Lab officials can't account for
costs
March 12, 2003
Officials at the Los Alamos National Laboratory
have been unable to account for hundreds of thousands of dollars
in costs, state officials were told Tuesday.
Those figures turned up in an external audit of
the New Mexico lab, which is run by the University of California
as part of a 60-year-old agreement with the federal government.
Recent scandals have raised questions about the
university's ability to manage the Los Alamos lab, prompting some
members of Congress to suggest putting the multibillion-dollar
management contract up for bid when it expires in 2005.
The Los Alamos lab, one of three managed by the
University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy, was
created during World War II as the headquarters of the secret
Manhattan Project to build the atomic and hydrogen bombs. The
university first earned the contract partly on the strength of
its faculty stars, such as J. Robert Oppenheimer, a physicist who
served on the Manhattan Project.
Now, federal and state investigators are looking
into claims that the lab lost track of $2.7 million in property
and computers that may have held classified information.
Copyright 2003, Ventura County Star. All Rights Reserved
.By Rebecca Trounson and Ralph Vartabedian
Times Staff Writers
February 9 2003
For 60 years, since the atomic bomb was first
conceived and built at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the high
desert of New Mexico, the University of California has had a lock
on the federal contract to run the nuclear weapons research
center.
The two institutions have been so closely linked, their histories
so intertwined, that the contract to manage Los Alamos, with an
annual budget of $1.7 billion, has never been put up for bid --
and the university has vowed never to compete for it.
Now, however, with strong evidence of financial fraud and other
problems at the lab, UC's management and business practices are
under withering attack from the Energy Department, members of
Congress and outside critics.
Some say the university's grip on the prestigious contract to run
Los Alamos -- along with its sister nuclear weapons facility,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Lawrence Berkeley
energy research lab -- is no longer assured.
"It may very well be that the only way to solve the problems
is to put [the contract] up for bid," said Rep. James
Greenwood, a Pennsylvania Republican who heads a congressional
subcommittee investigating the lab. Pledging tougher oversight,
Greenwood said the university will now "be judged not only
on the bombs they build, but on their accounting and management
of the lab."
An Energy Department report released Jan. 30 provided powerful
ammunition to UC's critics. The investigation by the department's
Office of Inspector General confirmed allegations of financial
problems, including the theft or loss of at least $1.5 million in
government property. Perhaps more damaging, the report cited weak
internal controls and a culture that valued loyalty to Los Alamos
and the university above honesty.
The report also corroborated allegations by two whistle-blowing
investigators who were hired to look into the fraud reports, then
fired when they spoke out about what they found. After the pair,
Glenn Walp and Steven Doran, complained of a cover-up, they were
rehired as consultants by UC to help with the expanding
investigations.
UC supporters argue that the university has provided effective
leadership for decades on one of America's most challenging
national security missions. They cite the potential risks of a
management shift, including an exodus of top scientists, and say
it makes sense for the nation's most highly regarded public
university system to manage the labs that are among the country's
most critical security assets.
"The University of California has a 60-year history of
providing effective stewardship and superior science at Los
Alamos and its sister institutions," UC President Richard C.
Atkinson said last month. "The university's commitment to
serving the nation's security interests is unwavering."
Pulling the contract for all three labs would cost UC up to $25
million in fees -- nearly $9 million from Los Alamos alone. But
the more significant blow would be to the university's prestige.
Directors of both Los Alamos and Livermore labs say it would also
be unwise.
"In some ways, you can argue that we need UC more than
ever," said Michael Anastasio, director of Livermore, near
Oakland. "We need access to the very best scientists and
technologists this country has available."
George Nanos, interim director of Los Alamos, added that while
the lab's faulty business practices are under scrutiny, the heart
of the lab's mission -- performance of scientific research -- has
not been questioned.
Still, some experts question whether any educational institution
is suited to run the labs.
Harold Smith, a former assistant secretary of defense for atomic
weapons, said university faculties tend to view management as a
secondary responsibility. "A company would be more concerned
with doing a good job," said Smith, now a distinguished
visiting scholar at UC Berkeley.
He pointed to Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, a
nuclear weapons engineering facility that is run by Lockheed
Martin Corp. The company has held the publicly bid contract for
Sandia since 1993 and is generally considered to have a better
performance record than UC, he said.
UC's operation of the weapons laboratories dates to the Manhattan
Project, the secret World War II program to develop the first
atomic bomb. Although the Army Corps of Engineers essentially
directed the program, senior scientists involved insisted that a
university system formally control management, reflecting the
scientists' uneasy relationship with the military.
With development of the hydrogen bomb and, later, miniature
nuclear devices, the need for university research remained
crucial. In fact, weapons experts say, top researchers are needed
now more than ever to handle the nation's aging nuclear
stockpile. But evidence suggests that UC business practices have
not kept pace with increased demands for accountability.
Meanwhile, over the years, private corporations -- and many other
universities -- lost interest in participating in the nation's
defense programs. By the 1980s, many blue-chip corporations were
dissatisfied with the profits and political controversies that
came with the job. The exodus hit hard at the Energy Department,
which saw AT&T, DuPont and Westinghouse Electric exit their
contracts to run nuclear weapons plants.
Through all this, UC's labs remained the most critical and most
stable part of the nation's nuclear weapons system.
The federal government spends about $3.7 billion a year on
operations, staff and equipment for the three labs. But with the
UC's contract, and the billions of dollars in equipment, comes
the responsibility to manage the labs well, said Sidney Drell, a
Stanford University professor serving on a UC committee
addressing the problems at the labs. "These are not private
toys for the universities."
UC, however, has come in for periodic criticism over the years --
in Congress and elsewhere -- for running its nuclear weapons
facilities almost the way it does its campuses, treating them
largely as autonomous entities capable of running themselves.
"The university comes into the loop when there's a new lab
director to be appointed, or when there's trouble," said
Frank von Hippel, a co-director of Princeton University's program
on science and global security who has served on external review
committees at Los Alamos. "Aside from that, they collect
their fee and don't interfere."
Smith, the former assistant defense secretary, said the current
woes cap a history of management problems at the labs. The
financial fraud at Los Alamos may be "the straw that broke
the back, but it is not an issue that is worthy by itself'"
of stripping UC of the contract, he said.
In recent years, the reputation of Los Alamos has been sullied by
a string of embarrassing security lapses, including scientist Wen
Ho Lee's 1999 indictment on a security violation and the
mysterious disappearance in 2000 of two classified computer hard
drives. The drives later turned up behind a copy machine. Lee,
who was accused of leaking nuclear secrets to China, eventually
pleaded guilty to a single count of mishandling nuclear data and
prosecutors dismissed 58 other counts against him.
The university also was hit last year with criticism from Energy
Secretary Spencer Abraham and Congress for its decision to
appoint Ray Juzaitis, a former Los Alamos supervisor of Lee, as
director of Livermore. Although Juzaitis was found to have had
little to do with the Lee affair, the university was knocked for
what appeared to be a politically insensitive appointment.
Juzaitis eventually took himself out of the running.
Richard L. Garwin, a physicist and longtime chair of the State
Department's arms control and nonproliferation advisory board,
said the Juzaitis incident and the current scandal reflect the
university's historically lax approach to lab leadership.
"They need to take seriously their responsibilities,
especially about the selection of the top managers at the
labs," said Garwin, a senior fellow at the Council on
Foreign Relations who nonetheless believes UC should continue to
run the labs. "I don't think they've done that over the
years. They've been too hands-off."
A former top Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, said the university's management system at the labs is
cumbersome. Writing memos at times has superseded exercising
leadership, he said.
"The culture is so bureaucratic and Balkanized, it is very
hard to manage," he said. "It is a real mess, a shame.
It is a national resource that is atrophying."
The Energy Department also has come in for its share of criticism
and three years ago, after the Lee scandal, formed the
semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration to
strengthen its oversight.
But now criticism of the labs has reached a new level.
Energy Secretary Abraham has said the financial irregularities
and whistle-blower dismissals have called into question UC's
ability to run them.
UC advocates are alarmed that an end to the university's historic
role at the labs is even contemplated.
"It is crucial to bring the best and brightest talent to
bear on weapons stewardship," said Sig Hecker, former
director of Los Alamos. "That depends on a university, and
why not the best? Why not one that has demonstrated its capacity
over the last 60 years? UC is the best."
But watchdog groups and others welcome the opportunity to
question the role of UC in weapons research.
"They've had this contract for life with no sense of real
accountability," said Danielle Brian, executive director of
the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group
that has disclosed many of the lab's troubles.
"When we talk to whistle-blowers at the lab, they say
there's a sense there of, 'We can do no wrong.' "
Michael Smith, 23, a UC Berkeley philosophy major who is a member
of an antiwar group, hopes the recent troubles will lead to
substantial change. "I would love it if my university could
stop making nuclear weapons."
But Smith said he would prefer that the university give up the
contract voluntarily.
"I'm not thrilled that we are at risk of losing it because
of incompetence," he said.
"I am never thrilled at incompetence, especially when it
comes to nuclear weapons."
Times staff writer Akilah Johnson contributed to this report.
If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.
For information about reprinting this article, go to www.lats.com/rights.
| Back to Hotsheets Felkins *ANTHOLOGY and *HOTSHEETS *Copyright 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Madeline Felkins All Rights *Madelinefelkins.com *Hotsheets.org |
17 January 2003
DOE Broadens Scandal
Inquiry to Livermore Lab
For Immediate Release
Contact: Eric Miller or Danielle Brian at (202) 347-1122 or email [email protected]
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Acting Administrator Linton Brooks has alerted University of
California (UC) Vice President Bruce Darling to expect the
Department of Energy's investigation
to broaden to also include UC's handling of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
"While our tasking is specific to Los Alamos, since
University oversight of Los
Alamos and Livermore is
conducted under identical contracts, I expect we will also look
at the University's
relationship with Livermore",
Brooks stated in a January 15, 2003 letter.
The letter
further included an extensive document request related to the
UC's oversight policies. In the letter,
Brooks warned Darling, "I suggest that you not attempt to
generate any specific new documents at this time."
POGO's Executive Director Danielle Brian commented, "I am
sure that Acting Administrator Brooks understands that
high-sounding policies for oversight are one thing, but
implementing oversight responsibilities are quite another. For
example, in an effort to clean up their reputation, UC created
the position of Vice President for Laboratory Management in 2001,
appointing John P. McTague. As the current scandal
of mismanagement began to break at Los Alamos in early November
2002, however, McTague resigned without being held responsible
for any failed oversight on his part."
� The
Project On Government Oversight 2003
Livermore Lab agrees to rehire
fired guard
Lab officials say Mathew Zipoli on
Monday will regain his job on the special weapons team that
protects the lab and its stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium
02 February 2003
BERKELEY (AP) -- Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory will comply with a federal arbitrator's order
that it rehire a former security guard who says he was fired for
reporting security, health and safety violations.
Laboratory officials said they fired Zipoli, the
vice president of the union representing lab security officers,
in September 2001 for organizing a sickout of security officers.
The arbitrator concluded he hadn't engineered the
sickout, though his participation might have helped persuade
other officers to join.
A second guard, union President Charles Quinones,
was not reinstated, but may also be interviewed by congressional
investigators who are expanding what began as a review of theft
and fraud allegations at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New
Mexico.
Both labs are run by the University of California,
but the scandal and other alleged mismanagement is threatening a
60-year partnership between the government and the university
system that produced both the atomic and hydrogen bombs.
Los Alamos is being investigated for $2.7 million
in missing computers and other property and widespread misuse of
lab-issued credit cards, including an attempt by a lab employee
to buy a souped-up Ford Mustang for $20,000.
Cover-up allegations also surfaced after two
internal investigators who reported the thefts were fired in
November. In recent weeks, the Los Alamos director has stepped
down and other top officials have been reassigned.
"We are interested in talking to anyone who
has credible evidence of fraud, theft or mismanagement at any of
the labs," said U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee
spokesman Ken Johnson. "All of the labs run by UC are part
of our investigation now."
Now the two Los Alamos investigators have been
rehired, while Zipoli and Quinones have filed complaints and
state and federal lawsuits alleging they were victims of
retaliation for blowing the whistle on lax security and other
violations.
Lab spokeswoman Susan Houghton acknowledged
training was inadequate, but said the lab is now meeting federal
security requirements. The lab also has since purchased more
protective masks for security guards, after Zipoli complained too
few were provided. The lab also is now providing officers with
routine tests for potential radiation exposure.
On Friday, laboratory Director Michael Anastasio
sent a memo to workers encouraging them to come forward without
fear of retribution. Anastasio has asked for Livermore to be
included in a UC-wide whistleblower hotline, but said employees
may also contact the inspector general.
Quinones said he will continue fighting for
reinstatement despite the arbitrator's ruling that he could be
fired for helping to organize a sickout by 47 guards on Aug. 6,
2001, the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. The lab had to
reassign supervisors to guard duty when 200 anti-nuclear
protesters arrived, costing the lab $17,000 in overtime.
Guards were attempting to draw attention to their salary and working condition complaints.
Madeline
Felkins Hotsheets Rocketdyne/Boeing Contamination News
Felkins* ANTHOLOGY and *HOTSHEETS *Copyright
Madeline L. Felkins
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 All Rights *Madelinefelkins.com *Hotsheets.org
