The world's most dangerous yard sale.

• Author: Noah, Timothy
• Position: Dept. of Energy sells nuclear materials to private citizen

Most people's eyes glaze over when they see the term "public-private partnership." It denotes a boring-but-laudable solution to bureaucratic anomie: Give certain governmental tasks to private industry and they will be performed more efficiently. Who could object to that?

Increasing the number of public-private partnerships is a cornerstone of the Clinton administration's gospel of "reinventing government," which draws heavily on the 1992 book of the same name by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler. Government is urged to "steer," not "row," delegating the actual delivery of services to lower-rank public or private entities. Thus Al Gore's 1993 National Performance Review calls for, among other things, privatizing Defense Department data processing.

"Steer, don't row" can sometimes be good advice. As Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman demonstrated in their best-selling In Search of Excellence, overly centralized management in a large organization does tend to deaden creativity. In government, probably the most extreme example of the problem is the way modern presidents have taken to using sophisticated communications technology to usurp military commanders in the field.

Sometimes, though, the problem with government isn't that it rows too much, but that it rows too little. The case that will forever cause me to shiver when I hear the seemingly innocuous phrase "public-private partnership" is that of Tom Johansen, a used-car dealer in Pocatello, Idaho, who bought major components of a nuclear reprocessor from the Energy Department's contractor-run Idaho National Engineering Lab. If I had my wish, all Clinton administration officials who brainstorm about ways to "reinvent government" would be required to hear this cautionary tale about what happens when the government allows too much control over important public matters to slip from its grasp.

Tom Johansen, 41, is the proprietor of Frontier Car Corral, a battered beige corrugated-metal edifice in Pocatello, outside of which stood, when I visited in late July, a green 1973 Chevy pickup, a beige 1975 Sportscoach motor home, and a 1972 Flexible interurban bus that Johansen had bought from a local rock band. In addition to selling used vehicles, Johansen, backed by a Salt Lake City metals company, has a brisk scrap trade in items he purchases from the Energy Department's nearby Idaho National Engineering Lab.

In June 1993, Johansen received a bid solicitation from E G & G Idaho Inc., one of three contractors that run the Idaho lab. His curiosity was piqued by the fact that the items for sale were stored at the warehouse complex across the street from his used car lot. The inventory list didn't make clear exactly what the components were, but he noted that several were listed as "VES," which he knew from previous auctions meant vessels, probably stainless steel. These, Johansen reasoned, might have some resale value to a chemical company.

Potential bidders were invited to inspect the material, and at the appointed hour Johansen and a few other local businessmen were ushered into Building 16. Several aspects of the scene immediately attracted notice. Outside was a sign that read "No Trespassing ... by authority of section 229 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954." Just inside the door were two armed guards. And inside the warehouse itself stood what struck Johansen as a "massive" collection of steel slabs and cylinders.

The warehouse manager, Jim Roker, told the businessmen that they were looking at parts of a scrapped plant for reprocessing nuclear fuel. According to Johansen, Roker said, "I can't believe they're selling this stuff." (Roker denies making the latter comment, but says someone else might have.) But the plant, formally known as the Fuel Processing Restoration Project (FPR), was not going to be built--the Bush administration had canceled the project in 1992--and the Energy Department's Idaho branch had tired of paying rent on the hardware.

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