WASHINGTON — Already shaken by security lapses, the Energy Department is now acknowledging that 15 percent of classified documents mailed from three government nuclear laboratories last year went to addresses not approved to receive such material.

Department officials insist the errant mailings, disclosed in a new report from the agency's inspector general, did not compromise security and that the problem has been fixed.

But that assessment was challenged Wednesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman.

"They don't know that," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. "You can rationalize, justify just about anything, but at the end of the day, you don't know what might have been lost. You have to fear the worst in a situation like that."

The Energy Department keeps a computer database of addresses that are eligible to receive classified data. Anyone mailing classified data is supposed to check this list to ensure the address is approved.

The report said the mailings to unauthorized addresses were discovered in May, shortly after two computer disks containing nuclear secrets disappeared from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The disks reappeared three months later behind a copying machine at the lab.

Department security officials alerted by the agency's inspector general acknowledged that the mailings violated department policy but concluded that no classified information was compromised. They blamed contractors who did not have access to the list of approved addresses.

But Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman disagreed. In his report to Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, he blamed a "breakdown in the execution of internal controls designed to prevent transmittal of classified documents to inappropriate recipients."

Richardson's spokesman said agencies involved have recommended ways to correct the shortcomings. "I'm confident that General Gordon ... will work to ensure the fixes are made so the problems and errors are not repeated," spokesman Stu Nagurka said. Air Force Gen. John Gordon heads the National Nuclear Security Administration, created by Congress last year to oversee the labs.

In a Nov. 14 memo to Friedman, Deputy Energy Secretary T.J. Glauthier said the department is developing new rules under which contractors could lose some contract payments and be fined up to $100,000 if they fail to protect classified information. He said the new rules will be announced by May 31.

The investigation examined 177 mailings of classified documents last year from the Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Laboratory, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash.

Investigators found that 27 of the mailings, or about 15 percent of those reviewed, were sent to other federal agencies or federal contractors that were not in the database of approved addresses.

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Shelby has been an outspoken critic of security lapses at Energy Department labs. Last year, Los Alamos fired scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was later indicted on 59 federal felonies for improperly transferring nuclear secrets to portable computer tapes.

Lee pleaded guilty to one count in September and was set free after he agreed to cooperate with investigators searching for missing computer tapes with nuclear weapons data. FBI agents searched for the tapes this week in a landfill near the Los Alamos lab.

The case against Lee stemmed from an investigation of possible Chinese espionage at Los Alamos, but the Taiwan-born Lee denied spying and was never charged with espionage. While Lee was imprisoned, the two computer disks disappeared and then reappeared at the lab.

An FBI investigation into those computer disks is continuing. The University of California, which manages the Los Alamos lab, announced earlier this month it has disciplined workers because of the missing disks, but the number of workers and the nature of the discipline was not disclosed.

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