Report: U.S. disregarded experts over biolab site

WASHINGTON -- The Homeland Security Department swept aside evaluations of government experts and named Mississippi -- home to powerful U.S. lawmakers with sway over the agency -- as a top location for a new $451 million national laboratory to study some of the world's most virulent biological threats, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The disclosure is the latest example of what critics assert is the Bush administration's politicizing of government decisions, such as efforts to steer science over global warming at the Environmental Protection Agency and hiring and firing practices at the Justice Department.

"It is very suspicious," said Irwin Goldman of the University of Wisconsin, a leader of the unsuccessful effort to build the lab in Madison. His community's offer was among nine sites rejected even though it received a high score from the government than Mississippi's. "We wondered how everybody else did. It's interesting to know that we came out ahead of one that was short-listed."

The states where locations were eliminated despite earning scores higher than Mississippi include California, Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, Texas and Wisconsin.

Overruling concerns

Government experts originally expressed concerns that the proposed site in Flora, Miss., was far from existing biodefense research programs and lacked ready access to workers already familiar with highly contagious animal and human diseases, such as foot-and-mouth virus, that could devastate the U.S. livestock industry. They assigned the site a score that ranked it 14th among 17 candidate sites in the United States.

But a senior Homeland Security official, Undersecretary Jay Cohen, overruled those concerns under the theory that skilled researchers would move to Mississippi if it were selected for the new lab, according to a July 2007 internal government memorandum, marked "sensitive information" and obtained by the AP. Cohen accepted the argument that, "When built, they come."

A former Navy officer, Cohen is a political appointee, nominated by President Bush in June 2006.

For Wisconsin, Cohen determined that community opposition to the new lab was too great despite the area's highly respected researchers. Some local officials had threatened to withhold sewer service from the lab.

"It raised my eyebrows a bit when Mississippi was selected," said George Stewart of the University of Missouri, another rejected location that also earned a score higher than Mississippi's. "Obviously, there were factors other than what they were looking for in the site visits. The group that did the site visits were scientists and know what they were looking for. I don't know what DHS was looking for."

Stephen Schimpff, who led unsuccessful efforts to bring the lab to Beltsville, Md., complained that the government's analysis seemed confusing. The department said there were too many skilled researchers near Beltsville, just outside Washington, and the agency worried about competing to hire them.

"We were surprised when some of the things we felt were our strengths were turned back on us as weaknesses," Schimpff said.

Under the department's own rules, it was free to disregard the recommendations of the government experts it appointed. But it said it selected advisers who were experts and were screened carefully for any conflicts of interest, working through seven stages of recommendations over 18 months. Cohen personally made the choices for the five sites in the eighth and final stage of the decision.

Improper intervention?

Some lawmakers already skeptical over the department's plans said Cohen's intervention on behalf of Mississippi appears improper.

"It appears that the undersecretary responsible for this program may have corrupted the site selection process by putting his thumb on the scale in favor of a particular site and its contractor, in violation of his own rules and over the objections of his own advisers," said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. "This raises the question of whether DHS is interested in bioresearch or just shameless empire building."

Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, held oversight hearings in May examining the risks of building the new lab on the U.S. mainland near livestock herds. The facility would replace an existing 24-acre research complex on isolated Plum Island, about 100 miles northeast of New York City in the Long Island Sound. Besides foot-and-mouth disease, researchers also would study African swine fever, Japanese encephalitis, Rift Valley fever and the Hendra and Nipah viruses. Construction would begin in 2010 and take four years.

"If any of the five finalists scored lower than those eliminated from the process, we've got a big problem on our hands," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. Her state's proposal scored higher than Mississippi's, but Homeland Security rejected it over "growing negative community feedback."

In his memo, Cohen acknowledged the government evaluation committees graded Mississippi's site as merely "satisfactory" with scores of 72 and 75 in its research and work force categories, respectively. The Mississippi site's overall grade was 81, or "very good," which still was lower than nine other rejected U.S. sites.

Besides Flora, Miss., the U.S. locations under consideration for the new lab are Athens, Ga.; Manhattan, Kan.; Butner, N.C.; and San Antonio.