The management contract for the Los Alamos National Laboratory will be opened for competitive bidding when the University of California’s current contract expires in 2005, the U.S. Department of Energy announced April 30.
U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham noted the significant scientific value the university brings to Los Alamos and said that UC should be urged to compete for the contract.
The decision does not affect the Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, which are also run by UC on behalf of the Department of Energy.
A change in management could affect linkages between university campuses, including UC Davis, and the national laboratory. UC Davis has more extensive links to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, especially through the Department of Applied Science, but a number of faculty have active collaborations with Los Alamos. UC Davis and the Los Alamos lab recently signed an agreement committing $315,000 to provide seed money for joint research and teaching projects.
Testifying before Congress on May 1, UC President Richard Atkinson said that his first instinct was to compete, and compete hard, for the new management contract.
But he raised doubts about the conditions of the competition, changes in the relationship with the Department of Energy and other federal agencies, and whether it would be appropriate for UC to pursue a business contract to manage the lab.
UC officials have estimated the cost of preparing a competitive bid at up to $25 million. Other bidders for the contract could include companies such as San Francisco based Bechtel Corporation; Lockheed Martin Corporation, which operates the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and at Livermore; and other university systems, such as the University of Texas.
A decision on whether to enter a bidding competition would be made by the UC Board of Regents. Conditions of the competition are to be announced late this year. Atkinson will step down as UC president in October.
UC has managed the Los Alamos lab since 1943 on a non-profit basis. The benefit to the university comes from the flow of ideas and collaborations between lab scientists and university faculty, said UC Davis Vice Chancellor for Research Barry Klein.
“The labs are especially good at big science with facilities that would be hard for universities to obtain. When you marry the strengths of the labs and the universities, you can jointly work on research projects that you would not be able to tackle separately,” Klein said.
Tonya Kuhl, an assistant professor of chemical engineering and materials science who has collaborated with the Los Alamos lab for several years, said she hoped UC would keep the contract.
Kuhl uses a powerful neutron source at the Los Alamos lab to study thin films of fluids and membranes. She served on the lab’s user committee and visits the lab several times a year.
“There are a lot of new things happening there that we can tap into, such as the nanotechnology program,” Kuhl said.
Competitive bidding for the next contract renewal was the best outcome the university could have hoped for in the circumstances, according to Richard Freeman, chair of the UC Davis Department of Applied Science, which has extensive links to the national labs.
“There’s now a breathing space where the university can decide what to do about management at the lab and whether to bid for the new contract,” Freeman said.
Abraham was acting on the recommendations of a Department of Energy report that found that management of business practices at the Los Alamos lab was “ineffective.” An external audit in December 2002 found $4.9 million in questionable or unreconciled transactions on purchase cards at Los Alamos over nearly four years. A review by UC’s own Auditor’s Office, released in February, resolved most of these problems, leaving $200,000 of questionable transactions.
The report said that the university and the National Nuclear Security Administration shared responsibility for allowing problems to develop.
The report praised UC’s actions since December 2002, stating that its actions were “broad, forceful and effective” and that it was “hard to see how any organization could have done more to deal with the problem.”
The report also noted the university’s substantial value to Los Alamos in fostering a strong scientific culture at the lab and recommended continuing the current management contract through September 2005.