--- description: Republicans may have found a new way to go after the Energy Department. Monday, White House sources told reporters, Chief of Staff Leon Panetta scolded... title: EMBARRASSED BY O'LEARY image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # EMBARRASSED BY O'LEARY by [TIME](/author/time/) Dec 12, 1995 5:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Dec 12, 1995 5:00 AM CUT Republicans may have found a new way to go after the Energy Department. Monday, White House sources told reporters, Chief of Staff Leon Panetta scolded DOE Secretary Hazel O’Leary in the wake of a Sunday Los Angeles Times story that portrays O’Leary as a free-spending globe-trotter. In one instance, O’Leary chartered a luxury jet to travel to South Africa with 51 DOE colleagues and some 68 others, including business executives and academic experts, at a cost to taxpayers of $560,000\. “The White House is denying Panetta rebuked O’Leary and defending the trips she’s made,” reports TIME’s James Carney. “They like O’Leary, think she’s done a good job, and clearly hope this won’t snowball into a situation where they have to take more drastic action.” Congressional Republicans have a chance to raise the matter Thursday, when O’Leary is scheduled to testify at a House hearing on nuclear waste. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6927171/embarrassed-by-oleary/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6927171/embarrassed-by-oleary/"},"headline":"EMBARRASSED BY O'LEARY","datePublished":"1995-12-12T05:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-23T00:50:48.746Z","description":"Republicans may have found a new way to go after the Energy Department. Monday, White House sources told reporters, Chief of Staff Leon Panetta scolded...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6927171/embarrassed-by-oleary/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6927171/embarrassed-by-oleary/","name":"EMBARRASSED BY O'LEARY"}}]}] ```