More VECO trouble for Uncle Ted Stevens...

[Blue_In_AK]

http://www.adn.com/news/politics/veco/story/9225372p-9140312c.html

FBI investigates science contracts awarded Veco
ARCTIC: $170 million in research contracts coincided with support for polar funding by Sen. Stevens.

By ERIKA BOLSTAD and GREG GORDON
McClatchy Newspapers

Published: August 16, 2007
Last Modified: August 16, 2007 at 10:03 AM

WASHINGTON -- The FBI is investigating the National Science Foundation's award of $170 million in contracts to the oil field services company that oversaw renovations on U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens' home.

The firm, Veco Corp., captured a lucrative five-year NSF contract in 1999 to provide logistics and support for polar research, although it had no previous experience in that field. During the same time period, Veco's top executive managed renovations that doubled the size of the longtime Republican senator's Girdwood home -- the scene of a July 30 FBI raid.

NSF spokesman Dana Cruikshank told McClatchy Newspapers that the FBI has made inquiries into the 1999 award, worth up to $70 million, and a 2004 follow-up contract for as many as seven years that the company values at up to $100 million. Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra and spokeswoman Deborah Weierman of the FBI's Washington field office, which is leading the investigation, declined comment on the NSF contracts.

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No evidence has surfaced that Stevens directly steered the contract to Veco, but his aggressive support for increased funding for Arctic research coincided with the company's sudden emergence as a major player in providing logistics for polar scientists. Under the contract, Veco helps transport researchers to remote Arctic regions for more than 150 scientific projects, feeds them, houses them and provides equipment and communications during their stays.

Stevens would not comment on any aspect of the investigation and has refused to talk about the FBI raid on his house. A spokesman said that the 83-year-old senator has long had an interest in seeing more money spent on Arctic research.

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In Allen's plea, he admitted paying fees to the younger Stevens' consulting firm beginning in 1995 -- six years before he was appointed to the state Senate. From 2002 to 2006 when he was a state senator, Stevens was paid $243,250 by Veco mainly for "giving advice, lobbying colleagues and taking official acts in matters before the legislature," Allen admitted in court filings. Allen also offered to make Stevens a Veco executive, the filings say.

"The thought was going around, that as the competition was going on within NSF, there was always this talk that Sen. Stevens' son was connected to Veco," Newton said. "A wink of an eye, so to speak, among people who were not involved in the evaluation. It was water cooler conversation."

One losing bidder questioned the fairness of Veco's initial award in 1999 and said it should "bear further scrutiny."

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