Contract to run Los Alamos lab to go up for bids

GovExec.com ^ | April 30, 2003 | Amelia Gruber

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

  Daily Briefing  

April 30, 2003

Contract to run Los Alamos lab to go up for bids

<! *** ADDRESS ***>By Amelia Gruber
agruber@govexec.com <! *** /ADDRESS ***>

<! *** STORY ***>

For the first time, the University of California will face competition for the contract to manage Los Alamos National Laboratories, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced Wednesday.

The university has operated Los Alamos for the Energy Department since the lab was opened 60 years ago. Its current contract ends in 2005. But recent allegations of mismanagement have led lawmakers and administration officials to rethink the university’s role.

Last year, two Los Alamos investigators accused lab managers of covering up widespread government purchase card abuse and obstructing investigations. Managers allegedly warned the investigators, Glenn Walp and Steven Doran, that they risked losing their jobs if they exposed theft and fraud that would make the University of California look bad.

More recently, a former computer analyst at Los Alamos claimed managers at the New Mexico facility purposely thwarted an e-mail monitoring program designed to prevent security leaks, at the university’s request.

Abraham based his decision to put the university’s contract up for bid on recommendations from Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow and Acting National Nuclear Security Administrator Linton Brooks.

In an April 26 memo, McSlarrow and Brooks said that Energy should allow the university to run the lab for the remainder of its existing contract, partly because of the “vigorous action the university is taking to correct the problems uncovered at [the lab].” The university initiated a series of high-level staff changes in January and is investigating the reports of thefts and fraud.

Energy also decided not to cancel the university’s current contract because that might disrupt work at the lab and worsen employee morale.

“At the same time, the university bears responsibility for the systemic management failures that came to light in 2002,” Abraham said in an April 29 memo to McSlarrow and Brooks. “Given that responsibility and the widespread nature of the problems uncovered at Los Alamos, I intend to open the management of Los Alamos to full competition when the current contract expires.”

Abraham emphasized that the University of California should feel free to bid for the contract and would compete on a level playing field.

In deciding whether to enter a bid, the university will consider a “number of critical issues, including the terms and conditions, the implications that a competition will have on the scientific work and integrity at the laboratory and whether it would result in any compromise of academic standards,” said its president, Richard Atkinson, in a statement. The university’s Board of Regents will make the ultimate decision on whether it will enter the competition, he said.

“My instinct continues to be to compete—and to compete hard—in order to continue the university’s stewardship of excellence in science and innovation,” Atkinson said. “We believe, with every fiber of our institutional being, that the continued UC management is in the absolute best interests of the nation’s security.”

A government watchdog group praised Energy’s announcement. “No matter who wins the competition, no longer will there be a ‘contract for life’ mentality,” said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington watchdog group. “Accountability will be injected in the process for the first time in Los Alamos’ 60 year history.”