DOE/NNSA legal fee

DOE/NNSA legal fee reimbursements to LLNS keep flowing despite a DOE OHA identified nexus between employee "protected disclosures" and acts of LLNS retaliation Despite a 9-27-17 determination by DOE OHA Judge Palmer that there was a nexus between my "Protected Disclosures" and LLNS retaliation, the DOE/NNSA legal fee reimbursement stream to the contractor LLNS keeps flowing into November 2017 and beyond. In 2016, DOE/NNSA reimbursed Lawrence Livermore National Security (LLNS) a sister LLC to LANS, $57,374 for legal fees associated with "Rivera v. LLNS" in Northern District of CA Court in a case that was classified as "ongoing". Earlier this month through a FOIA, the DOE/NNSA released another set of legal fee reimbursements to LLNS. They amount to $170,997. This figure does not include reimbursements to cover this legal firm's production of their 49 page January 2018 LLNS response to my Petition for Secretary Review. Furthermore, this figure does not include LLNS "internal

NNSA do-over

With four teams in the waiting, NNSA may call a do-over? 
https://www.exchangemonitor.com/lanl-award-lans-extension-possible-week

Announcement is on Friday

Congress approves winning bid this Thursday. Announcement comes Friday. 

NNSA may extend contract

New top post
From another thread

Anonymous Anonymous said...
The story from Forestall is that NNSA did not like any of the presentations, only liked about a third of the written information from each of the three teams and NONE of the proposed lab directors. They are now trying to decide what to do, and an option to extend the current contract is on the table.

May 23, 2018 at 6:20 PM

This is starting to sound correct from several whispers coming out. NNSA did not like ANY of the proposed Lab directors and did not like ANY of the oral defenses of bids. As a result, one option now open is to extend the LANS contract until NNSA can determine how to get rid of them and get a new M&O.

Is Purdue ready to run Los Alamos?

https://www.jconline.com/story/opinion/columnists/dave-bangert/2018/05/25/bangert-purdue-ready-run-los-alamos/646129002/
Mitch Daniels, Purdue trustees remain quiet about bid for a $22 billion contract to run the Los Alamos National Laboratory, birthplace of the atomic bomb. An answer could come soon

Daniels confirmed Purdue’s bid in April. He also confirmed that the university was collaborating with Bechtel, a San Francisco-based contractor, on a 10-year contract that would be worth roughly $22 billion – not including the potential for tens of millions of dollars more in annual bonuses and millions more in possible research money – to run one of the nation’s top research and nuclear weapons facilities.

Is the announcement today?

There is a sighting of corporate jet at the Los Alamos airport. Maybe the announcement is today?

New Mexico jobs program

Geologist Terry Wallace and the New Mexico jobs program:

https://www.abqjournal.com/1176508/los-alamos-thankful-for-its-ability-to-serve.html

Something is wrong!

https://www.propublica.org/article/two-leading-bidders-for-lucrative-los-alamos-lab-contract-have-checkered-safety-records

Who is killing all the posts?

Who is killing all the posts and comments on this blog?? Is Scooby incompetent to do anything about it? Or is he the perp?

UT will need money

*IF* UT wins, UT needs extra $7m for contract transistion.

https://www.exchangemonitor.com/ut-needs-extra-7m-take-lanl-wins-contract/

Who is Willard Robert Logan?

Who is Willard Robert Logan? What is his expertise that is so valuable to a new management team?
UT system to pay Willard Robert Logan up to $1.9 million for services related to the bid and potential transition period should UT win the LANL bid. 
From Austin Statesman: https://www.statesman.com/news/state--regional---politics/regents-likely-allocate-million-potential-los-alamos-loan/95BkkaJSXR8VlR5MLtDERP/

If UT wins

*IF* UT wins, UT needs extra $7m for contract transition.

https://www.exchangemonitor.com/ut-needs-extra-7m-take-lanl-wins-contract/

Disappearing comments

All the comments on previous posts have disappeared.

UT REGENTS REQUEST

UT Regents' Special Session requesting funds for LANL management transition and for a consultant, Willard Robert (Bob) Logan

From Houston Chronicle, 15 May 2018: UT System says it needs up to $7 million for Los Alamos management transition:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/education/campus-chronicles/article/UT-System-says-it-needs-up-to-7-million-for-Los-12916798.php

Link to UT Regents 18 May special meeting ("posted meeting" link contains agenda:
https://www.utsystem.edu/board-of-regents/meetings/board-meeting-2018-05-18

Latest rumor

Is that U-Texas with Boeing have won the LANL contract. Seems like lots of local managers
at LANL have gone silent since most would have been part of the UC or Bechtel bids.

Big vote of confidence

https://www.ladailypost.com/content/wallace-plutonium-decision-big-vote-confidence-los-alamos-national-laboratory

Extension?

So the 11th comes and goes and no decision by NNSA on LANL contract award. Get ready for the same thing that happened with the EM contract. Two LANS extensions and then a bonus 6 months or more of protesting the award. LANS for 18 more months folks.

Mox Fuel Fabrication Facility

Hahahaha!!!! NNSA decided that the Mox Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) in South Carolina can be “repurposed” into a pit production facility by 2030 at a rate of 50 War Reserve. This is ridiculous! They might eventually make it happen, but there is zero chance that they have it by 2030. I cannot wait to watch DoD and Congress thump NNSA for this idiotic decision as the years and billions of dollars slip away. makes you wonder if their real objective was 1) punish LANL 2) flow money to SC for their Senator and/or 3) they are secretly anti nuke. Of course, this will distract everyone from the MFFF slow death that had been happening.

Recapitalization of Plutonium Pit Production

https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/articles/joint-statement-ellen-m-lord-and-lisa-e-gordon-hagerty-recapitalization-plutonium-pit

KNOWN BIDDERS

TEAM: University of California/Texas A&M

The UC System has been part of LANL since its beginning. UC oversees 10 campuses, nearly 240,000 students, five medical centers and three national laboratories, including a partnership at LANL, and at LLNL and LBNL in northern California.

The Texas A&M University System, Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s alma mater, has partnered with UC to help run LLNL since 2007. Its other team members there include private companies Bechtel, BWXT, AECOM and Battelle. The university oversees 11 universities in Texas and 152,000 students as well as several state agencies. It also houses a top nuclear engineering department with two “research” nuclear reactors.

TEAM: Bechtel/Purdue University

Bechtel has co-managed LANL since 2006. It also has management contracts at LLNL, Y-12 in Tennessee, and the nuclear assembly plant, Pantex, in Amarillo, Texas. It also is constructing a massive radiation treatment facility at the Hanford site in Washington state, a project that has been plagued with setbacks, cost overruns and fines for falsifying the quality of nuclear materials. It previously held contracts at Idaho National Laboratory.

Purdue University, based in West Lafayette, Ind., is a research institute with several locations and polytechnic institutes throughout Indiana. The university has strategic research alliances with Sandia National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Ames, Argonne and Brookhaven national laboratories. Purdue also bid on the 2016 contract to manage Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, but lost to Honeywell.

TEAM: University of Texas System

The University of Texas System has 14 campuses and 234,000 students, many of whom focus on “cybersecurity, bioterrorism, policy and statecraft and other national security issues.” The university also has a nuclear and radiation engineering division. UT also bid for — and lost — when the LANL contract was on the table in 2005. It was an unsuccessful bidder for the Sandia contract in 2016. Texas does not have a known public partner, though experts believe one is likely to join.

NAMES TO KNOW

Battelle Memorial Institute

The world’s largest research institute, with a net revenue of $4.7 billion in 2015, Battelle is expected to be part of a bid team. Though it has not announced a partner, some believe it could join with the University of California and Texas A&M. The company is no stranger to the nuclear defense industry and currently helps manage LLNL with UC as a subcontractor. In addition to LLNL, Battelle oversees the management of work at six other large national laboratories, including Brookhaven National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Lab and the National Biodefense Analysis & Countermeasures Center.

Jacobs

Jacobs, a private engineering and construction company based in Dallas, also had a hand in a number of federal contracts, ranging from the national labs to nuclear submarine projects. The company currently helps oversee Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois and the Nevada National Security Site. It acquired CH2M last year, which has run waste cleanup projects in Washington state, Idaho and New York. Together, Bechtel and Jacobs also were granted contracts to manage environmental cleanup at several sites, beginning in the late 1990s, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Department of Energy sites in Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky.

Lockheed Martin

Until 2016, the defense and aeronautics company ran Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque for more than two decades and is one of the contractors that runs Y-12 and Pantex. It also vied for the Los Alamos contract in 2005. Based in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin maintains contracts with NASA, the Air Force, Army and Pentagon.

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/a-look-at-the-contenders-to-run-los-alamos-national/article_eb104562-548d-5968-80d7-fc41bad22cc6.html

The future TCP1

This could be TCP1 in a few years

http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/07/retirement/pension-fund-cuts-teamsters/index.html

For all those that say it could never happen, you may want to rethink the situation after reading the most recent cuts to pension plans. Just because you paid into it your whole career does not guarantee that it will pay you a full benefit pension all your retirement.

Key sites plagued by safety problems

"Key sites proposed for nuclear bomb production are plagued by safety problems"

"Billions of dollars are at stake in a forthcoming Trump administration decision, but contender sites Los Alamos and Savannah River have struggled to handle plutonium safely"

https://www.publicintegrity.org/2018/05/01/21722/key-sites-proposed-nuclear-bomb-production-are-plagued-safety-problems

Big week coming!

Big week coming
May 10th 
https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/18-05-10-nominations_porter--stewart--anderson--slavonic---verdon

May 11th 
Expected announcement of the selected option to get to 80 pits per year

Lots of rumors that next week will be the week the LANL M&O contract decision is announced

Hanford pension lawsuit!

"$100 million lawsuit filed over Hanford pensions"

http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article210177914.html

Starring Lisa Gordon

NNSA Leader Lisa Gordon-Hagerty at LLNL this week. I watched her all hands talk on Lab TV, and have to say she came off as impressive and very competent. I believe that she's the first head of NNSA to come out of one of the national labs. She mentioned that she had worked in both the Pu and Tritium facilities at LLNL.

Turnover

If Sandia was any example, look for 100% turnover at and above DL once NNSA announces who takes over form LANS. The feds look to like complete turnover at contract change.