The president of a Yakima-based Hanford subcontractor says he cannot figure out why the Department of Energy's Inspector General's office executed a search warrant on his business.

"They just targeted us. I don't know the reason," said Inram Magsi, president of GN Northern Inc.

DOE Inspector General agents seized documents at GN Northern's headquarters Tuesday.

Jim Shiveley, a U.S. assistant attorney general, confirmed that DOE's Inspector General is investigating GN Northern.

But he and the Inspector General's headquarters in Washington, D.C., declined to elaborate.

Neither Bechtel National, which hired and later fired GN Northern, nor DOE's Office of River Protection, made any complaints to the Inspector General's office, their spokesmen said.

"I think they're trying to evaluate the validity of our claim (for payment)," Magsi said.

He said the Inspector General's office could have checked the records at his business without using a search warrant. "That was very unnecessary," he said.

Bechtel is building Hanford's radioactive waste glassification complex. In 2001, it hired GN Northern for $1.8 million to test construction materials. Bechtel terminated GN Northern's contract last April, because it was unhappy with the subcontractor's quality assurance program.

In a written statement released late Thursday, GN Northern contended that Bechtel audited and approved GN Northern's quality assurance program before the work began, but then found several problems after GN Northern showed up at the site.

Complying with Hanford's rules and procedures created a bigger administrative burden than GN Northern was led to expect, the company said.

"A number of hidden costs and changes in the project resulted in several points of contention between GN Northern and (Bechtel)," GN Northern's statement said.

The company offered to let Bechtel find another subcontractor to do the work, but Bechtel declined and the two sides renegotiated a new $2.6 million contact, GN Northern said.

Then GN Northern thought it fixed the quality assurance problems to Bechtel's satisfaction. But Bechtel later voiced more dissatisfaction with the firm's work for reasons "we ... still do not fully understand," GN Northern said.

GN Northern said nine of its employees including the project manager were absorbed by its replacement, which also tried to acquire the Yakima firm's test equipment.

"GN Northern strongly believes that while (Bechtel) took full advantage of publicly announcing the hiring of a small local business for work on (the glassification) project, they did not foster an environment in which it could succeed," the company's statement said.