Should Los Alamos National Laboratory remain open at all and with what mission?"

"A big question is: Should Los Alamos National Laboratory remain open at all and with what mission?"

I am not sure if this is a serious question, considering that the scope of screw ups in the government agencies and facilities LANL is pretty down there. Overall it is a silly question as LANL is no going anywhere...ever. That is a fact of life.
But lets try to address the question anyway.

Yes or no. Yes LANL should remain open or if you close it down you would just have to build something like elsewhere or break it up in parts and send those elsewhere if you want to have a deterrent. The question is can opening up a new facility really work? Where are you gong to move it to? Texas, Utah, sounds good but how does it change anything. It will be insanely expensive and risky since you will have to move so much stuff. Who are you going to hire the same old people? New people might be leery of ever going into such a new faculty after seeing what happened to the old facility. Can we just shut down LANL and only have what we currently have at LLNL, Pantex?...nope. What is done at LANL that cannot be done elsewhere? Right now plenty as I said you could always build something new or add new capabilities at other facilities but how is that fundamentally different? One could argue that one will get more bang for your buck in long run if you break it up since the overhead rates and profits for sleazy companies are much lower at other places, but what is to guarantee that if one expands Pantex that some sleazy corporation will just get hold of it and steal all the money. LLNL is already privatized and its overhead rates are just as bad so how does that save any money?

Can LANL be fixed? Well it depends on if you think something is wrong and a realistic look at LANL would show it is working and is probably one of the least wasteful organizations in the government right now. Yes that is a sad argument but is probably true. I would say getting rid of the for-profit company would be good step in the right direction as well as getting rid of the gross receipt taxes.

But being realistic LANL will not be closed. Do we close down the NSA, CIA, FBI after all the screw ups, do we close down the Congress after all the messes? No we do not and LANL is not going to be closed either. Did we close down Rocky Flats? Yes but than all the people went to work elsewhere in the complez and now LANL does the same job so essence we did not close down Rocky Flats either.

One can always frame other questions.
(1) Should the United States remain a nation and for what purpose? What is done in the United States that cannot be done better and cheaper elsewhere.
(2) Should we move Santa Fe to Southern New Mexico so we would have less problems with snow? Just what done at Santa Fe that could not be done elsewhere?
(3) Do we really need New Mexico as State?
(4) Why not make Esperanto the official language of Florida and New Mexico. It is easy to learn and less problems that English.

UC is the common element in LANL dysfunction?

Odd that the article did not focus on the large ethics scandals at LANL, since this is the paper that broke the Beth Sellers story and Charlie's long coverup.

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/a-history-of-innovation-and-dysfunction-at-los-alamos-national/article_6bde4aee-077f-56a6-836b-eab1d289271e.html

LLNL BLOG 8 years later.

Dec 2nd 2007:  http://llnlthefinalstory.blogspot.com/ was gone. This was a time of mental unrest and everyone had an opinion about the privatization.
We needed a forum to vent more than any other time in the history of LLNL.

I started llnlthetruestory.blogspot.com with this first post:


http://llnlthetruestory.blogspot.com/2007/12/llnl-true-story.html

Soon after, its brother, http://lanl-the-rest-of-the-story.blogspot.com died. So, we had an influx of LANL readers and the LLNL BLOG became "it".

Not sure how LLNL management would react, I committed to keep the BLOG alive under the Scooby nickname. Then, in 2013, to deflect attention from scooby, I created a second nickname of
Doobydew.

Today is my first day as a retired person. As in 2007, I am still committed to provide a forum for exchanging opinions, passing on new information and exposing injustices, abuse and fraud.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Julian Bentayeb

Poor investment choices in 401k and TCP1.

The LLNS investment committee must be getting kickbacks from Fidelity. It only offers high fee options, when low fee options exist. Why? Goldstein getting kickbacks?

For example: In 401k 
The fee on the SP500 index mutual fund is a gigantic 0.25% per annum of assets which is three times what Fidelity charges for the same plan elsewhere.

In TCP1 the most basic, most efficient,most widely held, most recommended low fee SP500 index fund isn't even available. Only less effective UC managed imitations which perform more poorly exist.

Is the LLNS investment committee paying attention?

Offer a low fee (< 0.07%) SP500 index fund option in both places please. It is the most basic invest ment plan building block after cash.

UCRP vs TCP1

How do the current and projected assets/liabilities compare between UCRP and LLNS TCP1?

Speculations

Some talk that the plan for the new LANL contract is to get rid of the last of the TCP1 people and close out the pensions. They are also looking for ways to save money by reduced benefits or making the lab more of two-tired systems where large portions of the lab will be external contractors with their own benefits. It is all speculation but some people might be thinking that with the new contract that LANL could be the first NNSA lab to be truly brought into modern large businesses project management.

And the spin begins to "save LANL"

What will happen to our region if funding for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is cut. New Mexico is dependent on federal largesse for its economic survival, and our immediate area, Northern New Mexico, more than most parts of the state with the employment opportunities that LANL and the town of Los Alamos offer.

The state's economy is in dire straits, and a reduction of the country's taxpayers money pouring in would sink it even further. For the second year in a row New Mexico saw a decline in its population according to state population estimates released last Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. New Mexico's net population loss is startling when compared to neighboring states, all of which land in the top 10 for growth in the Census study.

Operations and construction at our neighboring nuclear weapons research laboratory account for millions of dollars in tax revenue for New Mexico and for the town of Los Alamos. But now, the National Nuclear Security Administration opted against extending Los Alamos National Security's contract to run Los Alamos National Laboratory because of repeated failures over the past four years to meet certain performance goals.

A recent review calls for docking the lab's manager $7.7 million in incentive fees for incidents that occurred at LANL and failure to provide for safe, secure, effective, efficient and economical management and operations of the laboratory. Most of the lab's failure came in meeting operational and infrastructure goals, while it made improvements in science and national security work.

Failing to meet performance goals could cost the for-profit consortium that runs the lab $2 billion, and the management of the operation be put out to bid. This consortium, it includes the University of California and the Bechtel Corporation, pays more than $100 million in gross receipts taxes to the state in most years. The community of Los Alamos also gets the majority of its revenues from lab operations.

The lab's management team missed an opportunity last year to earn a contract extension after it was held to account for errors that led to a radiation leak. The current contract expires in September 2017, but managers could continue through 2018 as part of a transition period. Spokespersons for the consortium put an optimistic spin on the latest review, saying that while improvements are needed in some areas the lab remains a world-class research institution.

Members of the United States congressional delegation stressed that LANL needs to be a responsible steward of federal funds and take action under the contract to ensure the safety of workers, the community and environment.


http://www.jemezdailypost.com/content/lanl-funds-get-docked

 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Let the beatings continue until morale improves.

December 30, 2015 at 7:39 AM

Anonymous said...

And the spin begins to "save LANL"


The spin is not to save LANL, but to save LANS or some idea of for profit entity running LANL. Saving LANS is good for a few companies, some high level managers, but has been a disaster for LANL and ultimately the United States.

December 30, 2015 at 11:03 AM