• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

SAN FRANCISCO – The head of the federal agency overseeing the nation’s nuclear weapons research and stockpile advised the University of California Board of Regents to enter the fray and compete to continue managing Los Alamos National Laboratory.

“I urge you to decide. Not today, not this month, but ultimately to continue your long tradition of public service,” said Linton Brooks, acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The Department of Energy plans to accept bids to manage LANL in 2005.

The board took no formal steps toward deciding whether or not to bid, though the meeting’s tone suggested many regents are interested in retaining the UC’s ties with LANL.

“All of us, I think, are not afraid of competition,” said Regent Gerald Parsky.

UC President Richard Atkinson also revealed plans to take the restructuring of the lab’s management one step further by announcing his intent to recommend interim LANL director George “Pete” Nanos be hired as the lab’s permanent head at “the earliest possible date.”

Brooks explained that the DOE decided to put the contract up for bid because of multiple “systemic weaknesses” in the lab’s business management, indicated by problems with the lab’s controls over funds and property.

However, the decision was “not a repudiation” of the university’s overall involvement with LANL, Brooks said.

The DOE, Brooks said, could help the UC compete for a bid for LANL by modifying the existing contract to allow the UC to use the lab’s contingency funds to pay for competition costs.

Before the UC began its efforts to reform LANL management, about $9 million had been saved for contingencies at LANL. Some of this sum has already been spent on efforts to fix problems, and $1 million is required to be kept in reserve for transition costs in case another institution wins the contract.

Brooks gave high marks to the UC’s efforts to fix problems at LANL, which included the hiring of new senior administrators and multiple audits. Brooks also said that business problems did not reduce the quality of scientific research.

Similarly, Bruce Darling, the interim vice president of laboratory management, said faulty property controls did not jeopardize the safety of nuclear secrets.

“Los Alamos has verified all classified computers have been properly secured and no classified information was at risk,” Darling said.

Though Brooks and Darling were able to report these positive developments to the board, doubts surround the university’s chances for success if the regents decide to vie for the contract.

Questions remain whether the lab will be able to maintain quality research staff and if the UC will have a level playing field in any competition.

Regent Peter Preuss, the chairman of the committee on lab oversight, asked Brooks if the UC should worry about the panel that will advise the DOE on the lab contract.

One of the members of the panel, senior Pentagon official Dale Klein, has a professorial appointment at the University of Texas, which may also compete for the contract. On Tuesday the San Francisco Chronicle reported Klein urged the UT to bid for the contract of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, also run by the UC, and had endorsed the UT’s unsuccessful bid to manage Sandia National Laboratory.

Klein told the Chronicle he would be impartial in his new role with the DOE, and Brooks said the committee Klein sits on would not take a direct role in deciding who manages LANL after 2005.

Brooks wanted to reassure the regents the process had not become politicized.

“There has been no political pressure so far,” Brooks said.

Brooks said he plans to come up with criteria for the competition next year, and that bids will be submitted in early 2005 with a decision made summer of that year, though no specific dates have been decided upon.

“We haven’t nailed down a firm schedule yet,” he said.