ABQjournal: LANL Management Criteria Changed

Monday, January 10, 2005

LANL Management Criteria Changed

By Adam Rankin
Journal Staff Writer
    In response to concerns cited by a federal nuclear safety board, the National Nuclear Security Administration has submitted a corrected version of some parts of the draft criteria that will be used to determine the next manager of Los Alamos National Laboratory.
    The changes beef up the language in the request for proposals from potential LANL managers to assure government oversight of the contractor and that safety concerns aren't overlooked.
    Released Dec. 1, NNSA's draft request for proposals lays out what is expected of the next LANL manager. It is the first time such a document has been crafted for LANL, which has been operated by the University of California since 1943 without competition.
    The university's contract to run LANL expires at the end of September, and the Department of Energy will decide on a new manager by this summer.
    To the federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Board, the draft criteria gave too much control to the next manager, placed too great an emphasis on efficiency over safety and restricted the government's nuclear safety oversight.
    "All the language in the (request for proposals) suggesting that the contractor determines in the first instance how nuclear activities are to be carried out should be deleted," the board wrote in its December letter to NNSA chief Linton Brooks.
    The board's comments challenged NNSA's wording suggesting commercial practices were superior to federal standards and stressed that government overseers should never place themselves in a position subsidiary to contractors.
    NNSA was given 20 days to respond to the safety shortcomings cited by the board. In a letter dated Jan. 5, Brooks and the NNSA issued their response.
    Scott Kovac, research director for Nuclear Watch of New Mexico, said NNSA basically made every change the board requested.
    "I want to assure the Board that the NNSA is committed to safe operation of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and successfully executing (a Department of Energy plan) to resolve issues raised in Board Recommendation 2004-1," Brooks wrote. "I also want to stress that NNSA has no intention of limiting its ability to carry out its oversight responsibilities. Any inferences to the contrary in the initial (request for proposals) are due to imprecise drafting and have been corrected... "
    Brooks offered to ensure that Tyler Przbylek, chairman of the board of NNSA officials responsible for drafting the request for proposals, meets with the safety board to address its concerns prior to releasing a final version of the criteria.
    NNSA responded in its report back to the board that the agency "agrees that the government should not be subordinate to its own contractors," and ensured the board that the document clauses "do not limit NNSA's abilities to carry out its responsibilities."
    The report states that the changes "make it abundantly clear that NNSA is not in a subsidiary position to the contractor and that there are no limitations on NNSA's ability to inspect and assess contractor performance."
    For example, NNSA's report notes that in one revised clause, NNSA "will continue to preserve and maintain a robust oversight program and will examine, assess and audit any functional area at any level of detail deemed necessary."
    One of the overarching changes, applied throughout much of the revised draft criteria, is the inclusion that LANL nuclear operations shall meet the principles of DOE's Integrated Safety Management and Integrated Safeguards and Security Management.
    Those terms, which denote specific safety programs, were mentioned on only a few occasions in the original draft version.
    NNSA's response and report back to the nuclear safety board is available at www.deprep.org.