who will it be?

The calendar is counting down until McMillan departs, and UC has not yet announced who they will put in as a caretaker until the contract expires next year. Names floated include each of the current PADS, bringing Anastasio back from retirement, Gibbs, and Budil. What are the current odds on each of these, and is an obvious pick emerging?

Protecting tax proceeds paid by LANL

NM continues to view the national labs as a local revenue stream "The misstep was a case of too much lawmaking and not enough common sense. With a 30-day legislative session set to start in January, both the governor and lawmakers need to get together on a simple stand-alone bill that will protect the GRT revenue stream from LANL or again leave the state’s fiscal future in the hands of Washington, D.C."
 http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/business/protecting-tax-proceeds-paid-by-los-alamos-national-laboratory/article_2c628c3e-3bd2-5fa5-9d65-637861e012a2.html

Top page headline from Australia leading news outlet

Top page headline from Australia leading news outlet 'According to The Centre for Public Integrity, a pair of workers with “cavalier attitudes” at the Los Alamos National Laboratory stuffed “so much plutonium into a small space that they came close to triggering an accidental nuclear chain reaction, all to get some photos”. Their actions “nearly doomed a room full of colleagues”, according to a CPI report. “Plutonium is the unstable, radioactive, man-made fuel of a nuclear explosion, and it isn’t amenable to showboating,” it said. “When too much is put in one place, it becomes ‘critical’ and begins to fission uncontrollably, spontaneously sparking a nuclear chain reaction, which releases energy and generates a deadly burst of radiation.” And it gets much, much worse. Los Alamos National Laboratory in Santa Fe, New Mexico — responsible for the design of nuclear warheads — was a top secret facility during World War II and the birthplace of the atomic bomb. But it is in a state

Letter to Perry

Letter to Perry outlines numerous failures in LANL drill responses 

https://www.abqjournal.com/1083886/emergency-drills-weak-at-lanl-report-says-ex-federal-nuclear-safety-panel-finds-numerous-shortfalls.html

 A spokesman for LANL had no comment. A statement was provided by the National Nuclear Security Administration, the agency under the U.S. Department of Energy that includes the nation’s nuclear weapons labs. “NNSA and LANL have a comprehensive emergency management program in place that is routinely tested and validated through drills and exercises, with a focus on continuous improvement,” said NNSA spokesperson Lindsey Geisler. “As noted in the DNFSB’s letter, NNSA and LANL are taking proactive measures to strengthen emergency preparedness and response based on lessons learned from these drills and exercises. NNSA is committed to having world-class emergency management capabilities to protect our employees, the public and the environment.”

Missing link

Respectfully, "Trump urged to abolish nuclear safety" is missing the web link below: 
https://www.publicintegrity.org/2017/10/19/21217/gop-chair-nuclear-safety-agency-secretly-urges-trump-abolish-it

Trump urged to abolish nuclear safety

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) "GOP chair of nuclear safety agency secretly urges Trump to abolish it" "The chairman of a panel charged with protecting workers at nuclear weapons facilities as well as nearby communities has told the White House he favors downsizing or abolishing the group, despite recent radiation and workplace safety problems that injured or endangered people at the sites it helps oversee...Sullivan’s position is consistent with the longstanding preferences of the large private contractors that produce and maintain the country’s nuclear arms, most of which also contribute heavily to congressional election campaigns and spend sizable sums lobbying Washington. The board and its expert staff are now probing what it considers to be additional safety lapses or deficiencies that would cost weapons contractors millions of dollars to fix...Three other board members, all Democrats, have said in written complaints about Sullivan’s proposal that he was not on 

Top 10 in 2017

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/safety-board-says-lanl-unready-to-handle-emergency/article_4d220d87-a9d9-5f18-8b88-82274133f5b1.html

There is a list of 10 significant LANL safety events in 2017 at the end of the story. While 3 of them relate to environmental issues, the other 7 each deal with sustained problems in the plutonium facility. 

How will this situation be dealt with in the bidding process? PF-4 now falls under the PAD-WP and clearly Webster has not been up to the task of changing the culture, as required in the NNSA request for proposal.