PSH-17-0057 - In the Matter of Personnel Security Hearing

On January 16, 2018, an Administrative Judge determined that a request for access authorization under 10 C.F.R. Part 710 should not be granted. The individual, who is an applicant for access authorization, disclosed three DWI arrests during the security investigation. As a result, the LSO referred the individual to a DOE consultant psychiatrist for an evaluation; the DOE consultant psychiatrist concluded that the individual met the DSM-IV-TR criteria for Alcohol Abuse. Following the psychiatric evaluation, the individual sent the DOE psychiatrist a hand-written letter saying that he had not realized the purpose of the blood test ordered by the psychiatrist until he had discussed it with his wife and the individual apologized in the letter for underreporting his level of alcohol consumption to the psychiatrist. The individual acknowledged in a later PSI that he had been dishonest about his level of alcohol consumption during both an earlier PSI and the psychiatric evaluation. The Administrative Judge found that the individual had knowingly provided false information during the security clearance process, which he only corrected after he realized his falsifications had been detected. Immediately prior to the hearing, the DOE psychiatrist revised his evaluation, concluding that the individual exhibits no clinically significant distress or impairment as a result of his alcohol consumption and currently warrants no DSM diagnosis, but did warrant an Alcohol Abuse diagnosis in 2004-2008. The psychiatrist’s written reports raised questions that were not fully resolved by his testimony at the hearing. Notwithstanding, the Administrative Judge noted that the individual acknowledges that he continues to consume alcohol on four to five occasions each week to the point that he feelings some degree of impairment and is likely legal intoxication. Based on the foregoing, the Administrative Judge found that the individual had failed to mitigation the Guideline E and G security concerns and, therefore, the individual should not be granted an access authorization at this time. OHA Case No. PSH-17-0057 (Wade M. Boswell)