Interesting inside looking into the LANL bidding team and LANS partner drama. If even close to being accurate it makes you wonder how the LLNS internal relationship is not also broken.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news/rick-perry-hands-texas-lucrative-los-alamos-contract/
Key point in the story:
"There was much hand-wringing by the University of California over putting together a new bid for the Los Alamos contract. During a September meeting of the Board of Regents, university regents placed much of the blame for Los Alamos’s problems over the past decade on Bechtel, and decided to move forward with a new bid with a different private partner. Bechtel, of course, did not like that. Shortly after the meeting, Bechtel president Barbara Rusinko sent a letter to UC president Janet Napolitano, responding to each point of criticism levied by the regents—and objecting to their harsh criticism of Rick Perry.
According to the letter, which has been obtained by Texas Monthly, UC regent Richard Blum was concerned about the outcome of the looming bidding war being affected by the political leanings of each bidding group, explaining that they decided to bring Bechtel into their 2006 bid because “they were a Republican group.”
"After UC and Bechtel broke up, Bechtel connected with Purdue University to form a competing bid. There were whispers early in the bidding process that A&M and UT were weighing the benefits of teaming up for a Texas-centric bid aimed at pleasing Perry, but the heated rivals couldn’t make it work and instead went forward with separate bids.
A&M helps run a similar but smaller lab, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, with UC and Battelle (and Bechtel, too). Given the two university systems’ collaborative history, combined with A&M’s conservativeness to balance out UC’s liberal leanings, their bidding group for Los Alamos made for an obvious alliance."
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news/rick-perry-hands-texas-lucrative-los-alamos-contract/
Key point in the story:
"There was much hand-wringing by the University of California over putting together a new bid for the Los Alamos contract. During a September meeting of the Board of Regents, university regents placed much of the blame for Los Alamos’s problems over the past decade on Bechtel, and decided to move forward with a new bid with a different private partner. Bechtel, of course, did not like that. Shortly after the meeting, Bechtel president Barbara Rusinko sent a letter to UC president Janet Napolitano, responding to each point of criticism levied by the regents—and objecting to their harsh criticism of Rick Perry.
According to the letter, which has been obtained by Texas Monthly, UC regent Richard Blum was concerned about the outcome of the looming bidding war being affected by the political leanings of each bidding group, explaining that they decided to bring Bechtel into their 2006 bid because “they were a Republican group.”
"After UC and Bechtel broke up, Bechtel connected with Purdue University to form a competing bid. There were whispers early in the bidding process that A&M and UT were weighing the benefits of teaming up for a Texas-centric bid aimed at pleasing Perry, but the heated rivals couldn’t make it work and instead went forward with separate bids.
A&M helps run a similar but smaller lab, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, with UC and Battelle (and Bechtel, too). Given the two university systems’ collaborative history, combined with A&M’s conservativeness to balance out UC’s liberal leanings, their bidding group for Los Alamos made for an obvious alliance."
Comments
NNSA has previously said they wanted to reduce the management payout fees with this contract as they were too high in the last contract (though, I'm sure the higher management fees made Bechtel very happy). Anybody know what the structure of the fees for managing LANL will be with this latest contract? Also, did the new contract give workers and retirees any guarantees of benefits like the "substantial equivalent" promise that was made when LANS won the contract back in 2006?
Hey whatever as long as they got rid of Bechtel and keep UC things are good. Score one for America.
True that TAM is not part of LLNS but this from the LLNS website at www.llnsllc.com might explain their confusion...
LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL SECURITY, LLC
(LLNS) offers a team of world-class organizations whose primary objective is to deliver the National Nuclear Security Administration mission for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Our team includes Bechtel National, University of California, BWX Technologies, and AECOM. Our cutting-edge science is enhanced through the expertise of the University of California and its ten campuses and our team's affiliation with The Texas A&M University System and teaming subcontractor Battelle Memorial Institute.
The most interesting news now coming out is how much UC seemed to hate being partnered up with Bechtel. Lots of bad blood between the two and it's clear that the only reason Bechtel made the cut as a partner in 2006 was for political reasons to placate GOP politicians. In hindsight, it was a very bad choice.