Anonymously contributed:
Weapons Complex Monitor
February 6, 2012
NAS Lab Mgmt. Panel Report Expected This Week
The National Academy of Sciences panel that for the last year has examined the impact of
privatization on the nation’s nuclear weapons laboratories is expected to release its long-awaited
report this week in advance of a Feb. 16 Congressional hearing. Chaired by former Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory Director Charles Shank and UCLA professor Kumar Patel, the
panel held a handful of meetings over the last year, traveling to Los Alamos, Lawrence
Livermore and Sandia national laboratories to meet with lab employees and administrators and
holding several hearings in Washington, D.C., with National Nuclear Security Administration
and Department of Energy officials.
After the report is released this week, Shank—and perhaps one more member of the panel—is
scheduled to testify before the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee Feb. 16.
Former Los Alamos Director Michael Anastasio, former Sandia Director Paul Robinson, former
Livermore Director George Miller, and former Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Group
President Bob Cochran will also testify during the hearing.
Weapons Complex Monitor
February 6, 2012
NAS Lab Mgmt. Panel Report Expected This Week
The National Academy of Sciences panel that for the last year has examined the impact of
privatization on the nation’s nuclear weapons laboratories is expected to release its long-awaited
report this week in advance of a Feb. 16 Congressional hearing. Chaired by former Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory Director Charles Shank and UCLA professor Kumar Patel, the
panel held a handful of meetings over the last year, traveling to Los Alamos, Lawrence
Livermore and Sandia national laboratories to meet with lab employees and administrators and
holding several hearings in Washington, D.C., with National Nuclear Security Administration
and Department of Energy officials.
After the report is released this week, Shank—and perhaps one more member of the panel—is
scheduled to testify before the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee Feb. 16.
Former Los Alamos Director Michael Anastasio, former Sandia Director Paul Robinson, former
Livermore Director George Miller, and former Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Group
President Bob Cochran will also testify during the hearing.
Comments
Messages show conflict within NRC after Japan’s earthquake and tsunami
Washington Post, Feb 7 2012
...“The e-mails provide a candid picture of the level of uncertainty and confusion within the U.S. government and indicates that even U.S. experts had major divisions about what was going on and how to best mitigate the crisis,” said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist and nuclear expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
One of the e-mails said that during the first week after the earthquake, a major U.S. company, Bechtel, offered to provide desperately needed equipment to pump sea water to cool the Fukushima reactors, but the price of $9.6 million came in at more than a dozen times what the e-mail called the “original price.” Bechtel says that it did not provide an initial estimate, nor did it make a profit, and that the price included the cost of equipment only, not time spent on design or delivery. The Energy Department stepped in to provide “a couple of million,” the e-mail said, and instead of three or four sets of pumps and hoses, only one was delivered....
www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/
messages-show-conflict-within-nrc-after
-japan-earthquake-and-tsunami
/2012/01/09/gIQA2ll6uQ_print.html
*********
The profiteers at Bechtel are something else, aren't they? Jacking up prices during a deadly radioactive crisis! They are cut-throat jackals, for sure.
I'm also surprised that Linton Brooks isn't on the list. He seems to have become very outspoken of late about how badly the labs have faired under the new profit-based management scheme.
And what about Sig Hecker, the distinguished former Director of LANL during the 1990s who has gone on record in the Senate lambasting the risk-averse, privatized state of the labs in the last few years? He's categorized the privatized NNSA labs as dismal, policy bound "scientific prisons"! I'd love to see him show up at these hearings.
Since the LLCs took over there have been several reports clearly demonstrating the scientific "death spiral" and abysmal staff morale at the NNSA labs -- one report even from DoD! -- but no one in political power seems to care about the labs' decline.
Just keep wearing those famous "shoes that grip!" and taking your ever increasing load of online training classes.
House reviews DOE money upgrading yacht
Feb 8, 2012 - Washington Examiner
"House investigators wrote the Port of Los Angeles yesterday to review the decision to spend almost half a million dollars in stimulus money on retrofitting a luxury yacht with environmentally-friendly engines."
campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/
beltway-confidential/house-reviews-doe
-money-upgrading-yacht/364996
--
Another DOE screw-up courtesy of Dr. Chu. You can't make this stuff up!
campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/
beltway-confidential/house-reviews-doe
-money-upgrading-yacht/364996
Another DOE screw-up courtesy of Dr. Chu. You can't make this stuff up!
February 8, 2012 6:16 PM
This would all fit if the owner of the yacht(s) was Norm Pattiz and the name of the yacht was Monkey Business. Port of Los Angeles would all fit. It all fits with DOE paying all the easy PBI dollars to LANS/LLNS Executives with "kick-backs" to NNSA/DOE at the highest levels. This current Administration is corrupt to the bone.
February 9, 2012 6:52 AM
Come on, are you telling me Pattiz bought another yacht! His 60-feet yacht is named "Vixen". I wonder how many "vixens" have spent time on this ship? I wonder how much money Chu spent on this battleship?
Now get pack to wearing those "shoes that grip" and taking your new online training, cowboys!
February 10, 2012 9:03 AM
Absolutely. Why in the world would anyone want to change a good thing? Everyone is getting some cash out of this "cash cow". Industry (e.g. Bechtel), LANS/LLNS Current and Former Executives (McMillan, Miller, Mara, Anastasio, Albright, Knapp, et. al.) , The University of California Administration, LANS/LLNS Board of Directors (e.g. Pattiz, et. al.), NNSA/DOE (e.g. D'Agostino), Cabinet (e.g. Chu), DoD (Panetta). et al. That right, "The Labs" are getting "explicative deleted" for everything she's worth and it's a good time!
What's an "explicative"?
really....say that to my face
An adjective.
As expected, it was a non-event.
Everyone go back to your incessant online training and wearing those famous "shoes that grip".
An adjective.
February 13, 2012 12:25 PM
Irrelevant. The poster used it as a noun, and meant to say "expletive."
February 16, 2012 8:54 AM
Thank you Wil Shakespeare.
February 16, 2012 8:54 AM
Thank you Wil Shakespeare.
February 16, 2012 7:24 PM
Knowledge of the language you purport to speak is always a good thing. Most people ignore this fact.