NRC staffers quietly become gun-toting cops

Mike Stuckey Senior news editor • Profile • E-mail

With no public discussion or input from Congress, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has quietly obtained armed federal police status for a small office of investigators whose big cases typically involve people sleeping on the job, falsifying documents or misplacing equipment.

“I didn’t realize you needed guns and handcuffs to protect yourself against paper cuts,” said Dave Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a longtime critic of the NRC’s Office of Investigations.

The police status was granted after the office claimed it needed powers it never or rarely uses, and raised the specter of clandestine and dangerous missions in letters and memos to other federal agencies. While police powers may be of questionable value in performing NRC investigations, they support a job classification that pays non-managerial agents an average of $130,000 a year and as much as $145,000.

The Office of Investigations was formed in 1982 to investigate violations by licensees and contractors of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the five-member panel appointed by the president to oversee non-military applications of nuclear technology. When agents suspect criminal violations, they’re supposed to notify the Justice Department, which then decides if a criminal investigation will be opened.

No 'statutory authority'
That’s because the NRC has no “statutory authority” to investigate crimes, a power that Congress has specifically granted to other agencies. The agency has recognized it does not have that power and rejected advice in a 2005 “peer review” that it consider seeking it from Congress.

But in 2005 and again last year, all 30 agents in the NRC's Office of Investigations were deputized as U.S. marshals. Known as “blanket deputation” and valid until Nov. 30, 2009, the act gives the NRC agents the power to make arrests, serve search warrants, protect confidential informants, conduct electronic eavesdropping and carry firearms.

Guy Caputo

Office of Investigations Director Guy Caputo said his agents need police powers to do their NRC jobs and that their classification as criminal investigators has undergone “a long litany of scrutiny." 

That scrutiny has largely been applied by James Foster, a retired NRC employee who has argued for years that OI agents are improperly classified as criminal investigators. He maintains that “99.99 percent of Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of Investigations special agents’ duties consist of non-custodial interviews with cooperative witnesses and document reviews."

Because the OI was not granted law enforcement authority by Congress, Foster maintains it was improper to place OI agents in the criminal investigator job category to begin with. That classification, obtained shortly after the office was formed, carries a 25 percent salary premium for being available to work long hours and full retirement benefits after 20 years of service for agents 50 or older.

Instead, he says, OI agents should be classified as general investigators whose work sometimes touches on criminal cases but who are ineligible for the extra salary and early retirement.  His own “very conservative analysis” indicates that the government has needlessly spent more than $15 million on extra salary and benefits over the years.

Foster said the NRC got and preserved the criminal investigator status by providing “vague, erroneous or misleading and false information” to other agencies. He points to NRC statements that all of OI’s cases are criminal investigations and that agents have “frequent and direct contact with suspected or convicted criminals.” He believes deputy status could help pre-empt future questions about whether OI agents should be paid as criminal investigators.

But Caputo, the OI director, said the agents' status was supported by a 1999 review by the NRC’s inspector general. Performed in response to Foster’s allegations, the probe concluded there was “no indication of wrongdoing by NRC staff concerning the classification of OI investigators.”

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