Provisional Reimbursement and Allowability of Costs Associated with Whistleblower Actions

"Effective immediately, new rules on allowable DOE/NNSA Contractor reimbursement of whistleblower related expenses"

According to the DOE "acquisition letter" dated August 4, 2016, all DOE and NNSA Contracting Officers must deem Contractor reimbursement fees for whistleblower related litigation expenses unallowable, if wrongful conduct on the part of the Contractor has occurred. 

Reimbursement may still be unallowable if the Contractor gets off on a technicality, such as a statute of limitations ruling, IF wrongful conduct by the Contractor was likely, or if the Contractor has a history of wrongful conduct. 

http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/08/f33/08-04-16_-_Acquisition_Letter_No._AL-2016-06.pdf

NNSA Awards Nevada National Security Site contract

 New Lockheed subsidiary, "Nevada Site Science Support and Technologies Corporation", will manage the Nevada Site,

 http://www.ladailypost.com/content/nnsa-awards-nevada-national-security-site-management-operating-contract-nvs3t 

No official word on who else bid on the contract, other than NSTEC run by Northrop Grumman that will soon cease to exist.

 Comments:

 Anonymous said...

This is more evidence that Lockheed is out of Sandia and will get LANL. The question is who is going to get Sandia, Northrop Grumman or Boeing? Since Northrop Grumman had NSTEC I would think the deal is that they are going to get Sandia. Another question is how will Lockheed run LANL? Science has pretty much died at LANL during last 10 years. Lockheed could try and make LANL a sort of Sandia northeast which would mean getting rid of the last little bits of science at LANL, but the bigger question is if LANL can do engineering or how long would it take to get LANL up to speed as an engineering lab. Another issue is that LANL would than be competing with Sandia.

A good strategy would be move as much stuff off from Sandia and transfer it to LANL at the contract change so that LANL could have a chance to compete with the new Northrop run Sandia. I would think this may be toughest on Sandia at first since Lockheed will push to move engineering programs to LANL which will mean a drop in funding for Sandia. A bone to be thrown to Bechtel and LLNL will be to move some non-engineering programs from LANL to LLNL and beef up the bonuses pay for them, also this might add some legitimacy to keeping LLNL afloat. It is in NNSA best interest to keep the complex as large as possible and every lab open, you know too big to fail and the bigger the object you manage the more money for high up managers, also you have to make sure that every corporate player gets some piece of the pie.

August 28, 2016 at 9:21 PM

 

 Anonymous said...

Northrop Grumman did a lousy job managing Nevada, which is why they lost. Lockheed meanwhile has a pretty good record managing Sandia, so they won. A new LANS minus Bechtel could be a contender for LANL, but there's no reason to think Lockheed won't keep Sandia just because they also manage Nevada. After all, look at Bechtel in LLNS and LANS.

August 28, 2016 at 11:02 PM

 

 Anonymous said...

Sandia will move move it's Senior Management Team to LANL when Lockheed wins the contract there. An aerospace company leading nuclear facilities. These folks have no idea what they are in for, Lockheed couldn't 

A UC-Lockheed Martin owned LLC to bid on the LANL contract makes the most sense for UCOP if they want to continue major involvement in LANL. Making Bechtel the fall guy for the operational ills at LANL is UC's best and most logical move.

August 29, 2016 at 5:46 AM

 

OIG report on LANCE radiation contamination

OIG report on LANCE radiation contamination of 27 employees

http://energy.gov/ig/downloads/inspection-report-oai-l-16-13

Every day, it is some LANL safety or security incident in the news.

So much for 'saving money'

The cost of LANS managerial screw-ups with WIPP is quickly becoming yuuuuuge! It ranks among the costliest nuclear accidents in U.S. history according to the LA Times.

So much for 'saving money' by using a private, for-profit managerial contract for running LANL, huh, NNSA?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nuclear accident in New Mexico ranks among the costliest in U.S. history 

Los Angeles Times - Aug 22nd

When a drum containing radioactive waste blew up in an underground nuclear dump in New Mexico two years ago, the Energy Department rushed to quell concerns in the Carlsbad desert community and quickly reported progress on resuming operations.

The early federal statements gave no hint that the blast had caused massive long-term damage to the dump, a facility crucial to the nuclear weapons cleanup program that spans the nation, or that it would jeopardize the Energy Department’s credibility in dealing with the tricky problem of radioactive waste.

But the explosion ranks among the costliest nuclear accidents in U.S. history, according to a Times analysis. The long-term cost of the mishap could top $2 billion, an amount roughly in the range of the cleanup after the 1979 partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.

The Feb. 14, 2014, accident is also complicating cleanup programs at about a dozen current and former nuclear weapons sites across the U.S. Thousands of tons of radioactive waste that were headed for the dump are backed up in Idaho, Washington, New Mexico and elsewhere, state officials said in interviews.

Whisleblower news

DOE overturns decision
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByP_XBAJjPAyLTNsRHM0cDdnVEk/view?usp=drivesdk

Motivational speaker at LANL

So LANS just spent a huge amount of money to bring on motivational speaker 
Cam Marston to explain how the different generations of people are different. Nothing wrong with Cam but near as I can tell he is a stand up comedian who tells us the the most popular stereotypes about each generation that anyone who lives on earth has already heard about a million times. He provides no nuance or new perspective to this whatsoever other then telling it jokes most of which you have heard before if listen to the comedy channel. Did you know in the old days that TVs had bunny ears made of aluminum foil, however you have not have guessed this but millennials did not grow up with this. All of this is presented without any real evidence and for obvious reasons does not apply to Los Alamos or any other scientific workforce. But hey LANS needs to burn money somehow. By the way the only reason anyone went was because it fulfilled the ethics training requirement which we have to take thanks to some ethical lapses of our former deputy director Beth Sellers. Why to go LANS!!!!

LANL plutonium project called a house of cards

You know you are in deep trouble when even DOE can not come up with a justification for a new facility.

http://www.abqjournal.com/824737/lanl-plutonium-project-called-a-house-of-cards.html