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    2005 LANL Contract Open to Bids

    The United States Department of Energy's recent decision to end its 60-year practice of awarding the University uncontested management contracts for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has revived internal discussion of whether UC should enter the competition in September 2005 when the present contract expires.
    "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," said UC President Richard Atkinson in an April 30 response to the federal announcement. However, he added, "the ultimate decision whether to compete will have to be made by the UC Board of Regents."
    Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the decision to require competition for the new LANL contract, despite "systemic management failures that came to light in 2002," does not preclude UC continuing the contract. "I categorically reject the notion that competition is a repudiation of an incumbent contractor," he said.
    Abraham also directed that future competition be designed "to retain the existing Los Alamos workforce and to preserve the culture of scientific skepticism and peer review." He further directed that should UC not continue operating LANL after 2005 the pension benefits of the current employees would be protected.
    Leading up to the secretary's decisions were a series of audits last year that revealed weak and ineffective business practices at the national lab that resulted in misuse of some credit cards and failure to properly account for some property. UC chose to return to the government more than $300,000, while still disputing some audit items, such as "excessive" reimbursable expenses.
    For the full text of statements by President Atkinson and other UC officials, go to <www.ucop.edu/news> and for the Energy Dept. statements go to <www.energy.gov>.