'll do 6 80' 7
I would like you to make your statement on the g record about what you told him about his union g representative, Ms. Connelly.
10 THE WITNESS: Yes, I would appreciate that also, u Ms. Connelly.
12 MS. CONNELLY: Your union representative cannot 13 disrupt this interview.
34 MR. DRESSLAR: That's not what you said. Are you 3g taking back what you said before?
16 MS. CONNELLY: Why don't you repoat for the record t
37 what I said?
gg MR. DRESSLAR: Are you afraid to say it, Ms.
3, Connelly?
g MS. CONNELLY: No, I don' t know what you' re 21 referring to.
MR. DRESSLAR: I'm talking about what you said 22 23 about asking questions.
24 MS. CONNELLY: OIA is here to conduct an inveatigation. It's our responsibility to ask Mr. Earnest 25 O
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s 20 1 questions. If Mr. Earnest chooses not to answer those 2 questions, that is certainly his right.
3 But we are not here to be asked questions by"the 4 union representative or to have this interview disrupted by 5 the union representative.
6 MR. DRESSLAR: Are you saying that the union 7 representative cannot ask questions of management?
8 MS. CONNELLY: If the union representative wants 9 to ask questions of OIA, you're certainly welcome to do 10 that. And you're welcome to do that in an orderly fashion.
11 THE WITNESS: In what way, may I ask, Ms.
12 Connelly, were we disorderly? We simply asked -- and you
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13 refused to respond to the questions from my union
- 14 representative.
15 MS. CONNELLY . What was the question I refused to 16 respond-to?
17 MR. DRESSLAR: Could you retd that back, please, 18 Stenographer?
19 MS. CONNELLY: No, you don't have to do that.
20 MS. ROWE: Let's not spend the time doing that.
21 THE WITNESS: Ma'am, could I ask you a question 22 before we start?
23 MS. CONNELLY: Yes, Mr. Earnest.
24 THE WITNESS: Do I have a right to request that 25 what was said earlier be read back from the record? I 80 M
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- 21 1 believe your answer of f the record was no, I do nott is that I 2 correct? ,
3 MS. CONNELLY: Not at this point, no, sir. We 4 will provide a transcript to you, and you can make 5 corrections ic tne transcript when we receive the transcript 6 back. l 1
7 THE WITNESS: In other words, if I want to chang
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a my entire testimony when we see the transcript, that oaths &Id 9 means nothing? If I make a mistake on it, if I want to to change that through review of my mencry, that I shouldn't I
J correct it as I go?
12 MS. CONNELLY: When you get the transcript back, t
13 you'll have the opportunity to make any corrections to it 14 that you want.
- 15 THE WITNESS: In other words, if I deny something, l 16 I didn't mean it that way on the record, that you're not ,
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17 going to come back and say I've perjured myself?
18 MS. CONNELLY: You can explain what you meant when '
19 we get the transcript back.
20 THE WITNESS: But that does not mean that you 21 could not cite me for perjury? When I get a chance to-22 review that, I can change it any way I want to and you'll l
L 23 accept that as sworn testimony? If I have no right to read .
24 it back f rom the record -- and correct me if I'm wrong here, 25 Mr. Attorney -- if I have no right to hear What was said
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22 1 earlier --
2 MS. CONNELLY: May I clarify again? Is Mr.
... 1 3 Dresslar serving as your attorney or as your union 1 l
4 representative? )
-5 THE WITNESS: As my union representative. I wish j l
6 he was my attorney at this point.
t 7 If you would rather terminate this, but....
8 BY MS. CONNELLY:
9 o Would you like to stop the interview and obtain 10 counsel? !
11 A No, I would love to clear this item up of f the 12 record. But --
13 MR. DRESSLAR: Can you read the last question -
14 asked by Ms. Connelly of the witness, please?
15 MS. CONNELLY: Let's just go forward.
16 MR. DRESSLAR: Ms. Connelly, doesn' t he have the 17 right to answer your questions? Are you going to leave a ;
18 blank spot? -
t 19 MS. ROWE: We do have a time consideration here.
20 MS. CONNELLY: Let's move ahead.
21 MR. DRESSLAR: I know the STP thing is important.
22 BY MS. CONNELLY:
1 23 Q You have told os that you gave hats to the 24 Regional Administrator and to the Deputy Regional f ll 25 Administrator. What other management of ficials have you
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1 23 I i 1 given hats to?
2 A There is no telling, ma'am. I gave 70, 80 caps 3 out. I gave them to people in Sandia Labs when I went to 4 school there. t 5 I gave them to my frie in other regions. I 6 gave them to resident inspector 4. I've given them to anybody 7 that asked me about the caps and expressed their ad.miration e for them.
9 You know, I'm just a nice guy. ;
to BY MS. ROWE 11 Q Did you give them --
l 12 A -- and I had a bunch of caps and I gava them away.
13 I had no intention of getting into this to make a
- 14 profit.- But the only way I could get caps for rayself was to l 7 ~ 15 buy a hundred patches. So I put them on caps and gave them 16 away.
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17 I even sold a few when people asked ine if they ,
18 could buy them, but I didn't solicit any business. ;
19 BY MS. CONNELLY: '
!. 20 Q Have you contracted with any other government 21 agency besides the NRC to sell your hate?
22 A No. .
23 BY MS. ROWE:
l~ . . .
, .. , " .24
. Q Utility employees'/
.rf! .fS. I '.e, -?.* 7715- A No, absolutely r.ot.
94 9 %
. - - _ - - _ _ _ _ . - _ - - . - _ _ . - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ . _ _ . _ - - _ _ _ , . . _ .-n- .,- . - - - - - , -
. , j 24 l
- I' t 0 You did not tell a utility employee at South Texas 2 that you would bring them a hat the next time? !
i 3 A Sure, and I did. But I did not charge theme I j 4 gave it to them. ]
5 0 You gave it to him?
H 6 A He had a cap collection, and I came in and tossed 7 him a cap.
8 Q Who was that individual? l i 9 A I don't have the slightest idea. !
l l
10 Q De Leon? 1 11 A 1 don' t know.
BY MS. CONNELLY:
1 12 13 o Let's see if we can clarify now. The only
.. 14 instance in which you sold ha within the NRC was the sale 8" ikgk%
15 of 100 hats to Mr. Ebnettp? f L
l 16 A Or somebody up there in his organization. He's ,
l the one that discussed it with- me, along with two or three L 17 is secretaries that hi had handling that issue.
19 Q And you've sold no other caps within the Agency?
20 A Again, there's a few guys who've come into my 21 of fice up here and said, " Hey, can I buy one of the caps?"
22 I said, "Sure, I guess so," and I'd sell them a 23 cap for four bucks or whatever.
24 BY MS . ROWE:
25 O Have you sold them to any people who are employees 4
t 25 of the Agency?
1
({} ll%
2 A Who do you think Mr. Ebnettp is?
3 Q In another region. ,,
4 A- No. A friend of mine from Region II asked to buy 5 a hundred caps from me, and I'm going to send them to him.
6 BY MS. CONNELLY:
7 Q Did that transaction take place over the FTS 8 lines?
9 A I don't know where the guy called me from. He 10 called me; I didn't call him.
11 Q Have you ever used the FTS lines to sell your 12 hats?
13 A No.
14 Q Have you used --
15 A They called me. I have never solicited --
16 MR. DRESSLAR: If I might have you clarify that 17 question. He hasn' t ever stated that he solicited anybody.
te If you have a question along that line, it might be better to to ask him that first instead of stating your question in 20 such a manner as implying that he has.
21 THE WITNESS: I can't remember every call that 22 came in here, and I have no idea where they were calling 23 from. They were probably calling me from an PTS line.
24 BY MS , ROWE 25 Q You've received calls on an PTS line?
d
't 4 26 L' 1 A I've received calls on my phone, but how do I know 2 that they were on the FTS line? Does it come on there and 3 beep and tell you? .-
4 0 Have you told people to call you on the FTS line?
5 A 1 haven't told anybody to call me anyWhere. I 6 haven't solicited any business. They called and asked me as 7 a f avor to do it for them, and I gave them to them at cost.
B BY MS. CONNELLY:
9 Q When you engaged this ansaction involving the to 100 hats with Mr. Ebnette or with Mr. Richardson --
it A I never talked to Mr. Richardson, to my knowledge.
12 1 don't re ember any conversation with him. I have with Mr.
4r d4fg 13 Ebne t ti, .
.. 14 BY MS. ROWE:
15 o You talked to Debbie Corley during this --
16 A Yes.
17 Q -- for Richardson?
to A She was th ne th9t did it.for er m\WY 19 Richardson /Ebnett), atever.
20 BY MS. CONNELLY:
21 Q Let me show you this document, Mr. Earnest. Can 22 you describe for the record What that document is?
23 A That's what Lynn Sapp and Debbie Corley asked me 24 to send them.
25 Q Would you read the last line, please, for the Y
l
h l
27 record.
1 i
2 A "Any questions should be referred t ruce Earnest I se sbkld 3 at FTS 728-8146." At that time Mr. Ebnetty was trying'"to g(d .
4 purchase these through a government purchase order, I i 6 Presume. They asked me what my pts number wast they kaaw. ,
(f) :
6 0 What seal do you have on these hats?
7 A A seal with an American eagle on it, a blue ;
a background, the words " United States of America Nuclear -
g Regulatory Commission."
u) Q Is it the NRC of ficial seal?
it A No.
12 Q Did you use another government seal to merge in?
i 33 A No. ;
14 0 Did you design that seal? :
15 A No. I just told them what words to put around a us seal with an eagle on it. l 17 Q Did you provide the eagle to them?
is 'A teen- A M M +"dd- '
Q Who arc we talking about? Who designed the seal 39 l po for you?
21 A I'd have to look that. up. I don't remember
- 22 exactly. This is two years ago or more. It's with --
1 L 23 something design company. It's here in the area. ,
l 24 Q Was there any reason why you did not use the NRC 25 official seal?
9M
-~- - . . - . - - - , . . . , , , _ . . - - .
i 2.
s A Didn' t have one, didn' t know we had one.
2 Can you show me any documentation that says we 3 have an of ficial seal? ..
4 Q Yes, we do.
$ MR. DRESSLAR: Is it right there on that mug?
6 MS. CONNELLY: Yes, it is.
7 MS. ROWE That's the same as this one 6 (indicating).
g THE WITNESS: Where did that come from?
10 MS. CONNELLY: I don' t know Where it came from.
33 THE WITNESS: That's the of ficial seal? That's 12 not what is on the cap.
33 MS. CONNELLY: This is the official seal.
4-34 THE WITNESS: There's Where you are incorrect. An 15 official seal for an agency must be done by official 16 government proclamation, and that is not an official seal.
37 The Seal of the United States of America is this 16 (indicating) in different colors. It's basically the same, gg but that's not exactly the seal.
20 MS. CONNELLY Let the record show that Mr.
21 Earnest is pointing to the eagle on the seal.
22 THE WITNESS: That is not an exact replica of the 23 United States Seal, no. In fact, as you can see right 24 there, I think that one is an of ficial one, or something 25 similar to it, m
v'.
h
y > l
[.,.; .
h il 29 _
t MS. ROWE That's the Presidential seal. _
2 THE WITNESS: The eagle in the center is . the 3 official eagle that is on all official government seals.
4 BY MS. CONNELLY:
$ Q What seal did you use to design this cap?
6 A I didn't. The people had the --
7 MR. DRESSLAR: He has already stated he didn't'use g a seal.
g THE WI'IHESS: I didn't. As far as I remember, the 3o people -- you know, all these design companies would have gi that. They put them on everything.
12 BY MS. CONNELLY 13 Q Can you tell us specifically what your g4 instructions were to the company that designed the seal?
3$ A I told them to put the words " United States of 16 America Nuclear Regulatory Commission" around -- with a dark -
37 blue background.
33 BY MS. ROWE: _
g, Q .You didn't address the issue of stars or anything 20 on it?
21 A Ho. I just told them to put the U.S. eagle in the 22 middle.
23 BY MS. CONNELLY:
24 Q Can you obtain for us the name of the company that 25 designed the seal for you?
aus '
x m-- -- --mm --- - ---. -
l t
30 g A Sure. Call me in a couple of weeks.
MS. ROWE: I asked you to bring that stuff. ;
2 THE WITNESS: Hey, I have got -- I am on the .
3 road every other week. I have got a report to write in 4 ,
b 5
three days this week.
I just can't do it all I couldn't even take the 6
ch w .M s '
(or he e.zeele le t te r . I remember that h 4M time to look for D e'leltf l specifically, betr I do have that. I've got th & r-M g s 8
mae% and if you want to go af ter the interview is done and 10 drop by the office, I'll give you the name of the company. j l-I 33 BY MS. CONNELLY Q Let's back up a minute. Now at one point es were 12 l- 33 talking about the uniform shirts for the ball team. !
\ . . .
r i
y MR. DRESSLAR: Don't answer --
.. THE WITNESS: I'm not going to answer. That's 35 to bull.
37 If you want to talk to somebody, go talk t he ,,p fl 18 coach of the sof tball team. That's Mr. Bill Beach,ADirector l
of Reactor Projects. ;
3, 20 . BY MS . CONNELLY :
i
. 21 Q Are you selling uniforms to the ball team?
A No. I have a contact who could get them cheaper .
22 3
than if they went to a sporting goods store or I ordered 24 them for them.
1.
25 If y o've got any questions, you ask him about it.
[
< ed a + -.. - , - ,-
s I
i . '.
I 31 ;
' \
1 it. ,
2 BY MS. ROWE 3 Q Who is Bill Beach? He's the manager of the.. team? !
4 A Right down here on the eighth floor. Go down to 5 the end of the hall, turn right, at the end of the hall. !
6 0 Is his title "mana r" -- 'I b '
He's the ;"y94%4 + M der' p1 g _e .27 e N r_
- k- .i 7 A e BY MS. CONNELLY:
o 0 You worked through Mr. Beach to purchase the ,
10 uniforms?
11 A Mr. Beach, the team manager, would tell me when he 12 needed shirts. I would call this company that made athletic 13 sporting goods because I can get them wholesale, order them, 14 give them to him along with the receipt that the company 15 sent -- and they generally mailed them here to headquarters l
16 -- and he would collect the money from the team members, l 17 including met and then he would send the money to the is company or give me a check and I'd send it to the company l 19 addressed to the company. ,
l 20 0 You said you could get these wholesale.
21 A Uh-huh.
22 Q What arrangements do you have that permit you to L 23 buy wholesale?
24 [ Witness and counsel confer.)
25 A What was the question again?
e,,;
s
_ _ _ . _ _ . . . _ . . _ _ _ _ _ . . _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ . _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _. . . _ . _ _ . . _ . _ , - . ~ . _ _ _ . . . _ _ . _ _ . . . _,_t
! t 32 1 Q What arrangements do you have that allows you to 2 purchase uniforms wholesale?
3 A Well, let's see. I know several companies. ~Ny l 4 uncle is in the business, other things which are my personal ;
5 business and will remain so. ,
6 Q All right. Your personal business, let's get back 7 to that.
a A When I say business, that's my personal a f f airs . !
t g Q Your personal af f airs.
to When you obtained these uniforms, did you provide !
11 them to the baseball team at your cost? l 12 A Uh-huh.
13 Q Was there any modification to the uniforms, as in 14 the case of the ball hats?
15 A In fact, I gave them the caps. All we did was 16 Purchase the shirts. The shirts.... !
l 17 [ Witness and counsel confer.]
l- 1e A [ continuing) What modification are we talking 19 about here? 1 1
_m Q Your son or you have put the seals onto the hats, 21 and your son --
22 MR. DRESSLAR: He's talking about the basebs11 23 shirts.
I 24 MS. CONNELLY: Okay. But my question ist Was i 25 there any similar modification to the baseball shirts that
(
l l_- .-
l'
. . _ . _ _ _ - - . _ - ~ . - - -
i .
~
would constitute in any way a business on your part? MNft 1
({)
2 THE WITNESS: No. Silk screened on 6t f ' '
3 BY MS. CONNELLY:
4 Q That was done --
5 A Simply because I could get them cheaper than 6 anybody else and save my friends a little money. Boy, was 7 that a mistake.
e o Do you have a license to operate a business?
g A 1 don't think you have to have a license to to operate a business in this state.
11 MS. CONNELLY: Of f the record.
12 (Discussion off the record.)
13 THE WITNESS: The question again, please.
. 14 BY MS. CONNELLY 15 Q The question is: Do you have a license to operate is a business? gh8 17 A- I don't fun a business I don't 4& 6 tlQt-w : .LnX--- . g Aafs'sn lneed a license,mde e'as de is There 1: : '!::::: ' r. - - mind.
19 BY MS. ROWE to Q What is the address of the location where you sew 21 the -- glue the seals on the hat?
22 A 3518 Henry Court, Arlington, Texas 76017, my 23 kitchen table.
44 BY MS. CONNELLY:
25 Q Have you sold these hats -- We have the 100 s.
-W73[n# ,
8' 34 er 1
block of hats you sold to Ebnetty or Richardson --
2 A Whoever.
3 0 -- and then you sold individual hats. You've said 4 what? Probably --
5 A I don't have any idea, ma'am. Probably not over 7-6 or 8, 10, 15, whatever. I just don' t know, but I know 1-7 gave away the majority of that 100 hats, which is the e original ones that I put together so I could have a cap.
g Q And you have not sold hats or trophies -- Let me to . rephrase that.
tg Have you sold hats or trophies or anything else 12 ' connected with a uniform business to anyone other than --
13 A Prior to the NRC?
14 Q No, while you were with the NRC.
16 A No.
16 MS. CONNELLY: I don't have any other questions.
17 MS. ROWE: Okay. We'll go on to the South Texas -
to issue.
tg MR. DRESSLAR: Could I talk to him for just a 30 minute?
21 MS. CONNELLY: Off the record.
22 (Discussion of f the record.)
23 MS. ROWE: Back on the record.
24 Do you want this on the record?
25 THE WITNESS: Yes.
e' e
35 3
A couple of things. I want to ake a clarifying e 2 remark here, justasI've:&__itt:O /te .
af$4f0
'a One, I have a tax number. I am not in a business.
3 4 I have never made a profit on these caps. I am not in the Y 5 business of selling puppies. They're accidents.
- n 6
They' re very expensive puppies . They're Chinese c
7 Sh t rpei , the wrinkled puppies. I've had them for nine q"-
g years. And when I have a litter, I'm not giving them away
, when it costs me about $150 a puppy for vet bills.
Xs--
ca" 10 Now, I h ve not made a nickel's worth of profit
== to le t/e V E 33 from av sale of a cap 3 to amp membersof the Nuclear
- 12 Regulatory Commission.
33 My son 50 cents a cap on the aer sup{ posed to get
- Mf8V y b g caps that Mr. Eb tt)'s group got. Who wound up responsible s
_ 15 for them, I don ' t k now . Ms. Corley is the one I've been
-[ 16 talking to on it.
-In-g I sent them to them in April, and to this date e
-- 18 they've cent me a personal check from an individual for w
y 39 something like 240-some-odd dollars or something. They 20 still owe me $200 for those caps, a@
I haven' t pressed them for it. I've asked them, t- 21 "iei- 22 "If you don' t want the rest of the caps, send them back to
'ik 23 me. I'll give them to my friends."
-F' 24 Okay. Now, I have never solicited any business 25 with the United States Government, period. Ever.
-.n-.---
.. e 36 3 When they come to me and ask me as a f avor will1 2 you do them, I say, " Man, I-wish I had never got into this.-
~~
3 It's a. pain."
4 I'm just not going to make money on my friends.-
5 if i somebodyf I don't' I'll give _ them to 'them for cost,f2 n ..t's fo
s L
R
m .
39 i
i : replica of the -Nuclear Regulatory seal.
2 THE WITNESS: I have not used that.
3 MS. CONNELLY: I understand you have not, buf to.
4 the uninformed person, what you have used appears to be .the 5 seal.
6
.I believe it will be the Agency's position,fif 7 you' re' going to use the seal on hats that . people Jare going e to , wear on of ficial business, . it should be the right seal.
g- So there's a way to do.this.
JL 10 THE WITNESS: You mean I've got to i.4ake a new cap 33 for the Commissioners and the Chairman?
12 MS. CONNELLY: I would suggest'that you not 13 personally give any gif ts to a superior in the future. . j 1
e 14 THE WITNESS: Oh, Jesus.
i 7,L .
15 BY MS . CONNELLY: ,
1 16 Q A Presentation-to -- q 3
37 A I can't even buy my boss a cup of cof fee anpnore. '
'l i' Q No, as a matterl ofi fact, you cannot. J 18 A Oh, come on. Let's be honest, this is bull.
, :39 20 Q I'm sorry, I don't write the regs, but I'm i 21 trying --
22 A _You be honest with me. Have_you ever bought your-23 boss a cup of coffee out of your pot?
24 Q No, sir.
25 A You've never offered him a cup of coffee when he
.s' t i i)l . . . .
40 n .
3 walked in your office? Come on.
g .Q- out' of the community cof fee pot? Yes.
Who pays for it?
3 A -
4 -Q. - All of us together.
-5 A Right. You gave him a gift, didn't you?-
6 Q And under the regulations, that is= acceptable, 7 yes.
8 A Okay. What about all the ' people that leave?
9 Q Mr. Earnest, I'm trying to help you..
10 A I know you are, but I want to know. To me-this is 11 getting -- I mean, I f eel like a tired old wet dog that has-12 Ljust been kicked -- c hungry dog, and y'all just keep kicking me here.
I'm trying to find out where I'm going wrong k-in7-W-
14 15 4M.e . Okay.. I've worked hard all my life to get where-I 16 am, from a high school dropout with no-parents, right to a 17 master's degree.
18 MR. DRESSLAR: Is it also illegal for those
-.3g superiors to accept gif ts?
MS. CONNELLY: Yes, it is. -It's a violation-of
- 20 21 the regulations.-
. 22 MR. DRESSLAR: I'm assuming that:y'all are going 23 to go after them, too.
24 MS. CONNELLY: If people --
25 THE WITNESS: If I make a complaint.
+
0
Q e +s rr '
. m;. ,
41 g MS. CONNELLY: No, you don't_have to make a:
.2 complaint.
-3 THE WITNESS: Well, come on. - You get the NRC
_4 Review, don't you --
~
5 MS. CONNELLY: That's why.I'm asking-you'who in 6
the Agency have you- given these hats to.
7 THE WITNESS: Oh, God.- I - hope you go a f te r the 8 Commissioners.-
~'
g MS.-CONNELLY: Let's go of f thel record.
10 (Discussion of f the record.)
33 MS. ROWE We're.now back on the record.
12 BY MS. ROWE 13 Q Mr. Earnest, do you recall an incident.around or w.
t-e- .
14 about the time frame of June 1987 in which you-were asked by
'15 a security officer at'the South Texas site-for 16 ' identification? You were issued a badge number at _that:
17 time, and the' individual asked you if-you were nicknamed s~
is "Rambo." .You smiled, and you flicked him the bird.
gg A- HN o . I don't remember that.
20 Q You do not recall that?
21 A No.
22 BY MS. CONNELLY:
23 Q Did you ever make an obscene gesture in front'of a 24 licensee employee?
25 A In front of or to?
1 68b
/ i
. 4
{
, 1, f-42-
- t.(
Q In .t or it may.mean to o g
Iflicensee R;
2 *mP loyee was- ont.
.g A Ma'
.not in the 1
3 ..'I'll inest with you.
.t 4 habit of doi r ..a t . i't remember. I ver.did, it:
-$ -would be an u . . :al i- . it , and I don't 1 ever having.
6 'done it.
7 MR. SSLA e we beyo'nd the- )alstages, 8 I assume? .
. , , i; -
MS. JE:
9 i.
N 10 THli . NESS: s t'p nice to kn : thought I'd j .=rP. 4/4 V 'ts 3, skate clean c. , i e-t-j;,
BY MS. ROWE: .Il$-
12 4.'
F 13 0 D reca incident that s 'y,as a y matter of fac , one '8 7, in which yo ", [4 utility, employee, Da'.' amb:
'E i g5 , ,f f ' '
- 16 A IL neve- eed a utility em 1.j 17 Q on- nent ,
4 18 A WO' .
u1 r me to clarify orlyou?.
39 Q Do - re ct. .s conversation? P ,;. ,
20 A I re ~.1 ha i conversation $,'(David 21 Sheesley. 1 -
- ^
-- ~ <
22 Q Per*- 6 a. 2ated, ag'i ta ted' on.
?:
23 A Iw sngry I raised my. voi p great-justifica tior. . . wl. -tain that for th 24 and I 25 want it on tit 4cor it morning we we to do.
?
,:].N gy 6 5 J, 's . , ' '
- y. '
.i
.i.
>.y +
l
-r '43 s g 'a module called " Detection Aids - Vital Areas."
2 This module requires us to go out. and assure that 3
the detection aids on the vital area barriers will do that'-
which the regulation regu dos detect a tamper, 4 s they sh616%
defu$. M .L.4 Web m i M 5
detect line- indication if someone cuts the alarm of f.
To do that, we briefed ' m n t he module that 0
p a/ is f(i5 I' 7
morning in a big meeting, my _ licensee employees and my 8
fellow inspectors.
@ ,, h(g f g Kelly 9was doing most-of the briefing. We 10 eXPl ained .the module to them. and what we were - going to look 33 at, how we 4 wantedsd it teDed in,gvphatweweregoingtogoand' 12 do all of j100 percent completion, y At that time I made some comments, "okay, here's-
, 34 the- way I would 1,ike you to test this. I-will demonstrate 15-it for-y u one time so that y'all can than go on and do the=
to test and.I ca i Q
1 = t, th ~3@ the process. I didi not demons,trate .
37 38 it because I was'in a conference room.
39 "Now, is there anything ' about this system that you-would like to tell me? Are there any deficiencies in this 20 21 system that you're aware of at this time?"
g Their answer: No.
3 Fine. "Mr. Kelly ( lieve it was Kelly) or Y
b 'd %
Caldwell is going to the SAS to o'aserve the alarms come in 24 on the computer console. I will go with the INC techs and 25
c
.!r 44' -
i 'Mr. Sheesley, 'and we wi go ove his." *[8
.i 9 4 4 Y
. I' I ' "" "I'" " - -- She e s le y wa s ' d " ' ' -
1 2
- lHh dtesting =t l ' '
- f. ... . r : . Lamb was running- the electronic security ,
4 systems section'at that; time,-so this was a dual 5
responsibi he o m.
g _
- _:p is the one . that ' explained the . system to; y us that morning, and he is the one that I asked,,along1with'- ,j a Sheesley, "Is there anything about this system that you want i
, to tel'1 us now so we can save the time of going, out there?
. 34 .It's_ extremely hot."
l 33 Believe me, it was hot down there that summer.- LWe- .,
12 go up inside this big concrete monster. The first place I 13 go to was a door to the control room. .
9 I said, "okay, here's the way we' re going to test -
15
.this. thing." -
y ,
16 hI asked them for a screwdriver.
W 37 tew I rubbed it across some metal to magnetir.e it, the tip.
. of it. !
33
'Now, 3, one of thejthings that you must check is that 3 these balanced magnet switches cannot be captured by another L - 21
. magnet.
t 22 I stood up on my toes as high as- I could reach - -
23 above this tall door, and I- slipped the tip ,,h4 screwdriver between the t tches, t e r:::iver -- it's a 24 25 balanced magnet switch, 40t two parts to it, one on the door e G I
i 3'-
45 g and 'one - on the~. f rame .= g- p/P!
2 I'm standing there4 straining as high-as I can,
~'
3 slowly inching this door open,_ literally a-quarter of an 4 inch at a time.
- c. ,$
"Tell me when you get an clarm, licensee."
Silence. I just keep on inching it out. And'I'm 6
7 stvaining. -Sweat is pouring off of me, f .
, -1 pull it out. It's open a foot. .Anybody could
, have walked through it, even as big and fat as I am.
I turned to them, and I said, "For God's sake, 10
= 33 guys, haven' t you got an alarm .yet?"
12 And'they said, " Bruce,.you can get down now."
And I went down'on liy heels and stretched and bent-33 my legs-because they were 3eet a
@ '64f v s
,I was in pain. -I 2'
c 34 md .*=a ng.lgl%i
,o
_ minutes, standing on my
^
..= 35 had.been up-there for & ^ t 16 tiptoes.
g7 I asked the licensee,: "What is-the problem with-18 this balanced. magnet switch?"
,, "Well, we knew you wouldn' t get an alarm" -- this 20 is Sheesley.
21 I said, "Why wouldn't I get ata-alarm?"'
"Because' we knew that the sys tem has got a flaw in 22 i
23 it." l 1
24 I said, "Why.didn't you tell me that when we asked 25 you point blank in the conf erence room?"
O .,
+
46 i And they laughed, and they said, "Because we didn't 2 want to deprive you of the fun of finding it yourself."
3 I turned without a word, stalked off, went down 4 and waved Sheesley after me, walked into Lamb's office with
[j $ Sheetley following me.
6 I said, " Listen to me. Don't you ever do this 7 again. I want to know who made the decision to try to 8 embarrass me out there and place me in that kind of a 9 position because that is a personal affront to me as a 10 person and as an NRC inspector, and I want to know because 11 I'm going to that person, whoever it is that made that 12 decision; and we are going to settle this so that it never 13 happens again. Now, do you understand?"
. 14 And they said, " Hey, not me, not me."
15 I said, "I want to know. You find out. You come 16 tell me. I'm making an official request for information.
17 Do you understand?"
18 And I turned, walked out and pulled the door i
19 shut. jl
'l
- Maybe I almost slammed it. I went d to th
...JD, 21 conference room and I cooled off, and my boss I 22 explained it to him, I explained it to the other inspectors.
23 We were all angry over it.
24 My boss, Larry Yandell, said, " Bruce, it's not 25 going to do any good. They're trying everything they can to Herttoge Reporting Corporation
..>.a
- p. . i
.. o 47' l
l' ' discredit thi'sl-inspection. - They are in deep trouble.. They.
2' know it."
t t 3 He said, "The best we can do is.just-go on with :
-l f
.4' it."
5 I said, " Larry, I will- not int pect that until they j 6 sit down and write it out, that they heve disclosed every - {
7 thing about that system there is to dirclose."
s 8 And that's where it stayed until they fixed the -}
9 problem. It.was a software problem in the. computer - j 10 That is your incident..
4 11 I heard later that day that they thought that I ha'~d-12 intimidated them. I am six foot one; I weigh 220 pounds; and- ._
j 13 I can be a very intimidating person, u v
., -14 I'm sorry, ladies.- I'm one of the kindest people.1 is y o meet your eM N'
16 I..have neve tentionally hurt anyone unless~.I was f 17 absolutely forced to in the line of duty. Ever. .
i 18 BY MS, ROWE
,m-19 (L You're addressing, of course, the allegation that I
- 20 - Mr. Lamb thought he was going to be physically attacked by ;
21 you? , _;
22 A. Mr. Lamb is nothing but a little short fat wimp p\
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1 23 that would be scared to death by you. You've talked to him.
w ,
24 He's a crybaby. ,
L 25 They were doing anything at that time that they -j Heritoge Reporting Corporation (191) 4 f4 4800 f'
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11
.a c..c_ s fA could to . discredit t4we I ~
6
,,/rf/t i 2- They tried:everything. Thef would~come -- .W e'd 3 discuss an inspection module, I would, with Sheesley or I,amb 4 or someone like that.
5- They;would immediately, if it didn't suit them, 6 Lwhat I had to say about it, they immediately went to the 7 -other inspectors and tried to catch them away from men and; 8 they-would try to get them to.give them a different-opinion.
9 This went on for weeks and weeks and weeks.- We 10 were kept down there by this Agency for-the entire summer.
Il My wife's home~is Bay City,-Texas, 12 I've been going down' there before that plant was a 13 hol'e'in the ground. I saw more of my mother-in-law-last
. . , 14 -summer than'I have in the 18 years I've been-married to my 15 . wife, 16 MS, ROWE Okay. I have no other questions on
- 17. that..
18' THE WITNESS: I do.
~l' MR. DRESSLAR: Before he goes -- I know he wants to 20 do something -
21: MS. ROWE: Keep in mind your time.
A 22 THE WITNESS: I'm on.my time now, but I want.some
.J 23 things on the record.
24 MR. DRESSLAR: Does the Agency investigate every 25 allegation by a group of people, such as the managers at j
Heritoge Reporting Corporation n in.
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U 2 MS. CONNELLY:- We ces, answer that off the record.
3 THE WITNESS: I want some things.on the record,Lbut-
- 4. that's. fine, s MS. CONNELLY Let's let Mr. Earnest make his -
-> 6 statements.
- -THE WITNESS
- Okay. I've read your report in great l 's detail.
9 Now, I've got a lot of respect for.you as an 10 individual,.and I like you. But I thought that was an
_gI awfully poor job.
12 I.-think that you did some damace to Jim and Ron 13- Caldwell that was totally without fact as a basis. There
,, 14 are some things that I want to clear up with you from j j
- 15. reading your. report, if you do not mind.
j 16 : Believe me,'I am not trying to do harm to youin I' just think that there .are some things .that need 17 any way.
to go on the record here. 6
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20 MS. CONNELLY: I would suggest that you put these comments in writing. !
21 0
22 THE WITNESS: No, ma'am. Y'all opened this one s,
3 23 I'd like to get some things on the record about this report, 24 if you don't mind.
2s There are some questions about the report that I Heritage Reporting Corporation
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'55-l_ would like answered;' and I'm going to)get specific,_- if you 2 don't L mind, 3 .For example, you made comments about poor 4L performance by inspectors in-your report.
S' Did you talk to my supervision up through Mr.
6 Martin to determine what :they thought of the job that: we. had 7 done down there?
8 MS. CONNELLY: We're=not here to discuss our-9- performance on the report. I'll be happy to --
-. 10- 'THE WITNESS: I'm not asking about your performance.
Il~ I want to know how you came to the conclusions that-you; 12 did.
13 I was there when Jim Kelly _ supposedly made his t
14 racist remarks.
15 MS. CONNELLY: Mr. Earnest, if you have any 16- comments about what we're discussing'here today that you'd
- 17 like to.put on the record, we'll be glad to give you the 18 time.
' . 19 But if you want to discuss problems with the 20 report, then I'll be happy to sit down and meet with you 21 at a --
~
.. 22 THE WITNESS: That's fine, but I want this on the s..
23 record.
24 MS. CONNELLY: If you want it on the record, you 25 can put it 0.1 writing; and that will serve to make a record Herttoge Reporting Corporation v n aa,,
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THE-WITNESS: No. I don ' t th.',nk so.
2-MS, CONNELLY: But the purpose of this meeting.
3-
'4= today is not-to:--
THE WITNESS:
You asked me questions about-the-5 6 STP investigation. 'I have noiright, since I was a' witness, I would like to explain
- 7 to put some things on the record?
a to you some things' that I was not asked when you interviewed L
F me, nor have I ever been contacted by any.of you since-I was to interviewed in Washington to clarify- anything that you --
11 on any of this.
I was there, for example, when we had the meeting 12 13 about Mr. Woodard, the individual who could not read and 14 write.
15
- Additionally I was there -- okay -- when some other 16 issues that you brought up came ' to pass.
17 But I was never asked about any of these, Donna;-and is I'd like for you to get my answers on that, just taking your ask me if I was there at any of 19 synopsis of the report, 20 those and can I give you any clarification on any of that.
21 MS,'ROWE: I think it's. okay for him to talk about 22 it.
~,
I think it's perfectly okay. Please 23 MS. CONNELLY:
24 proceed to tell us what you would like for us to know.
25 THE WITNESS:
For example, Mr. Hill stated that I Heritage Reporting Corporation
.used a:crowbariand burglar. tools;to do destructive-' testing on' 2 hisisite.: That was a lie. Pure and simple.
- It never happened.- The'one individual who was 3
4- .always there and who lways ran the testing was Mr._ David ovat.-
0 %d44 5 Sheesley.' He tf* working daily with me, and will be working-6 ;with me again next week during their pre-op on the second 7 unit.
m a Mr. Sheesley, if you ask him the direct question,-
9 "Did Mr. Earnest bring a crowbar on site," and you remember to Mr. Partlow and Mr. Erickson and some of them said, " Hey, 13 that would be totally inappropriate for me to bring a crowbar 12- on' site."~
13 They took the comment -- you must have presented
.. 14 that to.them as a fact because Mr. Hill said it, because they-15 said, "No, that's inappropriate; he should not have done
'16-that."
37- I didn't do it. I have never taken any type of a is- . tool on a site.
-19 I did no destructive testing.. The only time that 20 I physically grabbed pie of e quipment down: there was 6TP O HIS9 21 .when this little gur w s going around with me and Mr.
L ,
..c 22 Sheesley and we were looking at the underground passageways 23- under the protected area barrier.
24: I have to check those as part of the inspection.
- 25 They have heavy, heavy metal grates over them. To get those s
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' 4 it out.' He couldn' t do it alone. t/f That's-the on y time dj 5 a ssist- him in pulling that grate up. %A 4-6 that I ever physically tested anythingq and I wasn&w
't tercin Y
7 anything there.
It's like op'ening a 8
I was simply removing --
9 door.
10 At no time - - and I don' t know what Mr. Hill is i pave _Iever' talking about as burglar tools -- but at no;t me 11-e M b;M b 12 had anything /ut4a~rSI a 7.dc. ,et+t< . 40 otnM M a a trauI have in-my pocket right now everything.that-I
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13 Okay.
l4 carry on an inspection. ve been That's my keys and my pocketknife,%):Jwhich h't
-18 A '
shs first one 16-carrying since _ I was eight years old, ame I got my That's the only thing that I. carry on the 17 for Christmas. I need to 18 site besides pen and paper and,whatever documents-
- 19 do the inspection. .Nothing
- No one ever destructively tested anything.
20
- n. That Ask Mr. Sheesley a direct quer
- 7. , : 21' was destroyed. in there, l i
22 will remove pages and pages of that investigat. ton 3
.j v 23 He was there.
There are others there that can tell you the same 24-I never took anything apart.
25 thing. I never hit anything.
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$4 Jeb f l' They did the testing. <g) -
2 For example, the turnstiles that enr hade an issue 3' out of. The. turnstiles, the problem with.them was, when you-
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4 went in the plant, you remember.how you went through tNe 5
entrance turnstiles coming in the plant?
6 They turned inside a metal half shell like this
=7 [ indicating), right?
8 And the turnstiles are in here. .And you walked 9 through that.
This is clear plastic inside this frame. Now,
.10 13 there is' room between this and this [ indicating),.if you-12 break the plastic out of this, you can get between the turnstiles and there. That would be an inadequate barrier
] 13 14 according to the regulations.
15 I said, " Guys, demonstrate that that is'a strong 16 enough barrier and equal to.11-gauge steel _ wire."
17 They said, "Sure, we'll do that," and they did.
la And I did nothing but-just look over their testing to documents. I wasn't even there when they. tested it.
20 But that was the entire testing on those turn-21 stiles.
,.s 22 Now, another inspector f rom another. region was down 23 there the other day and told them, " Hey, you had better find
- 4 out whether those bars in that turnstile are strong enough 25 to hold anybody out, whether anybody can just come up there s
Heritage Reporting Corporation von ==
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2- They said they were going to do it. Boy,.I kept t
.1 3 my mouth-shut after that. Id I.was- i p 91 m @idn't 'want sofpits to hear it. '
d- afraid that .hcy'd i: ju "i"; ^a me again about it. . . ,
5 Now,-let's talk' about Mr. Goldberg's statement 6 that deficiencies -- he never was aware of any deficiencies- i
[ 7 prior to the pre-op. inspection. !
8 That is a straight, bald-faced lie. He has made-
.9 that statement before. He made it to my section chief, and l-p 10 Lmy section chief told him, "Mr. Goldberg, were you asleep at
_; 11 ' Arlington," because he had made.that statement before and it-D 12 was ridiculous.
13; He was called up here as part of a. meeting after
[
i- 14 two inspections where we filed inspection reports, and tell-
~
Lo 13 ing about major deficiencies to the system and sat through 16 this meeting up here in which Andy Hill gave a briefing that 17: was juvenile in nature.
'L 18 He didn't understand anything about the system that ,
i 19 he was briefing on, how they were going to fix it;.and I-g oclp(es 20 shot him all te piere: on it.
21- Now I'm sorry I had to do that. Andy is a nice.
22 guy. He's one of the most likeable guys you'd ever want to 23 meet. But he was going to get the utility even in deeper.
1 24 This was in A; (1 and May.
[, 25 We inspected them in November and filed a big 3
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- 1. . report _saying there were-problems. The reports are there 2 for you to review.
3 Mr. Goldberg-lied. He did tell them. We told them
.m
- 4. on numerous' occasions. The utility chose to ignore usy and 5' they-paid the price because they were totally deficient in 6 every way.-
7 Have you ever interviewed Mr. Les Constable, the e 8 Project manager? He was there during most of this 9 inspection at'different times.
" He's down on this floor right here, right down the 10-ij hall. He can clarify.many of the technical issues for 12 you, whether'there was destructive testing, what our feel-13 ings were about the licensee, how they were reacting to us,
~;. ja . the whole thing.
15 This man was-never interviewed.
Y u said something in there -- I think it was 16 37 Dave Moore or somebody.said something in there about the 18 fire retardant material that we had alerted the whole 39 country that there was a major problem with this fire retardant material that Ron was supposed to have 20 destructively tested.
21 Ron asked them, if I remember -- he said he 22
.g did -- asked them --
MS. CONNELLY: Let me stop you. Are we getting 24 25 into safeguards information here?
1 i
-57' 1- MS. ROWE: I~think that is. Don ' t yc.W 2
THE WITNESS:- I'm not describing where it's at.
3 MS. ROWE Okay.
4 THE WITNESS: Don't worry.
- 5. We're not telling where this is.
6 M ay. Ron said' it was-The fire J reterdant material,W 7 okay, you know.. And112 Q did r_
4 l was k u) b et*
- literally take Me. &' *!# #
8 pocketknife and do this -- ') .
gg 9
MS. ROWE: Was it his ocke fe? g 10 THE WITNESSt cch, I thid. .I don't know. 'He il may not even carry on +h Y
- 12 aluter But scrate ed it to see if ~it was sof t. The 13
- last plant I weAt to and inspected that material'-- and 'I had; 14 -'
sm(t) u,le elw never M c:; it before South Texas.
15 That's the reason we wanted the NRC - :other-regions 16 to know. We informed the NRC regions: and. we informed 17 Headquarters that'was --
18-You know, - that kind 'of comment .in .that report makes 19 -
.us look like we were just panicking, jumping over the moon.
20 We alerted them to generic problems, just like the three-wire 21 E field, which we were briefed on yesterday,-is a major 22 generic problem at numerous plants throughout the NRC and has
~
23 to be addressed. gg) 24 Now, excuse me for being good at my job. But & M 25 discovered generic problems down there that were important to Heritage Reporting Corporation j
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- 1. t he NRCj iand I surf aced them.
But I.went to one plant, and I reached up there'just 2
That's to push on it; and my fingers sank completely in it.
3 So:that plant is in trouble With
. 4 n ot-an adequato barrier.
that.
They've got to replace it with an adequate material.
5 This material down there proved'to be adequate, but 4
7- we had no data to ascertain that.
We tried to get the licensee to give us the right
> s.
9 documentation, and they didn't do it.
MS..'ROWE They didn' t have any certification on -
10 11 that --
They had no idea what-
, THE WITNESS - That's right.
12 find out the industry
_13 that material was, so we couldn't
[
14 standard.
Somebody'.in Washington-15 But yet,-one of-them --
1 We wouldn't accept it 16 said, " Hey, you wouldn't accept it."
g because we didn't have any way-of knowing what=it was.
17 18' BY MS. CONNELLY:
Mr. Earnest, can I ask you a question?
1, 0
-20 A. Uh-huh.
s 4
Who else was present during this situation?-
21 j '[
22 A. Which one?
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23 0 When Mr. Caldwell scratched the material with the f fh 1
24 pocknetknife. &,babl
(&hak Dave N Or Dave Mo Sheesley.
s.
25 A. Pro L dat La aAm bo e per .
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I. See,. Dave-Moore, an.ex-NRC inspector, was f
f 21 responsible-for looking at all.of these-systems and declaring 3 -them good. ..
(,
-*- 4- I don't-expect Dave Moore to ever like me or even-8 . talk to me again. I'm sorry it was that way, but he.didn't- <
6 do a good-job. He declared all of'these systems good.
7 We tried to tell them months ahead of time, "They ,
8 are not'.1" He went ahead and declared them as' good, and, boom, l
9 we go down. .We inspect. They won't. detects they will not ;
- 10 assess; they will not alarm; they.will not -- you know, the 11 barrier will not delay..
m 1
Everything is wrong. 3 12 I mean, there.was not one single module that we 33 could close out' for the first month..
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.g 60 i '9 - [ Continuing }- But~if you'll talk to Mr.
3 Bang rt about_that comment of Mr. Goldberg, he'll clarify
\ , ;
3- that little hummer.for you. He was there. So: were other
" ~ 4- members of the Agency Staff here.- Mr. Goldberg was well' 5 informed and-Mr. Martin talked to him on almost a daily 6- . basis during this whole thing to-inform him of what all 7 the problems were.
8 MR.=DRESSLAR: You know it's about ten-till.
THE WITNESS: That's all right. . I'm going-10 to get this off my chest.
Il MS. CONNELLY: Do you have-a' plane?
12 MR. DRESSLAR: No, I'm going at 6:30.
13- THE WITNESS: Mr. Goldberg also made a statement
- _l4 that it was 18. months before Mr. Skelton -- it sounded 15 'like it was us but it was Mr.. Skelton that reviewed it --
16 -gave him_a plan.
17 When I went_to -- The first_ time I went-18 to the South Texas Project I had been working there for l' about 45 days. It was in 1985 in the fall. And I-reviewed 20 a plan with Mr. Rex Moore down there. It was a nice thick-21 plan. It was a very good plan.
22 I made some comments in my report on that 23 plan and they made changes to it. Mr. Skelton was within
- s 24 three small issues of approving that plan in 1985.
25 Mr. Riley, Mr. Hill come down there and
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l- theyl threw th:t th ag in the trash _can and they wrote one 2 that was about that' thick and it committed to nothing.-
13 It required nothing and, therefore, Mr. Skelton had to ,,
'4 like finding hen's teeth, trying to find ways to get them 5 to make a plan that he could approve.
6 It took 18 months because the licensee was 7 trying to avoid having to do anything. They knew they
'8 had bad systems. They knew they had bad security, but 9 they didn't have the guts tc, go to their boss d tell-" j[6 F 10 him that all these millions of dollars ye spent de not 4 il any good.
12 But that's what happened'. That's~what their 13' own_' people, like Sheesley, Lamb and some of those people,
- 14 and Rex Moore told us to our face.- They tried to tell 15- Riley. Riley would r9n them out of his office literally.
16: They'd go around him and go up_to Mr. Hill.
17 Mr. Hill being a nice guy, but he didn't know that much' 1
18 about physical security and he would -- he had hired-Riley 19 so that Riley could do the tough' job of controlling his i
20 staff and Riley was a roaring rear end. He was the meanest E 21 guy that they ever worked for and he listened in no way.
., 22 He was a liar. He falsified records. Have r/
23 you looked at the OI report on the training qualifications ,
24 issue? That's why Mr. Riley and Mr. Hill were fired.
t 25 If you had cost that plant sixty some-odd Heritage Reporting Corporation (MD 4M aset
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62 L
I million dollars,-'would you-expect-to:still be there? :I-2 wouldn't.
3' I hated that they had people get fired. ,,,
4- I.can't imagine what it would feel like.
I've never been 8 fired and at.no time did-we ever encourage anyone to-be 6 fired.
7 We knew that we were going to have real 8 problems with=Riley but no time did we encourage anybody 6 wlHlF T F to fire Andy Hil1, 4 but=te was the man responsible. He 10 . was the man in charge, and the licensee made that decision il and did it.
12 Now, I don't think Mr. Goldberg ever understood' 33 that they threw away that plan, because Mr.: Goldberg never e 14 wanted'to know. ,,/phd $
15 His comment to us wh;r u yfe eat ~in r-16 .gith uc. Mar &4= "h=" h^ k id thi. ilviler.;l :::tir.g.that 17 he never attended was he said, "You know,. security guys is are kind of -- those' guys over there are secret guys. We 19 didn't know.anything about what they were.doing."
20 I said to myself, "Oh, gosh, I hope this 21 guy doesn't think.that about safety." But I wondered.
- 22 And something was said in there about subtle 23 innuendos and body language. Donna, we almost hit the 24 guy in the head with the facts down here.
25 If I could have got by with it, I would Heritage Reporting Corporation im3.n me
. . _ _ . .. _ _ . ~ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - . . _ _ _ .
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63 I have hit him with a hammer or a book or something to get i 2 !
his attention.
,,jok 3 They kept saying, " Don't worry.
Itwill.,O m
4 be ready. It will be ready." There was no way. M was 5 months of work ahead of them and we tried to tell them
' and they just ignored that fact.
f 7 Now, there's meetings, summarios, reports 8 here thac will tell you about much of the stuf f that was done. There are people here that can tell you that sat 10 in on those meetings, especially Les Constable and so forth, il The people that made the most comments about l 12 Jim and Ron were Dave Moore, Andy Hill and Burwin Hall, 13 all buddies from Region II, NRC. Hill brought them in.
a.
- 14 I would expect them to back up whatever Andy said.
38 I'm not calling them liars. I'm just te 4e$ ng o/, )9J l' that -- o e re 1 rs but I'm .w _ mr.; to go 17 down - I'd love to go down there and put them on a polygraph, 18 but we can't do that.
h g l 19 Somyheeptehavetosithereandtakethis.
20 What about the discrepancies between Andy 21 Hill and his boss's statements, Mr. Vaughn? And between ,
22 Mr. Powell's v.nd Mr. Hall's statement about the meeting l ,3 4 1 23 that Powell and Ron had in Hall's office?
i 24 i'he report appeared to take Hall's word
]. 25 for everything and ignore what Vaughn and Powell had to Heritoge Reporting Corporation '
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64 !
I say.
2 We found out how good Mr. Hall's word is. !
L 3 He's under indictment right now for Class E misdemeanor" >
4 for peeking in a window. He's suspended without pay end I he swore that he didn't do it and he tried to hide it from i
6 the utility. .
7 Instead, they found out about it, offered i 8 him a polygraph to clear himself e.,d he failed the polygraph. !
9 10 f & ,* He & lThe& secur W (n 8Hewenttotrialthisweekpometie, y m NLYP.
ty reorganization, I was there. "I'd*
i
, il This was late in the game. Hill and Riley are out of the 12 pictus%
t
~ 13 They put Larry Kerns there. They came down
~
14 and they wanted to discuss this.
15 I don't remember who all was there besides -
16 me and Jim but I know that I'm sure thSt. McBurnett and )
17 some of those guys were there.
18 They were litorally brainstorming thfa 19 themselves in front of me and Jim. I'm taking rotes; Jim
- 20 is taking notes. And Jim, literally based on what they ,
21 were saying, drew up what they said. A wire diagram and !
{} 22 that turned out to be five different divisions so that 23 one guy wasn't getting swamped with it and these division 24 chiefs could go out there and get the job done. g
~.
e s 25- They wers, arguing back and forth about b
Herttoge Reportino Corporation
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I who was going to do what, what kind of divisions do u I 3 want to have.
3 I sat there and watched Jim put it together !
4 based on what they were saying. There's Larry Kerns,_you ,
8 know. Dave is usually over here, Lamb here, Moore here, '
6 and they just kept on going and going on that and how they 7 were going to divide it, how they thought they ought to 8 divide it up.
9 Kelly just held up his little book like
- 10 this and he said, "That's what you just said right there."
ll "Well, what do you think about that, Jim?"
12 Rip. " Hey, guys, it's your organization."
., 13 That was my comment.
~
14 He did not direct that they do anything.
15 He did not direct that that organization be done that waf.
16 BY MS. ROWE ,
17 0 You did tell me, Bruce, that you have not 18 looked at the attachments which contain --
19 A I can't. You won't let me have them.
20 0 All I'm saying is we talked to Mr. Kelly 21 about this issue. 8b drug ( t'
[
.g 22 A Oh, I know what Jim said. Jim said he 4eeft
- 2) it up, but I sat there and watched the process. I wasn't 24 really involved. I was just sitting back over there doodling, 25 because Jim was working on that module.
Herttoge Reporting Corporotion
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66 I saw him. They were sitting there discussing it among themselves and Jim literally almost recorded what 3
t 3
they said. " Hey, guys, here's what you're talking about right there. Here's what you said, basically."
3 But at no time did he direct them to do
, it. We all looked at it. I looked at it and I said, " Hey, that looks goe','
, That's what we'r supposed to do. We're
, supposed to look at it and tell them if it's good or bad.
g At this point in the game in July and August
,, you're talking panicksville. We're down there for the 12 whole summer. We're working 12, 14 hours1.62037e-4 days <br />0.00389 hours <br />2.314815e-5 weeks <br />5.327e-6 months <br /> a day. We're living in an : n L dge Motel.
13 O
g 2 'm having to put up with my mother-in-law takinq g3 me to church every Wednesday night.
g, MS. CONNELLY: This transcript may beccme public. You want to be careful with comments about your gg mother-in-law.
g, THE WITNESSt That's fine. I love it. I y love her to death. She's a lovely lady. I do, but snough's gg enough, you know what I'm saying.
Jim did not -- and neither did I tell them, 3
g "This is what you want to put in there." But at that point g in the game everything we said --
'.. MS, ROWEt They were doing.
25 Heritoge Reporting Corporation
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THE WITNESS: -- they were doing. We got '
2 to.the point where we were paranoid, ff) ..k
- 3 "I wonder sh t a mi,,growave.
If I said, you know, !
4 system would do better than that," boom, you know, they [
would run off and start pricing microwave systems. I'm ,
6 serious.
l 7 We'd tell them, " Call Waterford. See how s they bandled this problem." Came back to us, " Hey, NRC 9
told us to do what Waterford did."
10 No, we didn't, but we got accused of it.
II A lot of people, where we put in 12, 14 hours1.62037e-4 days <br />0.00389 hours <br />2.314815e-5 weeks <br />5.327e-6 months <br />, the licensee '
12 put in 18 and 20.
-- 13 Careers were stopped. Some advanced. People 14 lost jobs and none of us intended that, l
15 Just like Mr. Woodard, the poor guy that f
\
i 16 couldn't read and write. I was there when that conversation
- l 17 went on about Mr. Woodard. I'm the one that started the 1
18 issue about the training and qualifications.
19 Ron Caldwell and I went in there with four 30 members of OI on June the 16th, I believe it was. A terrible
- l. ,
21 day. We went in there and we found just ungodly amounts 22 of falsified records, all sorts of problems. People weren't !
23 trained, f
24 I looked at Mr. Woodard. I'm the one that
- 25 found Mr. Woodard's -- when I looked at his employment Herttoge Reporting Corporation r m. ... ..
4 4 . c 68 i file. Mr. Woodard didn't write that because there was 2 a little thing there where he had si ned his na e an k k 9 2
signature was different from the4applicat on form.$ i's 4 The secretary filled it out. She filled 5 out dozens of them bec us the poor guy writing them couldn't Modia# :(lHlt8 6
read and write.4 Wackenhut was getting a big tax break 7- because they were getting all their guards from the 8 unemployment rolls. They did not go out and recruit quality l
9 people and they didn't test them to see if they could read 10 or write, and they changed their training qualification 11 plan so that they could have them do something4 instead bOh i
[g4 12 of take a test to indicate their knowledge of it. ,
._ 13 Well, they tried to'get by with that and 14 were told that that was inadequate.
[
l-l 15 So then we had to do this -- they negotiated L 16 with the Region we're going to do this big comprehensive 0hh 17 test to see whether they can do '
L 18 Then the issue of the question comes up 19 about whether or not Jim Kelly told them to put an essay 20 type question on there to see if they can read and write.
21 We discussed this around-the table, Larry l 5
22 Yandell, Jim Kelly, I, Jim Dreimiller, several other people, 23 and we're all sitting there discussing this.
I say, " Hey, it sounds like a good idea.
24 25 i Just have them write something.' I can teach anybody the !
Heritoge Reporting Corporation i
- . s >
i i
69 I answer to No. 8 is D. Mark the third one down. He can
. 2 pass that test. That's what they did. We caught them
- 3 at it. It was part of the OI investigation.
- 4 So what we wanted to do was, we helped -- ,
s you know, since we had to find out, we helped basically (
6 design the test, helped them -- they brought it to us aad !
7- we approved the test is what they did.
8 '
Jim Dreimiller, who is still on the staf!
9 down there, he's the one that, "What did you do this summer?"
le and "Why do you want to be a security of ficer?" t 11 I love the one about "Why do you want to 12 be a security officer," because they fired a guy the next :
- 13 day after the test. Why? Because he put down there, " Man,
(
i: 14 I can hardly wait to shoot these 6 AM ople off the Y9ha$
e.
- UN h ,
15 The commies are coming." Swear to G ,
16 Does that tell you what kind of a great 17 employment system they were running? The State of Texas.
Is came in there and took away every license they had. Fined ,
19 them thousands of dollars. Took their weapons away. Stopped 20 the inspection d '
21 e wanted to come home. Hell, they've got 22 to ra n i= everybody. Uh-uh. Stay down there. We stayed.
23 We' stayed and they kept coming in and they kept coming 24 in there with their questions.
F
.. 25 So what do we do? Do we ignore them or Heritage Reporting Corporation
- s. ~
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70 1 do-we tell them to go talk to so-and-so at Riverbend or 2 Wolf Creek.
. 3 That's what we did, but when it came to **~
4 you, hey, "They told us to do what Riverbend or Wolf Creek 8 did."
6 Jim Kelly made a comment about the educational 7 system at Bay City, Texas, and he was right on the money.
8 I graduated from high school and it was a segregated high 9 school, in 1963, and I knpw tha he ptudents over in Butler k m &% (4>1(V 4 Hi High Schooljprobally did not get as good an education as 11 I did and it was wrong.
12 That was the problem with Mr. Woodard. He
.. 13 had not been taught to read and write. Jim Kelly defended 14 him. He told the licensee, " Hey, you have a moral obligation, 18 nv ' t hat you've hired them, to teach them what they need 16 to know to read the procedurer and be able to pass these 17 tests."
18 If not, they'd have fired Woodard and everybody 19 else that could not do an essay question that day. They 20 would have fired them.
21 Jim Kelly went to bat for them. Jim Kelly
[,
. 22 stated these older guys down here all went to segregated 23 schools, just like Bruce did down here in this part of 24 the country. They just didn't get a good education, but 25 you hired them and you've got a moral obligation.
Herttoge Reporting Corporation
l 71 i When it comes out in the report, Jim Kelly i
2 is a racist. That is the most unfair observation I've
. ... 3 ever seen in my entire life. **
4 Now, it said something about Claude Johnson, i s our resident inspector down there, hearing rumors. Did 6 he report the names of the people that talked to him to i 7 the NRC people h9re?
8 I don't know. Nobody seemed to have asked I L 9 him that question. I didn't get a chance to see it. I le just-wanted to know.
Il Did you interview any of these people that 12 supposedly passed these rumors on to him? !
., 13 He tried to skate out of the fact that --
~
14 he said something about security being outside the scope is of his authority. That's an inaccurate statement.
l 16 Resident inspectors have to spend a certain 17 number-of hours in their inspection year doing security 18 modules. He wound up doing modules for us down there as 19 did four other resident inspectors, because we just couldn't l
20 look at everything they were working on.
gp[p' 21 You know, it said that Kerns and Hill both MI ) i 1, 22 stated that they had heard I used a crowbar on bhet'-- '
l 23 who told them that? It's impossible. The guy had to be .
24 mistaken or just making it ag or just out-and-out lying
- 25 with a cause.
Herttoge Reporting Corporation
.7 72 i MS. ROWE: You said Sheesley did that testing, 1
2 didn't you?
. 3 THE WITNESS: He did all the testing. Ask ,
4 Dave Sheesley pointblank, " David, did Bruce Earnest ever s beat up the turnstiles with a crowbar? Did he ever bring 6 a crowbar or burglar tools on site?"
7 And I'll tell you what his answer is going l
8 to bei No.
9 Now, if I "e got to test something, just to like I jumped through the detection zone out there, the 11 E field, you know why? Because Larry Riley and Andy Hill 12 sat there and argued for hours on end that they weren't
.,. 13 required to test that system that way.
~
14 " Gentlemen, if you do not test it this way, 15 then I will have to test it myself, because I must determine 16 if it will detect."
17 It did not. I knew it would not becadse 18 of the configuration they had it in and the-equipment they 19 were using. Therefore, they had a totally inadequate 20 detection system en the perimeter.
21 But they argued, " Hey, my plan doesn't say ,
$...'., 22 I have to do that."
23 " Hey, your plan also says, though, you have 24 a system that will detect intruders passing through the
,s
.s 25 protected area," and they didn't. '
Herttoge Reporting Corporation
- - -e, -- -
l 73 ;
.. l i So I tested it and once I did -- I only ;
2 tested a couple of zones and said, " Hey, it doesn't work, j
_, 3 guys. You knew it, too, didn't you?" -- '
\
4 "Well, yeah, we discovered it." )
- 3. "Then why in the world did you tell me that i
6 it was ready to inspect?"
w That's what we ran into down there.
1 It -)
8 was constant. They were desperate. Andy had not told 9 Goldberg and Vaughn the truth. That's why Andy left e S '
7' to If he had told them in April and May when I
11 we were trying to tell him, " Hey, for God's sake, you've i 12 got to tell your bosses now or we're going to call them 13 in." l
~
14 We kept hearing rumors that hey, they weren't l Is telling the truth down there to the upper structure. We 16 called them in here and briefed them. -
17 But that's what we got. That's what we l
put up with d.e.:r. '
la re. gf I, h d M Yandell's derogatory remarks or comments,
$ ,Mes 20 ar s t *- * = M *ect:2, iv- k . ~a Yandell is the most morally 21 correct person I've ever met in my entire life.
.?- 22 If he tells me the sun is not coming up 23 tomorrow, I'll believe him. He told Rekuler?
24 MS. ROWE: Roy Rekugler. j 25 THE WITNESSt Rekugler. He made a statement Her"toge Reporting Corporation
E . i
)
I thathethoughtLarryYandellwasunprofessionAkntheway i
2 that he talked about Rekugler's management -- no" Rekugler's, I i
3 but the security management. Excuse me. "'
)
4 Mr. Yandell simply told the truth. He said, 8 "Your security managers.do not have.the right experience. 1 6 They are not cooperative. They do not know how to run ,
7 the security organization and they are in deep trouble t
8 as far as getting a license." 1 9 If that's derogatory remarks -- I'm sure 5 i
10 it made Mr. Rekugler angry. Tough. Does he want the truth 11 or does he want apple pie in the sky? Well, I'm sorry.
12 We told the truth down there. hY CD i
., 13 Sometimes we were pretty strong bou
'~ '
14' truth, but that's vnat Yandell told him. But thatagoes e 15 in the report and it sounds terrible for Larry.
16 Ihre seen Larry lose his temper. He's got t 17 a trashcan in his office. When he loses his temper, he 18- shuts the door and quietly beats his trashcan to hell.
19 That's how Larry loses his temper. He never loses it any 20 other way.
21 But the thing is, they said, "Well, he made
'- 22 derogatory comments about the security ma ers."IOWell, jd4dL N "lH 23 if there wasn't something wrong blar, why did HL&P fire 24 Hill and Riley?
25 We didn't manufacture all this. We tried Heritoge Reporting Corporation
)
7,, r 75 t l l' to do everything we could. I was about ready to quit so I
.2 I could go to work with them so I could get them a license.
3 Fix everything, get them a license and then come back aWd i
4 work up here. j
$ I thought'it was going to be quicker to 1 1
6 get out of Bay City that way.
7 And what about contradictions between what 8 Fields and Hill state about Kelly?~ Hill says that Kelly- -i l
' is a terrible inspector. Fields says, "No, he's the finest l
- 10 guy down here." And I'll talk to m about that. I don't !
Il agree with him. I * '
i 12 You know, Vaughn, he disagrees'with Hill 1
13 and Moore and Hall. He says, "No, we had major problems."
~
14 But yet when it comes out, Donna, we over-18 regulated them. The problems were there. We didn't manufactur e.
t 16 them.
1 i 17 If we had.have, I'm sure that somebody in l
l 18 the chain of command throughout NRC would have said, " Hey, 19 stop. Halt. You're wrong." Nobody ever did. " Hey, nice 20 going, guys, keep charging. -I'm glad you found it. We 1
21 didn't want this to be another Vogel where-they licensed
]'f 22 it and then found 200-and-some-odd violations within a 't 23 week."
h 24 You all presented like I mentioned earlier, 28 Partlow, that I brought my own crowbar into that plant.
Herttoge Reporting Corporation i
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76 i
)
MS. ROWEt No, we said we were told such-2 and-such-and-such,-and he responded. Like I said, you.
. 3 have not read the attachments. .. !
. i 4 THE WITNESS: I'd love to. Send them to
$ me. I've sent in two requests.
6 MS. ROWE All these individuals have addressed 4 7 the issues. You've read the report and when it gets to ;
8 attachments, you just have to guess what it says.
9 THE WITNESS:
1 Let me ask you something.
10 Get this picture.
11 You go in and you ask Mr. Partlow or Mr.
12 Ericson -- and I have to work with.these gentlemen. They
, 13 have oversight over security way up there in the sky where p 14 you all live, you know, we call it the rear area commando's 15 house.
16 Mr. Partlow gets a question, "Well, if Mr.
17 Earnest brought a crowbar into~' the p t to (o his own A vlp4[0V 18 testing, would that be a _qa +7" You just' told Mr. Partlow 19 and ' planted in his mind that Bruce Earnest is running around 20 with a damn set of burglary tools and a crowbar in his 21 back pocket.
i w
v 22 Come on, guys. That's the way it came out 23 in what you said in the report.
24 MS. ROWE That is not the way the line *
.. 25 of questioning nor the way it was produced in the report.
Heritage Reporting Corporation
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77 i
i THE WITNESS: I can only tell you the way i
!: 2 the report -- !
t 3 MS. ROWE You're reading your own percaptions 4 into some things here, too.
$ THE WITNESS: Mine and my boss's and his L
6 boss's and his boss's, and all of them.
t.
We've sat down ,
7 and discussed it. ,
l 8 MS, ROWE Your interpretation, right?
r 9 THE WITNESS: That's right, but Donna, that's le the written word that my career hangs on. That's what 11 the uninformed would believe when reading that.
12 MS. ROWE Bruce --
l .. . , 13 THC WITNESS: You're too close to the issue, t 14 , . like I am. Maybe I do have a bad perspective on it, '
15 but some of the things in there to the uninitiated makes 16 it sound like Bruce Earnest -- Nowhere in there did you 17 all say that Bruce Earnest did not bring burglar tools 18 in there.
19 Nowhere in there did you all say that he 20 didn't bring his own crowbar in there, because nobody got 21 asked. But it's in the report so that sticks in people's
.w8
. . 22 minds.
23 I've talked to inspectors out of Region II,-
24 IV -- correction -- II, V and III about that, and rumors 25 are bounding all over that we over-regulated and we went i
Heritoge Reporting Corporation w + v +
. . t 78 ;
I in'there and did this and did that and did this, and we 2 can't even stop the rumors.
i 3 We ' re su f fering . .
4 MS. ROWE Bruce, you're not mentioned in
$ the investigation report in tcma of th* crowbar. Didn't 6 we refer that to Mr. Ste11o's office? '
7 THE WITNES : u wo with -- I Yeah,d srw o ICW c i 8 but it was in eb -- yo know, the little thick job. ;
i llpti l4 I '
9 No t &l4--t hn ** "*- !"R- where you came to your conclusions 10 and all that. I skated on this thing, Donna.
11 You didn't really say I did anything wrong '
12 in your report, did you?
l 13 MS. ROWE We weren't investigating issues 14 that dealt with you at the time.
! 15 T WITRESS: The people who instigated gM>u iI: HI II 16 this thing was Ron and Jim because they felt that they I
l 17 needed to clear the air about the prejudicial thing about l L '
L 18' them going to work down ther,, Okay? ,
it: MS. ROWE The job thing.
20 THE WITNESS: Yeah, that's what I mean.
21 Prejudice against the licensee because they didn't get 22
) a job. That was never even discussed down there. I% [4f8I 23 n e d,Ron Jim even discuss it before .#*
24 We were hoping to go down there, work two 25 weeks and come home. We had no -- Nobody had any hard Heritoge Reporting Corporation
79 I feelings. !
2 But remember one thing. The issues that l l
') kept that plant from getting a license vere not Ron an&*'
4 Jim's. They were mine. The systems were what held it j i
5 up so long. They were my issues.
6 The training qualification, my issue. -But )
7 they didn't have any way to get to me and I don't know 1
8 why they decided -- they wanted to say Jim and Ron were --
L 9 they had applied for jobs, and they were easy to get to I
le that way. ,
- i. Il That's a easy one to prove. Hell,yph, jJg
- dL1P W IIIe g 12 they did apply for g- they at least questionedg about it. .;
l . 13 My God, I have people call me up all the time. ;
i 14 I guess I just don't really understand.
15 All this information is in there but there's nothing disproved. I l-l 16 Hill stated that Earnest brought his own 17 crowbar and his burglar tools in and that he used a big f 18 truck crowbar to tear up the turnstiles.
19 Where did you ask anybody? Why did you .
20 put that in there if it's not fact? It's not fact and 21 no one that was there will tell you it's fact.
22 Why was that in the report? It makes it 23 look bad for all of us.
24 MS. ROWE It was an issue that we could 28 not address because it was of a technical nature, so therefore Herttoge Reporting Corporoflon
'l . ..
i 80 i
i we re ferred it.
2 THE WITNESS: That is criminal. I destroyed 3 private property, if that's the truth. -"
4 MS. ROWE .Somebody's statement doesn't f 5 make it right. It's just a statement.
i 6 THE WITNESS: But you addressed the over- }
l 7 regulation issue.
8 MS. ROWE I had to address it because that l 9
was one of the issues I went down there to talk about. .
10 THE WITNESS: Okay, that's part of the over-L 11 regulation is destructive testing.
12 MS. CONNELLY: I think we're getting beyond -- *
. 13 and we can continue this of f the record.
14 I think what you've given us today is very '
15 enlightening and very important and I'd like for you to
?
t 16 continue on if you have more in addressing the real issues 1,
17 here.
18 MS. ROWE I do have one question I would l'
- 19 like to ask you.about Woodard.
1, M THE WITNESS: Lay it on me. I 21- BY MS ROWE
, 22 4 Was it a falsified record that said he had R
23 attended a college in the Houston area?
24 A I don't have the slightest idea. It could
- 25 be.
Herttoge Reporting Corporation
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81
, O But you have knowledge that he cciuld not 2
read r write?
- A It was easy to see. Pt ;"y -- "O ::h,;,7 3
. p g ;;;; _
h [88 N 4
, O I'm asking you.
A -- and he couldn't.
0 You asked him to do --
7 A I asked the licensee, "Tell me, why did 8
she fill this out, the secretary?"
"Because the guy couldn't do it himself."
,, O Who told you that?
g A The guy who was in charge of Wackenhut at g3 the time, who was doing all the hiring and firing.
g 0 Dreimiller?
g A No, no, no. Dreimiller wasn't.
g 0 Who was?
g A The contract man for Wackenhut. We asked 18 him simply enough and we questioned some of the people g involved and we asked thm., "Can this guy read and write?
Are there any others out tl.ere?"
3
.g " Yeah, there probably are." We didn't have p to prove it. They were admitting it themselves, g MS. CONNELLY: I'd like to pull a statement out and ask you about it. It will take a minute to find it. Why don't we go off the record and give the court 3
Heritage Reporting Corporation
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82 i reporter a short break.
2
[Brief recess taken.) ;
.; . 3 MS, ROWE We're back on the record. --
4 BY MS. ROWE s 0 We have a question regarding a comment that ;
6 was made and you may have been privy to that particular .
7 comment. Kelly was referring to a utility employee and 8 he said that he thought it was a problem that blacks and '
9 whites growed up together down here and appeared to be 10 just slow.
If You were --
p, 12 A What he said, and I was there, is that these g
13 guys growing up together down here went to segregated schoolt 14 and just got awfully poor schooling. That was a context. I t
15 That was a meaning, just exactly what I said to you earlier.
16 He in no way meant that as a racial or 17 derogatory comment, other than to indicate the type of 18 schooling that the guys my age got at that time.
19 It's always bern a poor school district 20 down there. Makes some of the best football players in 21 thin atate. A&M recruits down there every year.
l ')
~s 22 BY MS. CONNELLY:
L 23 O Did he say it in this way: " Blacks and 24 whitos growed up together"? 4 25 A No, I don't remember it that way. I remember Heritage Reporting Corporation
83 I it, "These guys grew up together down here," meaning the 3 black and white guys, you know, both black and white. He
... 3 might have said, "The black and white guys grew up down -
4 here and went to school in segregated schools and they 8 probably got an awfully poor education."
6 Now, whether he said it, how he said it, 7 I can't give you the exact words, but I can tell you what 8 the context was he was trying to say.
9 0 You gave us the context.
10 A Because I was there. We were discussing Il the Woodard thing.
12 0 One of the concerns is not necessarily that
. 13 it is intended to be a racial remark but that it gives 14 the appearance it's a racial remark by the words that were is used, the way it was sai?
16 A Wish you all h time to meet my wife, okay?
17 I married one of the kindest, gentlest people in the world,.
18 but I get nicknamed Rambo because I am -- you know why?
19 Because I play a lot of sports, racquetball, softball, 30 and I go out and I give the appearance of an absolute maniac 21 out there. I am a competitor and I have a terrible deep
] 22 mean voice. I can freeze a soldier a hundred yards away 13 at a stiff position of attention by whispering, almost.
24 But I'm one of the kindest people in the 28 world. I can't help that appearance and it's not intentional.
Herttoge Reporting Corporation I
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84 j l Jim Kelly may have given somebody the 2 appearance, but I promise you it was unintentional and
. 3 nothing that I heard gave me the appearance that it was" 4 a racial slur.
8 If someone was sensitive, overly sensitive, 6 that's their problem, not ours. There was nothing said 7 that on the 'sasis of the words alone would indicate that 8 it wa s a sc ?i ~ slur.
9 0 Let me ask you about another comment that le was made by Mr. Kelly, allegedly made, and I don't know it if you were present or not.
12 Did you ever hear Mr. Kelly say to the licensee 13 that, "The old boy can't read or write"?
14 MS ROWE That was the comment regarding l$ Woodard.
16 THE WITNESS: No, because I was there when 17 we were discussing Woodard. I said, " Hey, this guy cannot 18 read or write."
19 BY MS. CONNELLY:
20 0 Did you refer to him as "an old boy"?
21 A No.
22 MR. DRESSLAR: Is there something wrong 23 with referring to somebody as "an old boy"?
24 THE WITNESS: Well, some blacks would --
- 25 when you mention " boy," I mean it sets them off like a Herttoge Reporting Corporation
3; .- .
85 I firecracker and I understand that. At some time in the 2 past it's been a derogatory comment. It's not the case 3 now. I'll go up to a young security guard; he might be-4 black. I'll say, " Hey, son, come here a minute."
$ MS. ROWE: That's not " boy."
6 THE WITNESS: Maybe not.
7 MR. DRESSLAR: Well --
8 MS. CONNELLY: There is something of fensive 9 to blacks about the word " boy."
10 THE WITNESS: But maybe he took it the wrong 11 way. Was there anything wrong with that? No, but if he 12 took it the wrong way, I understand what you're trying
,. 13 to say. Okay?
14 MR. DRESSLAR: Could I ask a question on 18 this whole issue, and I've wondered about it ever since 16 I got involved with this.
17 We all know what the problem with racism 18 is, but --
19 MS. ROWE We do?
20 MR. DRESSLAR: Well, I haven't seen anything_
21 in the record --
t
]; 22 THE WITNESS: I do.
23 MR. DRESSLAR: -- that -- Where is the 24 Agency going with that? Say it's all even true, which 28 is a big step, but say it's all even true --
Herttoge Reporting Corporotton
86 I MS. CONNELLY: It would not be appropriate 2 to make a racist remark whether one intended to be racist 3 or not. //[7 4!88
~
4 THE WITNESS: I agree. (d/y Md M* f
$ MS. CONNELLY: We have to be very sensitive 6 as federal employees to those kinds of things.
7 THE WITNESS: But he didn't. He did noti 8 and yes, I understand racism. My daddy was a half-breed.
- 9. I'm a quarter blood. You grow up in Texas and it's easier le to be black.
Il MS. CONNELLY: Okay.
12 THE WITNESS: I can't say that. I don't
- 13 know, but I felt -- I took a lot of heat over it.
~
14 BY MS. CONNELLY:
15 0 You did make a comment earlier, while it's 16 not at all relevant to what we're doing here, but it's 17 such an inconsistent comment that I think I would like 18 to just clear it up for the recorf.
19 You said you were a high school dropout 20 and then you later told us you graduated from high school 21 in 1963.
/,] 22 k When I started my sophomore year, I quit.
23 I stayed out the whole year. I lied about my age and went 24 to work on the oil rigs and I stayed out the whole year.
- 25 I came back the next year, took seven courses Heritage Reporting Corporation ,
1 87 1
i each semester, went to summer school at night, worked all 2 day at a sawmill and I graduated with my old class with
~
- 3 honors.
4 0 Thank you for clearing that up.
8 A That year taught me about an education, 6 believe me. The best education I got in high school was 7 that. year I stayed out. Guys old enough to be my grandfather 8 out there making the same $40 a week I was.
9 MS. CONNELLY: Did you have anything else 10 you wanted to put on the record, Mr. Earnest?
Il THE WITNESS: Only this. I don't think 12 anybody has any malice, but it appears sometimes that you
~
,; 13 all are just beating up on us on this thing.
~
14 We did a good job at South T s an e is did it as a team. If there's any fault te 50 bl- rd , it 16 should be apportioned among the three of us.
17 I don't know of anything that we did that 18 was outside of what little guidance we had or outside of 19 what we would normally do during an inspection under extremely 20 difficult conditions, and it was amazing that we got done 21 what we did.
[j. 22 They learned a lot. I'm doing the pre-op
-23 for South Texas Unite 2 right now and I haven't found a 24 single thing that would prevent them from getting a license,
- 25 not one single licensing issue.
Herttoge Reporting Corporation
, , . . .- __ ._m _ _ .._. __ . . _ _ , . .m . . . ,
lir .
88 i Why? Because they hired a good manager 2
to come in there and run it and he's doing a good job.
. 3 The reason I know he's a good manager, he used to be my" 4 boss in the U.S. Army Military Police Corps. The guy is ;
5 great. 'i 6 MS. ROWE Who is that?
7 THE WITNESS: Bill Randlett. He used to 8 be my boss.
9 MS. ROWEt How do you spell his last name? ,
le THE WITNESS: R-a-n-d-1-e-t-t, William Randlett.
11 I didn't know he had even been hired until he came up here 12 for a meeting back in November or December of last year,
- 13 and it was great to see him again. I've written him several 14 violations since then on his Unit i license be usethg 15 first thing I told him, "I'm glad to see kkmI I'm glad 16 you're here. Say hello to your lovely wife Chris for me, i 17 but if you're wrong, I'm going to write you, Bill," and' 18 I have, including escalated enforcement, and will continue 19 to do so. No slack, just fair.
V 30 MS. ROWE Unit 1 was your first pre-op, 21 though, wasn't it?
{; 22 THE WITNESS: Yes, it was, but see, there's 23 nothing difficult about a pre-op normally. You use the l 24 same inspection criteria as you do during your normal annual
., 25 inspections at all the plants.
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1 Thisisjusth first time in the licensing 2 process.
~
. 3 MS. ROWE: Right.
4 THE WITNESS: Not many people get'to do '
8 pre-op, because there's just not that many plants coming ,
6 on line. I t
7 MS. ROWE All right. I have no further 8 questions. Do you have any more comments to make?
9 THE WITNESS: No.
10 MS. CONNELLY: We appreciate -- ,
I ll THE WITNESS: I promise I'm not going to 12 call Senator Proxmire. Okay?
_ 13 MS. CONNELLY: That's all right. Feel free 14 to. ;
18 THE WITNESS: No, no. You work in this 16 Agency just like I do.
I' 17 MR. DRESSLAR I would like a comment on 18 the record about what you said'about understanding racism.
It I think it's rather condeacending to make a remark like 20 that. You come down here and try to tell us about racism, ,
21 at least that's what I -- Wait a second. That's what
~
j 22 I got from the remark.
v 23 We've lived down here our whole life, except 24 for a few years I lived in California, and we do know what 9
28 it's all about, and my wife knows what it's about and my Herttoge Reporting Cerporation
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90 t children'know what it's about because they've been victims 2 of it, and my mother has.
3 So don't -- and I see it all the time. s'o 4
don't come down here and tell us that we don't know what 5 problems with racism are, because we do and we see it, e and as a union rep I deal with it every day and defend 7
people or prosecute people, however you want to put it.
8 I see it up and down the line, so I do under-9 stand it. I certainly understand what the problems are.
le THE WITNESS: I've got one brother and he's 4deIt
!! the biggest bigot I know. M 'e-=M M " " "
E]
12 MS. CONNELLY: Perhaps we should take this
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,. 13 discussion off the record.
14 THE WITNESS: I don' t care. Put it on the is record; anything you want to.
16 MR. DRESSLAR: I thought it was off the 17 record. '
18 MS. CONNELLY: No. Let's go off the record.
It [Whereupon, at 5:35 p.m., the interview L
l 20 ceased.)
i 21 22 ,
23 24 25 Heritage Reporting Corporoflon
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I hereby' certify that this'is:-the transcript 3-( 'of _'the proceedings held before the NUCLEAR REGULATORY "
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COMMISSION:on November 9, 1988,-Interview of ALONZO BRUCE-t 5 EARNEST, and that this is a ' full and correct- transcription
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.of the proceedings.
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Damia: i.
Mum you aware of the rumors, and what they wem about?
McBurtwtt: Yes. It was n i l
. STP by HRC isph. y urderstanding. Acccedingthat to Memwtt, there was Yandall a vendetta said against
( that Hill, Wiey and Moon would have to 90 in cedar for STP g to receive were inaffective its license. senagers. Yardell Y bellaved that those indiviAmia l end of stuly W.57In August ' . the 1 meds these statements at the l license was reasived, and v _ Mill and gley were removed fram their positions. h,
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