Please post anon:I have listened to a lot of presentations from George Miller and company but non so informative as to what you are going to hear if you'll just take a little time out of your life and spend the next two hours it'll take you to get through this testimony.
This is the first time I've heard all three directors at once tell their story, heard the disappointment from those on the committee when they were made aware the contract fees went from $80M to $130M, and could feel all fingers pointing to NNSA being the bad guys. As the presentation goes along it becomes very obvious who to blame, even though some give praise to the culprit himself. During this testimony you'll also understand your senators views about the labs and their concerns, some of which are definitely counterproductive to the labs existence and for that matter detrimental to the country.
My conclusion after listening to this talk, as I hope was the senators is the LLNS contract should be immediately terminated and LLNL should be turned back over to UC. It's obvious to most, the management team we have now couldn't hold a candle to those who ran LLNL before. In conjunction with abolishing LLNS, NNSA should also be dismantled. The only people making money is LLNS corporate partners, all at the employees expense, they jobs, livelihood and future.
As it stand to date we have 1,500 well trained engineers and scientist in the street with no jobs, mines fulls of classified material, and if times get rough it'll be all for sale. From what I can conclude, it isn't going to get any better. The lay-off count of 200, 300 and 500 are going to rise as the budget continues to dwindle and if you listen very closely those numbers are revealed live to the senators, who in turn have asked each lab to make a full report..
April Testimony
A Real Player Presentation - It Free
Some highlights: brought anonymously from the LANL BLOG
Audio from the Congressional Appropriations meeting held this week is now online. It is 2 hours and 21 minutes long. You can find it here:
----------------------------------
appropriations.senate.gov/Media/
2008_04_14_
Listen_to_the_April_16_
Energy_and_Water_Hearing.ram
----------------------------------
I would urge all staff at LANL to take the time to listen to it. You will find it very interesting.
In particular, you can safely skip the first hour and concentrate on the sections past the 1:00 HR mark.
* 1:05 - Sen. Feinstein discovers the the LLC profit fees for LLNL of $46 million are going to private companies. She seems to have known about the LLC but was unaware that the money was to go to private companies like Bechtel, Washington Group, etc. She is obviously upset on finding this out.
* 1:20 - Anastasio gives his talk (his voice has a warble quality to it; he sounds scared)
*** THIS SECTION BELOW IS CLASSIC! ***
* 1:44 - Sen. Dorgan asks Miller (LLNL) about the full cost for the LLNS LLC. Miller says the full annual cost is $130 million and you can hear Sen. Dorgan in the background suddenly gasp: "Geeze!!!"
**************************************
* 2:01 - Sen. Feinstein makes it very clear she is no friend of nuclear weapons work. However, she is very concerned about the national security implications of putting 500 unemployed weapon scientists on the street out at LLNL.
* 2:06 - Miller says health care costs at LLNL went up $47 million over the previous UC costs with the creation of the new LLC (!!!!)
* 2:14 - Sen. Feinstein attacks NNSA Head D'Agostino for his comments
In general, there is a lot of discussion during the second half regarding concerns about the loss of science at the labs. All the Senators seem concerned about it and want to hear answers from NNSA. The Senators are also very angry and concerned about the quickly rising costs brought about by the creation of the LLCs. It is also clear that the Senators feel that the staff layoffs that have been occurring are largely being driven by the new LLC fees and they are not happy about it.
38 comments:
I listened to this earlier today for the full two hours and was simply amazed. I also passes this along to a lot of friends. This testimony discloses the facts. I wonder why all LLNL employees weren't given the URL via e-mail so they could begin to understand the situation and who's really responsible for our losses.
Blogmaster: Where do you dredge this stuff up? You can't be serious.
"As it stand to date we have 1,500 well trained engineers and scientist in the street with no jobs, mines fulls of classified material, and if times get rough it'll be all for sale."
This guy is either drunk or border line illiterate or both. Besides that, it is pure fiction.
April 18, 2008 7:04 PM
Better listen to the testimony and add the numbers up at the end given by the three director. You will find they add up to 1500 and you'll also find out that senator Dianne Feinstein has the very same concern. As a matter of a fact she states so in the talk. Spend the two hours and listen with your ears ot your mouth.
Anyone that doesn't think this lab is still being run by UC has been misdirected. The folks brought in from the so-called partners are so busy trying to be UC puppets, its embarrasing.
Don't "Ignore the man behind the curtain!"
April 18, 2008 7:10 PM
Thinking to hard seems to have hurt your brain...
Tell us how much of your moronic post is just made up uninformd opinion (if you ever dry out that is)?
"Spend the two hours and listen with your ears ot your mouth."
My mother always said there was something peculiar about me and for the very first time I know what it is. I have spent my entire life listening with my mouth. I'll tell you it has been mighty hard too.
Thank you. And here is my suggestion to you. Pull your head out of you rectum and take a deep breath. The fresh air will do you good.
Hope that helps..
Hey, try listening to the talk from 2:03:20 to 2:15:00 and they will tell you a rough estimate of how many professional and blue collar have been let go from each lab. Add them up and you'll come up with about 1,500. The number is actually about 1,600 engineers and scientist.
They also blame TCP-2'er for an increase in cost, but Diana took care of that BS by simply saying what everyone knows now, the employees were never given all the facts. If they would have been more people would have taken TCP-2.
The root poster is right on the money.
April 18, 2008 7:29 PM
Listen to the testimony just as poster April 18, 2008 7:35 PM said and you find you're an idiot. It seems that it you whom has their head up their butt. Maybe you have wax in your years or better yet you head is stil buried up some ULM's butt. Push a little harder as you extract it and maybe you'll hear a suction sound. Hope your ear drumb don't pop onthe way out.
April 18, 2008 7:35 PM
The numbers are 2000 total with less than half be technical at LANL. At LLNL it's 2000 with ~500 being professionals and at the other lab its 200-300 but it looks like they just displaces their professional to other job due to good managment practices. So that 1000 professional from LANL and 500 from LLNL. That's 1,500 professional scientist and engineers from where I come from.
To suggest that somebody might sell secrets is just absolute bunk. What kind of people do you think work here? And what about you? You gonna sell secrets if you get dumped? You sound like a damn traitor. I am guessing you have never dealt with classified so we can all breath a little easier.
It's so nice to finally hear live testimony that give facts and puts the directors on the spot. Did you catch the comment on how the signs of a good manager is to not have to lay off anyone. They were not talking about Mike and George. They were complimenting the other director. I wonder how Mike and George felt when that comment was made. I like the one where NNSA leader implies that the committee had no interest in science. he got cut off at the knees and corrected quite quickly. Damn that was good.
April 18, 2008 7:40 PM
Wait a second. Shouldn't I be cleaning wax out of my mouth? I thought that is where my cochlea, vestibule, and semi-circular canals were located. Or was it my mouth is where my ears are and vice-versa? You have me all confused now. All I know is I have always had a hard time getting peas and carrots stuffed into those little holes on either side of my head.
Thank you.
April 18, 2008 7:52 PM
I don't know who you are talking to fool but it's been done many times before and if you think it can't happen again, think real hard. Real hard. Why do you think security is so concerned about you income and bills. If they are out of wack you will have a tendency to be taken advantage of. That usually entails the sale of goods due to blackmail. So there you go. I am glad I never had to deal with that stuff and have no regrets of being far, far away from it. It's not worth the headaches.
April 18, 2008 7:52 PM
"You sound like a damn traitor."
I guess Diaine is a traitor too, hah. She was first to bring it up and she's absolutely correct by all means.
"I don't know who you are talking to fool "
Neither do I but you sound like the type who would do anything to get back "at the man". Your just the type security is looking for. A hot head who thinks the end justifies the means. Your the very sort who probably would compromise national security just to get even. What a crumb. You fail to realize virtually every major defense contractor employs tens of thousands of cleared workers who are routinely dumped as cost of doing business. You think LLNL is unique? You need to get a clue.
And by the way. Everyone who has been caught selling government secrets was doing it while they WERE STILL EMPLOYED.
Your ranting has limited entertainment value.
Let me get this right. Everyone that has a bone to pick with NNSA, LLNS, LLNL, DOE, congress and any other federal agency you care to mention is going to go out and sell secrets because they were laid off? How many people do you think that would be? Lets forget about those that get whacked at the Lab. What about all the other Q cleared workers throughout the defense industry that routinely get whacked at places like Boeing, Raytheon,Northrup, Bell Labs etc.By your logic the whole country would have crumbled years ago by those who were hell bent on getting even. You need to start worrying about creeps like Randy Cunningham (know who that is).
it is amazing how some of you people are final realizing the hole transition skeem was design be NNSA to grab your pensions and to help pay for the new weapons complex they want built at NTS by rechtel.
Maybe I'm naive, but if NNSA had a master plan to have Bechtel build a new complex, would they have taken the site operating contract away from Bechtel and given it to NsTec?
And no one stole the pension money. It was always obligated to the subset of DOE contractor employees, and the vehicle has simply changed. You may not like the new vehicle, but if you rolled over, the money transferred is still obligated to you.
Like it or not, DOE owns this site. What NNSA wanted is to gain final control over the Lab's because we were considered arrogant and uncontrollable. Sadly, some of the rantings on this blog lend credance to that charge.
I would prefer to have kept the contract with UC. But that's no longer an option until someone with a lot more power than any of us decides it is. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting on that, either.
There are definitely things to not like about LLNS, just as there are about any company. But in objctively evaluating those factors, paranoia is not helpful.
April 18, 2008 8:56 PM
It took years but I think they finally got it but it's only a very small faction of people who are thinking outsdie the box. The rest are still in their secure cages protecting their assets and you can put a dash between after the second {s).
Randy Cunningham? Who the heck is he? never heard of the dude. Please site URL
April 18, 2008 8:41 PM
Go back in your cave and stop preaching. The testimony clearly states that selling secrets is a very high concern of the senate and the senator. It's like some of the posters have told you people before, take the two hours and listen to the testimony. You may even learn something, well, that's if you name is GM, MA or EM or for that matter one of his submissive, kowtow cronies. They already are delusionary and think they know it all. If you're are not willing to listen to the facts, please leave the blog and erase the URL from your favorites. It's far to late for you. I want to thank the person who found this testimony and put it on the blog for all to read. It is obvious the PAO office of LLNL didn't want the people to see the facts just as they continually refuse to allow the Q&A secession of each speech to be put on the web for the world to read. The news line and web site is censored like the provda.
The testimony should be a clear indication to the senate and congress they screwed up by taking the labs from UC to LLNS and LANS. These people must be brain dead to not have seen these facts before approving the actions. Most everyone that went TCP-2 knew it was a bad deal. My only wish was that 90% of LLNL went TCP-2 as they would today if they knew then what they know now, but again, this was a planned ploy by ULM with the help of the LLNL newsline and LLNS Q&A that loved to copy and paste their answers.
April 19, 2008 6:40 AM
And don't forget the blackwidow who now sits along side the GODS. Some people will do what ever they have to do to get to the top regardless of whom they have to take out in the process. In this case it was 51% of the LLNL population to assure the success and fancy pension of one. Thanks. There's a spot in hell awaiting your arrival.
The approach taken by UC to form LLNS LLC is at the root of LLNL's financial and employee problems. LLNL would still have to absorb federal budget cuts and increase in management fee, but if LLNL had remained a public entity the transition would have cost millions of dollars less and been less disruptive to the lives of Lab employees.
We would have been better served by the approach taken by the University of Chicago to bid on DOE's Argonne National Laboratory in 2006. They created UChicago Argonne, LLC as an entity to be solely responsible for the management of ANL. The University of Chicago had managed Argonne since 1946, and on October 1, 2006, management was taken over by the UChicago Argonne, LLC together with industrial partners Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. and BWXT. These two companies have members on the UChicago Argonne, LLC Board of Governors, but the University of Chicago is the only member of UChicago Argonne, LLC, and ANL employees saw almost no change in their employment conditions.
Just like our RFP, the DOE in the ANL RFP expressed a desire for a separate, sole-purpose entity to manage ANL. The University of Chicago responded to this by creating UChicago Argonne, LLC, a separate organization solely dedicated to the management and operation Argonne, but the University kept sole ownership of the LLC. If UC had done the same at LLNL, we would still be UC employees, LLNS would still be a public entity instead of a private company, and a lot of our transition headaches would have not occurred.
UC could correct all of this for LLNL by restructuring LLNS, LLC - along the lines of UChicago Argonne, LLC - into UCLLNS, LLC. Instead of Bechtel, B&W, URS getting an up front share of the $46 million management fee as a partner in LLNS, they would be partners "with" UCLLNS, LLC in running LLNL, and UC would pay then a share of the 100% fee it would receive for UCLLNS, LLC.
There has to be a provision for restructuring LLNS in the agreement the LLNS partners made with each other, for what if Bechtel, B&W, URS when out of business completely, UC would still be around and responsibly for LLNS, LLC. Since October we've already seen LLNS parent company BWXT change to B&W, and Washington Group be bought by URS. Also recognize that Battelle, while identified as part of LLNS, LLC, it is in fact a sub-partner under UC and does not have the same voice in LLNS as the industrial partners who signed the LLNS incorporation agreement with UC.
LLNL can be saved, but it will take some significant work by UC to undue the mess it made with LLNS.
I agree with everything the man said at the Miller meeting. He did in fact have huge cojones. My applause for not sitting still so Miller could piss on his feet and tell him its raining.
I also think he and the rest of my dear former co-workers are now getting precisely what many many other people have gotten at the lab. It is called the real world giant business shaft.
The funny part is, thousands of other non UC people worked at LLNL for years and did not ever get a chance to sit on their well paid and medicated arses for decades and then walk with a major share of their original salary and lifetime medical.
There are very few companies that could afford to do what LLNL and LANL have done for decades. This is to mothball and keep expensive scientists, engineers, technicians, outdated facilities and equipment in a holding pattern for many many years.
I worked at the lab for roughly five years.
I saw many inactive directorates, lots of inactive equipment and hundreds of inactive people that had no mission other than to hold on until they could retire with their lab bennies.
Most lab people I knew when I worked there would not have done well in the real world and I can understand their fear of being thrust into a realistic business environment.
I always saw the lab as a formerly great but now sad and extremely depressing place to work. The
words "obsolete" "redundant" "monolithic" have all been applied.
I think Miller and all the rest may simply not have had the guts to come out and say the government let the labs relevance slip and now people have to pay for that with their jobs.
This is just more of the same fear and loathing atmosphere that has been at the lab since the mid eighties but now the formerly "safe" employees are dangling in the wind. It is very refreshing to see all of the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth on this blog. This is from the standpoint of someone that dangled at the lab for five years before he finally got up the self respect necessary to give up the UC golden B.S. lie package and the "Q" holy grail, quit and gladly rejoin the real world.
If anybody here doesn't like this,
have at her baby. Your criticism won't matter to me in the least.
For those readers not interested in listening to the hearing tape, this highlight summary was posted on the LANL Blog...
=================
***** LISTEN TO THIS AUDIO *****
Audio from the Congressional Appropriations meeting held this week is now online. It is 2 hours and 21 minutes long. You can find it here:
----------------------------------
appropriations.senate.gov/Media/
2008_04_14_
Listen_to_the_April_16_
Energy_and_Water_Hearing.ram
----------------------------------
I would urge all staff at LANL to take the time to listen to it. You will find it very interesting.
In particular, you can safely skip the first hour and concentrate on the sections past the 1:00 HR mark.
* 1:05 - Sen. Feinstein discovers the the LLC profit fees for LLNL of $46 million are going to private companies. She seems to have known about the LLC but was unaware that the money was to go to private companies like Bechtel, Washington Group, etc. She is obviously upset on finding this out.
* 1:20 - Anastasio gives his talk (his voice has a warble quality to it; he sounds scared)
*** THIS SECTION BELOW IS CLASSIC! ***
* 1:44 - Sen. Dorgan asks Miller (LLNL) about the full cost for the LLNS LLC. Miller says the full annual cost is $130 million and you can hear Sen. Dorgan in the background suddenly gasp: "Geeze!!!"
**************************************
* 2:01 - Sen. Feinstein makes it very clear she is no friend of nuclear weapons work. However, she is very concerned about the national security implications of putting 500 unemployed weapon scientists on the street out at LLNL.
* 2:06 - Miller says health care costs at LLNL went up $47 million over the previous UC costs with the creation of the new LLC (!!!!)
* 2:14 - Sen. Feinstein attacks NNSA Head D'Agostino for his comments
In general, there is a lot of discussion during the second half regarding concerns about the loss of science at the labs. All the Senators seem concerned about it and want to hear answers from NNSA. The Senators are also very angry and concerned about the quickly rising costs brought about by the creation of the LLCs. It is also clear that the Senators feel that the staff layoffs that have been occurring are largely being driven by the new LLC fees and they are not happy about it.
"LLNL can be saved, but it will take some significant work by UC to undue the mess it made with LLNS."
In the meantime we'll have 2000 out the door this years and 2000 out the door FY09. People's lives will be destroy, homes will be loss, and families broke due to budgets and unforeseen deaths. The people that put this lab up for bid should go directly to prison and each one of them should have a special cell with Tyrone where they'll be abused for their entire duration of stay and each cell should have a web cam install for the nation to watch. That would make me feel as if I was even. These people are no better than the CEO's of ENRON or Countrywide.
I just finished listen to the entire two hour testimony and the one issue that grabbed me by the short hairs was their complaining about TCP-2 enrollees.
For these people to insinuate that by those who electing to go TCP-2 had anything to do with their budgetary issues is absurd . First of all there was no intention of every have a TCP-1. If my memory is correct SPSE and UPTE had to fight to get TCP-1 for LLNL. NNSA wanted everyone on TCP-2. Now that 49% of them at LLNL took TCP-2 and the enrollment number would be much higher today if the employees weren't lied to, these knuckle heads have the gull to blame the TCP-2 electives for their problem. I hope there's a full blown investigation and some people are taken to the gallowses.
April 19, 2008 6:31 AM
So what happens when we layoff Q cleared contract labor, huh? Happens all the time around the Lab. Never heard any whimpering from you and others of your ilk about "secrets being sold" when they were dumped. And why? You don't know what you are talking about. Face it,all you care about is saving your job and could give a hoot about national security.
April 19, 2008 1:24 AM
A very lucid summation of where we find ourselves today. Thank you.
Randy Cunningham? Who the heck is he? never heard of the dude. Please site URL
Use you web browser and type his name in. By the way, he had a security clearance.
Randall Harold Cunningham (born December 8, 1941), usually known as Randy or Duke, was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from California's 50th Congressional District from 1991 to 2005.
Cunningham resigned from the House on November 28, 2005 after pleading guilty to accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes and underreporting his income for 2004. He pled guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud, and tax evasion. On March 3, 2006, he received a sentence of eight years and four months in prison and an order to pay $1.8 million in restitution.[1] Prior to his political career, he was an officer in the United States Navy for 21 years during which time he became a flying ace for actions during the Vietnam War
What a shame to riun his career. Oh well this is where money talks and BS walks. I'm sure we'll see more of this as time goes on.
April 19, 2008 6:43 PM
Contractors should never have access to classified information in the first place. I guess they'll never learn. Oh, wait a minute, that what the national labs are turning into. CONTRACT labor that will come and go with the data in their heads. Brilliant.!
April 19, 2008 6:43 PM
Make sure you tell the congress lady heard in this testimony that too. I'm sure she'll appreciate it. There is great concern about people who come and go (as they are supposed to) of having access to classified information. Maybe they'll get smart someday and catch that little problem then resolve it once and for all. The one thing I've noticed in my three decades of service is the background checks are far to liberal and easy. A five year gap between checks is about 4years to long. People who have Q's need to be constantly under surveillance both on the job, at home and an extensive list of all they acquiescence and activities outside the work place need to be compiled. Again, they give Q away far to easy. I've known far to many people who have them that should not.
May I suggest you take the link to the testimony and put it on the side bar at the right and entitle it the same as the post "The Culprits Revealed" and under it put "Required Listening". This way it will never get lost and buried in among all the comments. You want this testimony to be here forever and never forgotten. If you ever need a copy of it or the last talk that GM gave at LLNL complete with Q&A's showing the young lad telling it like it is, just ask.
Just some observations.
The second hour was certainly the best. But one thing I found interesting after listening to the whole thing, was the grilling D'Agostino took from Dorgan over $5M that was uncaccounted for on an unrelated project. Lots of concern over a measly $5M... Later, GM described the hundreds of millions lost through the course of the contract transition, and I was just waiting for the panel to crucify D'Agostino on the spot. He personally should be held to account for this loss of taxpayer dollars instead of the workforce at the labs paying with their jobs.
Also interesting is that both GM and MA were asked to prepare reports for the panel on the unexpected transition costs. Who knows where that will go. Most likely, nowhere, but the optimist says a scandal could be uncovered.
It seemed kind of odd to me that St. Pete didn't seem as concerned about the costs associated with transition. One might think he was better informed than Dorgan and Feinstein, yet he hadn't raised holy heck before today if he did know. Hmmm... for me, his silence is just as interesting -- and telling -- as the concern raised by other panel members.
But even more interesting to me, is that during his all hands, when GM was telling us labbies about just how much support science and engineering has in the senate, he never once mentioned just how surprised they were to hear about the increased costs that are affecting our workforce. He didn't mention that he has to prepare a report for the panel. He didn't mention that they were concerned that they had given the DOE more money than requested in the FY08 budget, and how they couldn't understand how those funds didn't end up in our hands (although that's one place where St. Pete comes in -- I think he got a chunk of that money for LANL, and didn't want to raise eyebrows). And he didn't once tell us how the panel seemed more concerned about us doing a layoff than anyone else in the room.
It seems odd to me that the panel didn't think to ask D'Agostino just how much NNSA reduced its own headcount as a reflection of a reduced complex that it needs to manage. We all heard about lab job losses, but the administration seemingly stayed the same size.
Another oxymoron was that while the panel is debating the need to fund RRW, which will require the best and brightest minds -- they are at the exact same time shoving those same best and brightest minds right out the door before we've had a chance to do the work required for RRW. Seems they're putting the cart before the horse.
I'm going to put my little insights into better grammatical form and send them to my congress critters. I suggest you all go through a similar exercise. I think we all assume congress knows just what's going on at the labs, but it is absolutely clear from this session that our "bosses' boss" hasn't a clue. NNSA has not been forthcoming to the senate panel about the effect of transition. We must.
Everybody assumes weapons designers are being dumped. I really doubt it. Show me a list of those that have been dumped and point to those that were weapons guys. If you can't do that then I think the assumption should be that these folks will be spared. The rest of the Lab is in big trouble though. If you are doing something that is not related to weapons work you will probably get canned. I am pretty sure that is what is going on here.
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