Aiken, S.C., Standard: Stimulus Should Benefit Representative’s Interests
ByMike Gellatly
Aiken (S.C.) Standard staff writer
Though it is not in his congressional district, complaints have surfaced that House Majority Whip and 6th District Congressman James Clyburn is putting pressure on the Department of Energy that stimulus funds he acquired should benefit his interests.
An anonymous complaint filed with the Department of Energy’s Office of the Inspector General made many allegations of wrongdoing at the Savannah River Site. The whistleblower specifically outlined high-level DOE executives who the person said were using their positions to gain power and bolster their position within the department.
Those same people, specifically Cynthia Anderson, DOE Environmental Management’s (EM) head of the American Recovery Act Program, have allegedly demanded that Clyburn’s district benefit from the funds and that his district should be the focus for events.
Clyburn takes full credit for obtaining the $1.6 billion for the Savannah River Site of the $6 billion that went to the DOE Weapons Complex. He played a major role in the ARRA funds for this and also in the fight to force S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford to accept local funds.
Anderson has allegedly said that Clyburn’s influence is over the hiring of individuals from his district and the location of job fairs.
Clyburn directly denies he has unduly influenced any actions taken by Savannah River Nuclear Solutions or DOE.
“The SRS management team asked Congressman Clyburn for assistance in publicizing the Recovery Act funding, employment and business opportunities, and together they collaborated on an event in Columbia earlier this year,” said Hope Derrick, communications director for Clyburn. “Numerous other town hall meetings and job fairs have been scheduled across South Carolina and Georgia targeting high unemployment areas as the Recovery Act mandates, but they have been scheduled without the knowledge or involvement of Congressman Clyburn. Any allegations of undue influence with regard to SRS are simply untrue. It appears that DOE is casting a wide net to hire for the ARRA jobs.”
The kick-off event for SRS’ ARRA job fairs took place in Clyburn’s district in Columbia on June 1 while the others took place outside his district.
Two sources directly involved with the hiring of ARRA workers, who spoke under condition of anonymity, believe there is political motivation behind changes in plans. They said firms that have been contracting workers since June have recently been told they must track all workers, retroactively, making particular note of zip codes, addresses, race and gender.
“It’s just for show; they want to project to the public that they are reaching these certain markets … and (SRNS and DOE employees) knew it was useless,” one source said, talking of the 6th District. “But they were getting pressure from the congressional level, and they (SRNS) were told they had to do this.”
The same source has said that certain staffing firms do not intend to take part in future ARRA events since they view them as political.
A number of Road to Recovery Tour events are scheduled over the next two months. These events focus on smaller communities in areas of high unemployment; however, all of the next 13 events fall in Clyburn’s 6th Congressional District.
The event locations follow no other natural line, jumping from the Lowcountry and Georgetown on Oct. 21 to Florence on Oct. 22.
After these 13 events, the tour jumps over to Georgia for a few days and then back to South Carolina.
Road to Recovery events are listed on the SRS ARRA work website, but no official explanation of the events have been released.
The majority of the events take place at employment centers, such as the Aiken event, which is scheduled to take place Nov. 9 at the One-Stop Career Center.
