Organization
United States Department of Energy complex located in the high desert of eastern Idaho
Idaho National Laboratory earns a High Risk rating because it has adopted governance practices that emphasize identity-based preferences over merit and integrity, particularly in philanthropy and employment policy. It also scores poorly on corporate weaponization measures like funding and political actions, indicating a pattern of prioritizing partisan advocacy over neutral business operations.
Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in the western United States is one of the national laboratories of the U.S. Department of Energy, and is currently managed by the Battelle Memorial Institute. Historically, the lab in eastern Idaho has been involved with nuclear research, although the laboratory does other research as well. Much of the current knowledge of nuclear reactor behavior was discovered at this remote facility. John Grossenbacher, a former INL director, said, "The history of nuclear energy for peaceful application has principally been written in Idaho". The present facility resulted from the 2005 merger of two neighboring laboratories, the National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, and the Idaho site of the western branch of Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne-West).
