LANL: The Real Story: January 2006

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Rat Patrol

Submitted By "Rat Patrol"

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/31/2006 09:02:00 PM 3 comments

Remain clueless

Submitted by Anonymous:

Doug,

You might not be surprised to learn that many of the current LANL staff remain clueless about the transitition, UC, and the whole mess. Some people still appear to feel as if the system, and UC in particular, "owes" them. 'Severance pay', my ass.

A letter from today's LANL NewsBulletin:
___________________________________________________________

Jan. 24, 2006

Have they considered?

Since the log jam of letters on transition finally seems to be moving through the system. What are the options for University of California employees who choose not to transition to Los Alamos National Security LLC? Since they are essentially "closing a campus," what is the severance package that UC will offer? Does it include preferential hiring at other UC facilities, severance pay, training apportionment? Or, have they even addressed this? Seems like something which should be considered and definitely included in information being presented.

--[Name withheld]

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/31/2006 06:15:00 AM 26 comments

The fire was "definitely arson."

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Fire Ruins LANL Bid Materials

Journal Staff Writer
An arson destroyed documents and office equipment related to Lockheed Martin's failed bid to run Los Alamos National Laboratory, but fire investigators aren't releasing many details, citing the sensitive nature of an investigation into the blaze.
A moving trailer containing paper files, computers and other office equipment went up in flames in Albuquerque either late Jan. 21 or early Jan. 22, according to Lockheed Martin spokeswoman Wendy Owen. The trailer was parked at moving company Arpin of Albuquerque, 4525 Paseo Del Norte NE, Owen said.
"It did have materials and equipment related to our Los Alamos proposal," she said by phone Monday.

[...]

Albuquerque Fire Department spokesman Capt. Mike Paiz said investigators aren't releasing many details about the fire because they don't want to jeopardize the investigation. But he did confirm Monday that the fire was "definitely arson."
"They found evidence to support an accelerant used," he said.
A woman who answered the phone at Arpin of Albuquerque declined to comment.

Full Story

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/31/2006 05:56:00 AM 4 comments

Monday, January 30, 2006

UCRP Stability?

From Anonymous:
_____________________________

Doug,

A) Keep up the good work!

B) Please post the following anonymously, since these days it is well to
follow the old adage and assume nothing, and trust no-one -- well, perhaps,
except you.

UCRP Stability?

Those who believe that UCRP is more stable than any spin-off would be well
advised to read the chronicles of Charles Schwartz, Prof. Emeritus, UC
Berkeley: http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~schwrtz/

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/30/2006 11:34:00 PM 0 comments

UC Faculty Weigh in against UCRP-LANL (and LANSLLC)

CUCFA Has Concerns About Division of Assets Between UCRP and the LANSLLC

Mr. Gerald Parsky, Chair
Board of Regents
University of California

RE: Action Item 5C (January 18, 2006)

Dear Chair Parsky:

The Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA) has serious concerns about proceeding with a permanent division of assets between UCRP and the LANSLLC prior to disclosure of the relevant terms of the contract between UC, Bechtel, Washington Group International, BWX Technologies and other private sector partners. No spin-off of assets should occur while the text of the partnership agreement remains secret from employee organizations. If significant details of the partnership are still being worked out, this is a further reason to defer action on Item 5C. The officials representing UC in ongoing partnership negotiations should not be given authority to spin-off UCRP assets at the same time.

We further ask that the unwind be delayed until there is full disclosure of the following:

(1) Which UC officials and Regents are (or expect to be) individually affiliated with the LANSLLC or its private-sector partners;
(2) Whether and how much they are (or expect to be) paid for this affiliation;
(3) To what extent their fiduciary responsibilities to the new entity or its private-sector partners are separate from their responsibilities to UC; and
(4) What procedures are in place to assure that the separation of the pension plans of the two entities is done at arm's length and with no disadvantage to continuing UC employees?

We raise these issues because we believe that Item 5C has a potential for conflict of interest that would not have arisen if UC had either lost the contract to manage LANL or retained it outright. Here, UC is transferring management of LANL to a for-profit private entity that it does not control but with which it continues to be involved. This creates an obvious need for additional safeguards, not present in Item 5C as currently written, that would make the relationship between the two entities more fully transparent. We know from the LLC’s website, for example, that you, Chair Parsky, are on its Board, but we do not know to what extent you are accountable to UC in this role; neither do we know whether recently-resigned VP Mullinex (and/or his successor) will be on the LLC Board while acting in this matter for UC. Delegating responsibility to him to spin-off assets of UC employees without knowing what other responsibilities he may have to the new entity is in our view fraught with problems.

The "Addendum Report" (5C Attachment 2) prepared by the Segal Group says, “The amount of assets and liabilities to be transferred to the successor contractor's defined benefit plan is not known at this time. Furthermore, the methodologies and assumptions that would be used to calculate the amounts (if any) to be transferred are not yet determined.” The Report is replete with discussion of “policy issues” based on the actuarial differences between the LANL component of UCHP and UCRP as a whole in relation to the funding (or underfunding) of future liabilities. Employee groups are entitled to know what these policies issues are, and the likely impact of these issues on how soon employee pension contributions will begin at UC and LANL, respectively, and how much it will cost UC and the new LLC to meet their respective defined benefit obligations. The possibility that those making these policy decisions may owe a separate (perhaps primary) loyalty to the LLC raises the question of whether the methodology for transfer of assets will indirectly subsidize the corporate owners of the LLC at the expense of past, present and future UC employees. This question is underscored by the stated reason for urgency in Item 5C: that UC hopes to transfer pension assets in a way that facilitates UC’s forthcoming bid to manage Lawrence Livermore through a similar corporate partnership.

CUCFA plans to pursue formal inquiries into this matter in concert with other employee groups. As faculty concerned with the best interests of UC, we take this opportunity to write in the hope that the Regents will avoid making another mistake by following the advice of an administration that has been insensitive to issues of conflict of interest.

Respectfully,
Robert Meister,
President, Council of UC Faculty Associations

# posted by Brad Lee Holian : 1/30/2006 08:13:00 PM 6 comments

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Internal Revenue Service audit on the University of California Regents?

Submitted by Anonymous:
_________________________________

Is it time to request an Internal Revenue Service audit on the University of California Regents? It seems kind of strange that the UC’s retirement fund is short almost exactly what they have spent on the development of the new LANSLLC, which would include the increased salaries for new management.

Here’s how we are hearing it in the trenches.

The word is that it took $200M dollars and almost two years of time to develop the new LANSLLC contract where all during that time we were paying for the participant’s travel, food, lodging, and perks. I will assure you that they were not staying at the hotel 6. We also hear about an
expenditure of $100M dollars on administrative fees that were mysteriously overlooked during the negotiations, but those funds had to be found somehow. And finally there’s Mike Anastasio’s exuberant salary being reported to be $1.3M a years, up from his previous $420K a year. So here is some food for thought.

Is it possible that the UC used approximate $350M of the UCRP funds in order to finance a scheme that in the end could only lead to depriving its employees of their hard earned entitlements? Or, was it something else?

Could it be that the UC’s claim to a windfall shortage is false information entirely, so that the surplus did not have to be handed over to LANSLLC to kick-start their pension plan.

As an outsider I still view either one of these scenarios as a criminal offense punishable by imprisonment. So what do you say? Should we have the IRS investigate the issues at hand or just let the UC/ DOE once again get away with one more act of defiance in the face of its employees?

All of what was stated above is purely hear-say, rumor and speculation but if you look at the numbers and the most recent attempt by the UC to separate LANL and LLNL from the primary UCRP in order to escape all current and future liabilities, then maybe the rumors are not that far away from being the truth.

I say it’s time for an audit. Maybe once the IRS opens up a case, those missing funds will somehow materialize and we will not have to start contributions, as they claim.

I personally do not trust the UC / DOE at this time. How about you?

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/29/2006 06:49:00 PM 11 comments

The Rat Patrol

Submitted by "The Rat Patrol"

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/29/2006 11:56:00 AM 16 comments

Saturday, January 28, 2006

The Six Breaches of Trust

Submitted by "Nonombre"
______________________________

The Six Breaches of Trust

The Six Breaches of Trust

or, there are hell of a lot of things they did not tell you when you signed up for this outfit.

During the incoming director's presentation of the executive team on Jan. 19th he seemed taken aback by the tone of the questioning. The questions were not actually rude in language, but usually contained a sense of distrust or started from an assumption of hostile intent by the management. Afterwards, Bob Kuckuck actually sent an email around to the staff emphasizing the esteem he holds for the incoming director, and promising that we will feel the same way after a short period of time. The new management team should understand that they are entering the laboratory as the representatives of a DOE/NNSA/UC management that has frequently violated the trust of the laboratory staff. They have to dig their way out of a hole where all the presumptions are against them. The six major breaches of trust are:

1. Nanos' firings

2. Lab shutdown

3. Perimeter project

4. Retirement ruse

5. DOE's imaginary culture

6. Science lip service

In detail:

1. Former Director Nanos fired (or forced into retirement) numerous people. Many of those firings were based on the flimsiest of causes. For example, in the laser safety case there was no pattern of misconduct with a string of injured people coming out of that lab. Instead, there was one injury, exaggerated in severity, and no systematic pattern of injuries. In the security cases it has been policy to fire workers responsible for security infractions, usually after several instances. The CREM incident did not even appear to be a first security infraction for some of those workers. We have always believed that the management would tolerate imperfection in our service to the lab, as long as the staff’s intent was to address the goals of the lab. Most importantly, the continued failure to rectify these unfair actions indicates ethical problems at the top.

2. Lab Shutdown. This interfered with many projects and careers of people who were not in any involved with any misconduct. The lab projects are frequently developed through the efforts of the staff and involve a direct relationship between the sponsor and the project leader. The managers usually do not help develop that relationship and do not have an earned right to interfere. They have the right in the management structure, but have not earned the moral authority to stop delivery of the work. The cultural of misconduct named as a cause only existed in the imagination of foolish managers.

3. Perimeter Project. The new perimeter project is a direct attack on the quality of life in the community. The highway in question is our access to the recreational opportunities of the Jemez Mountains and the ski area. Other than the lab, the economic life of the county is from spin-off businesses and the few tourists that come here for a day. The promotion of spin-off businesses is good for the lab and good for the community but the undeveloped part of the Los Alamos Research Park will now be isolated behind the gate. The tourists usually visit the museum or the historic district, and then Bandelier, or vice versa. The perimeter project will force such tourists to go through the new lab security gate, certainly a blow to their enthusiasm for a continued visit. The county council foolishly tried to work with the DOE, who apparently care nothing about the town, and waited too long to take legal action. In fact, the facilities that matter are not close to the road, except for a few new buildings, such that one could accuse DOE of putting the new buildings in locations that support a bureaucratic land grab.

4. Retirement Ruse. The retirement plan is under threat from a DOE/NNSA/UC eager to back out of their expensive promises to the staff. There are two issues here. First, a small LANL only group will not be statistically representative the population as a whole, hence the plan will not have a reliable statistical basis to project future needs. In a large population of diverse people one can use national statistics to accurately project future costs. UCRS is now near statistical breakeven, and is such a large diverse group that the statistics are likely accurate. Our health oriented little group will not be near those projections and the little LANL plans will be born broke, or at least in uncertain health. Second, the new pension funds will have none of the state constitutional protections of the UCRS. When UCRS was doing well numerous parties tried in vain to raid the excess. The best the potential raiders could do was to not contribute to UCRS until the stock market run ended. The new plan must have similar protections, but how? The retirees should organize and hire their lawyers now. They are certainly a potentially injured class and should be ready to file a lawsuit when any decision is announced.

5. DOE's imaginary culture. DOE/NNSA has maintained a campaign to destroy the public image of the laboratories workers. The worst part is probably the testimony to Congress about a LANL culture of lax safety, poor security, and no financial accountability. These are just knowably false statements (I think my mom used to call that lying) from the leaders of DOE/NNSA and are often nationally distributed in the press. The truth is that we have an outstanding safety record and have passed numerous audits of property, classified material, and purchases with relatively few problems for an organization of this size. If the statistics are good where is the culture problem? We should probably call it "the DOE/NNSA culture of lying about our culture".

6. Science Lip service. We are all aware of the numerous "we like science" statements. This is not backed up by concrete action. The cost environment for science is increasingly unfavorable. The international visitor situation is unworkable. The safety hysteria is a problem for the student programs. I personally do not want to take students on as they could do something foolish, cause a small injury, and then that could get blown-up into my actual termination. Now the managers are even going to have input into laboratory directed exploratory research, the last vestige of peer review within the lab. This overall trend will endanger recruiting and retention of staff, and deteriorate the scientific base.

In conclusion, this is the situation the new management team faces. The staff is distrustful and hostile over a long series of issues. You have to dig yourselves out of a big hole.

Just so you know, Nonombre

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/28/2006 05:11:00 PM 20 comments

Friday, January 27, 2006

4:35 pm: N.M. senators oppose separate Los Alamos lab pension fund

By HEATHER CLARK | Associated Press
January 27, 2006

ALBUQUERQUE - New Mexico's senators urged the Department of Energy to reject a plan to create a separate pension fund for Los Alamos National Laboratory employees and retirees.

The University of California Board of Regents last week voted to create the separate fund for the nuclear weapons lab _ called the UCRP-LANL Plan _ and remove it from the overall UC pension fund. The DOE must approve the change.

The decision has outraged lab employees and retirees, who fear the smaller retirement fund would put their pensions at greater risk.

The UCRP-LANL Plan would have had a market value of $4.3 billion had it existed last June, compared with UC's total pension fund worth $41.8 billion at the time.

Sens. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., sent a letter Friday to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman asking him to reject UC's plan.

[...]

Full Story

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/27/2006 05:22:00 PM 4 comments

Letter to Bodman from Domenici & Bingaman

UCRP-LANL.pdf

Also, a letter from Udall (form letter, but a letter nevertheless) that was sent to several concerned citizens in response to mail received.
_________________________________

Thank you for contacting me about the recent press reports
regarding the University of California's decision to transfer existing
LANL retirees from the University of California Retirement Plan
(UCRP) to a new entity, following the lab management contract award to
Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS). I appreciate hearing from
you about this issue and share your concerns about this development.

While we all anticipated some uncertainty during the transition
to the LANS management team, I was surprised to see the recent
proposal regarding existing retirees. I, as well as the entire LANL
community, had received assurances from those administering the
contract bidding process that existing LANL retirees would see no
changes in their benefits. Once I learned of these plans, I immediately
contacted the University of California and National Nuclear Security
Administration (NNSA) for an explanation of their actions.

I realize that as retirees plan for the future, they need to know
that their pension benefits will be reliable and not fluctuate. Please rest
assured that I will continue to press the relevant parties for a proper
explanation so that we all can better understand the proposal.

Thank you again for contacting me about this very troubling
development. I will be in touch with you again once I receive a
satisfactory explanation of the situation and what it might mean for the
entire LANL community. In the meantime, please feel free to contact me
if you have further concerns.

Very Truly Yours,

Tom Udall
Member of Congress

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/27/2006 04:54:00 PM 10 comments

This popped up today on the UC Bencom site.

From Anonymous:
_______________________________

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/ucrpfuture/welcome.html

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/27/2006 04:03:00 PM 2 comments

News Release

News Release

U.S. Senators Pete Domenici & Jeff Bingaman

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CHRIS GALLEGOS/Domenici (202) 224-7082

JANUARY 27, 2006 JUDE McCARTIN/Bingaman (202) 224-1804

DOMENICI, BINGAMAN OPPOSE SEPARATE LANL PENSION PLAN

Alerting DOE Secretary, Senators Say Separate Pension Plan Unnecessary

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senators Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman today asserted their opposition to a plan to create a separate pension program for Los Alamos National Laboratory employees and retirees, as proposed by the lab's new management team.

The New Mexico lawmakers outlined their opposition in a letter sent Friday to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. Their opposition is based, in part, on the belief that a separate LANL pension plan under the University of California Retirement System Plan (UCRP) would not have sufficient actuarial protection and would require the Department of Energy to provide pay to uphold the lab pension plan.

"We are opposed to your taking this action at this time -- there are too many unanswered questions at this point for the Department of Energy to proceed with such an irreversible action," the Senators wrote Bodman.

3:15 pm: Los Alamos security subcontractor improperly recorded phone conversations

By HEATHER CLARK | Associated Press
January 27, 2006

ALBUQUERQUE - A security subcontractor at Los Alamos National Laboratory routinely recorded telephone conversations without the knowledge of either those making or receiving the calls, according to a report released Friday.

The recorded conversations and radio transmissions were between managers at Protection Technologies Los Alamos and the firm's security staff, other lab or Department of Energy employees and people outside the lab, said the DOE Inspector General's report. Protection Technologies provides security for the nuclear weapons lab.

Telephone beep tones _ an acceptable way to alert callers that a conversation is being recorded _ were disabled, the report said.

Lab spokesman Jim Fallin said Friday the beeps were disabled by technicians who were upgrading the recording system. Protection Technologies managers didn't know at the time time that the beeps were missing, Fallin said.

[...]

Full Story

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/27/2006 03:47:00 PM 1 comments

LANL security taped calls

ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor

Security guards at Los Alamos National Laboratory inappropriately taped telephone and radio conversations, made transcripts and used records without complying with standard procedures. But LANL says it was only a technical problem.

An inspection report released this morning by the Department of Energy Office of the Inspector General said inappropriate recording extended beyond the force to federal officials, LANL employees and the public at large who unknowingly used the PTLA phone lines.

Breaches of DOE regulations were routine and evidence of infractions went back at least five years, according to the audit.

"Protective force management also recorded telephone conversations involving individuals outside the protective force without their consent, such as other Los Alamos personnel, (DOE) Los Alamos Site Office staff, and individuals outside the Los Alamos complex," the IG reported.

[...]

Full Story

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/27/2006 03:45:00 PM 3 comments

Unix Operating System Developer

I offered to post this for a colleague. Anybody who is interested can send me mail and I will pass it on.

--Doug
______________________________________________

Let me know if you know of anyone that might be interested...

A Unix Operating System Developer is needed to assist in the development of
a light weight computational kernel for large scale Linux Clusters. The goal
of the project is to develop a Unix kernel that is optimized for computation
in large scale scientific Linux Clusters. This development is underway with
the intent of producing a scalable architecture to support large scale
compute clusters in the performance range of 100’s of teraflops. The kernel
will be multi-threaded, with SMP support, optimized for efficient
computation, low communication latency, etc. Candidates should have a solid
understanding of Unix operating system concepts, as well as some experience
with developing or optimizing system level code.

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/27/2006 02:17:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, January 26, 2006

UPTE statement

Before anyone initiates any legal action with respect to the UCRP/LANL pension plan proposal, they really should check out

http://www.upte.org/LosAlamos/docs/UCRP-Sum-Pln-last-page.pdf

for some useful information on UCRP employee and retiree rights. UPTE is currently preparing to formalize discussions with Law Firms interested in filing a "Class Action Lawsuit" if it becomes necessary. More to follow so stay tuned. UPTE's Constitution allows retirees to join UPTE (In Reference to Pension & Benefits Negotiations).

Manuel Trujillo
UPTE LANL President

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/26/2006 08:01:00 PM 9 comments

4:29 pm: DOE says Los Alamos must expand nuclear waste dump

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

January 26, 2006

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) - The U.S. Department of Energy says Los Alamos National Laboratory has no choice but to expand its nuclear waste dump.

The expansion of the disposal site known as Area G is necessary in part because an environmental restoration project underestimated the amount of waste to be handled, said Ed Wilmot, manager of the DOE's Los Alamos Site Office.

Wilmot told the Northern New Mexico Citizens' Advisory Board, which opposes the expansion, that he personally doesn't like the idea, either. But, he said, there's no other choice.

[...]

Full Story

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/26/2006 06:53:00 PM 1 comments

Nasty Surprise

I have heard at least one person suggest that the proposed UCRP LANL retiree split would have occurred even had Lockheed won the contract. This statement could not be more wrong.

First, there is no way DOE could have forced UC to split off those UCRP retirees who had retired from LANL, had LM won the contract. Second, there is no way they could have forced LM to except those non-contributing retirees into LM's "substantially equivalent" retirement program.

Finally, as others have observed, it is all about money. UC sees an opportunity to relieve the UCRP program of unattractive members, from an actuarial point of view -- the long-lived, healthy lifestyle LANL members. DOE sees this as an opportunity to relieve themselves of the financial obligation of supporting a now underfunded UCRP. If you look at the current UC/DOE contract, page 29, you will see that DOE agrees to fund shortfalls in the UC pension plan arising from economic conditions beyond UC's control.

Source: http://www.doeal.gov/LANLContractRecompete/CurrentContract.htm

(5) In the event that there is no successor plan, a reconciliation of funding obligations shall be done. A separate accounting of assets and liabilities for contract employees shall be maintained by the Contractor. The Contractor shall assure that accrued obligations to contract employees are met and that the fund is being prudently managed. If, pursuant to approval by the Regents of the University of California, all UCRP obligations to contract employees are fulfilled through a plan spin-off and termination under the process outlined in subparagraphs (e)(3) above and (g)(2) below, as applicable, the Contractor shall return any net excess assets attributable to contract employees to DOE, if approved by the Internal Revenue Service. If a funding shortfall arises as a result of economic conditions beyond the Contractor's direct control, the DOE agrees to contribute funds necessary to fully fund liabilities to cover obligations to contract employees, not including active employees who continue to be permanently employed by the Contractor.

This was a nasty surprise that was sprung on us; at least it was a surprise to those of us who were foolish enough to have believed DOE's promise that existing retirees would not be affected by the contract change-over.

--Doug

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/26/2006 12:05:00 PM 30 comments

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

NNSA Meeting Announcement

National Nuclear Security Administration
Holds Employee and Retiree Benefit Plan Meetings

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will host a series of poster board meetings at which the Lab's new contractor, Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS) will present Los Alamos National Laboratory employees with the pension/benefits plan it is proposing. NNSA will take comments on whether the proposed plan meets the "substantially equivalent" requirement of the LANS contract.

[...]

Announcement

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/25/2006 03:54:00 PM 4 comments

Not much intrinsic enjoying

From Anonymous:
________________________________

From a Sandia staffer, mid-career:

I think the pension switcheroo they are foisting on LANL retirees and current employees is a disturbing development. That, and the expertise listed in the small business categories for the new contractor do not include research and development. I imagine before too long, the Sandia staff will be told that their pensions are frozen in place, with some increased 401k contribution to make up the difference. Corporate pension analysts predict a race to the bottom as American companies follow IBM's lead in discontinuing defined pension benefits. So much for investing your time and money in your own education, not to be treated as a professional but as a liability to be minimized. No wonder there is a "shortage" of scientific and technical graduates? Why do all the heavy lifting that involves? What is the return, aside from the intrinsic enjoyment? Judging from this blog, there is not much intrinsic enjoying going on.

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/25/2006 03:12:00 PM 5 comments

LANL-ALL1013:Message from Linton Brooks

Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 13:14:24 -0700
To: LANL-ALL@lanl.gov
From: Public Affairs Office - LANL Notices <paonotices@lanl.gov>
Subject: LANL-ALL1013:Message from Linton Brooks
Sender: owner-lanl-all@maillist.lanl.gov

Please note the following from NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks:

TO: All LANL Employees

First let me thank all of you for your continued hard work and patience through the contract award process. It was a long time coming but I believe we have the best team in place and they are moving through transition in preparation for assuming management of the lab on June 1.

With transition ramping up I know many of you are looking forward to being able to make an informed decision about your future. NNSA in conjunction with LANL and Los Alamos National Security (LANS) have planned several opportunities for you to understand and compare the pension/benefit plans.

A three phase approach is planned for addressing new benefits at LANL. During the first phase several poster board meetings will be held to present the proposed new benefits. You, along with retirees and community members will be able to review and compare the plans and submit comments to the NNSA. Comments will be accepted on index cards during the briefings and by e-mail at: inputonlansbenefits@doeal.gov. NNSA will collect and consolidate the comments and determine if the LANS pension/benefit plan is substantially equivalent to the UC plan.

The second phase will commence after the new benefits are approved. During this phase comprehensive briefings will be conducted by both LANS and UC so that you can compare the options that you have in great detail.

The third phase will run concurrently with the second and will consist of one-on-one counseling sessions provided by LANS and UC. The one-on-one sessions will provide an opportunity for you to get individualized answers to your specific questions and situation.

Please take the opportunity to inform yourself about the LANS pension/benefit plan so you can compare your options in great detail. I know this is important to you and will help you determine your path forward. I look forward to working with you in the future.

Thank You

Linton Brooks
NNSA Administrator

--

Public Affairs Office
Los Alamos National Laboratory
P.O. Box 1663, Mail Stop C177

# posted by Doug Roberts : 1/25/2006 01:48:00 PM 0 comments

The LIM Notes from May 6, 2003

I have received a version of the referenced meeting notes.

-Doug

LIM Notes May 6, 2003
Special Guest: Ambassador Linton Brooks, Acting Administrator,
National Nuclear Security Administration

These notes are not meant to be a verbatim record of the meeting. However, they are sufficiently detailed to provide a very clear picture of the discussions at the meeting.

Pete Nanos:

The SET met yesterday at University House to discuss the path forward. You should know that the SET is hanging in there. We made statements that are important. In the coming time of some uncertainty it is important you know that we are going to hang together as an executive team and take the laboratory through this time.

We are going to raise the bar on any competition that has to do with this laboratory. If someone thinks they can do it better, it will be their paper against our hardware. As UC employees, we will do the utmost in our power to carry through and retain the contract for running this laboratory. It was a very strong meeting.

Now it is my pleasure to introduce a great friend of the laboratory and someone who is very concerned about the people who work here. As soon as the decision was made, he volunteered to come out and address the concerns of the people of Los Alamos.

Ambassador Brooks
I have no slides, and I have no prepared remarks. I do have a strategy that I want to tell you about. Two strategies, actually.

The first strategy is to convince UC to compete for this contract because they bring enormous benefit to Los Alamos. Since we don't know if there is anyone better, we shouldn't throw away what we've got. If UC does compete, it means I have been successful in crafting the terms of the competition to make it clear that while locking in the reforms you are making in the business services, we don't want to forget the importance of mission.

If I get that statement right, and UC competes and loses, then it means there is someone better. If there is someone better, I still win because the country wins.

So my near-term strategy is to get UC to compete. I made it clear in the report that we hope that will happen. The Secretary agrees. In his response to the report he says he "strongly" agrees; he added the word "strongly" to the draft prepared for him. I've met with four of the regents; I will meet formally with the subset of the Regents that worries about laboratory matters a week from Thursday.

UC won't decide to compete until they see what it is they are competing for. In the normal course of things, that would be a long time from now, probably late next year. So we are going to start now developing the criteria.

I don't quite know what I mean by what I just said. I do know that ultimately I want to figure out a way to translate into RFP terms the kind of things like "fostering a culture of peer review" and "encouraging basic research" and "fostering scientific skepticism" and "having an intellectual atmosphere that will attract world-class scientific talent"Š translate from concepts we understand into concepts in a contract document. We will start now figuring out how to do that, probably with some help from the labs but also from someone like the National Academy of Sciences.

I have been urged to put someone good full time on that process; I will do that once I figure out who that is. It is probably someone from DC rather than Ralph Erickson's office.

The other part of the strategy is to make it easy to complete; UC should not have to dig into tuition to fund a bid and I think I know how to do that.

My second strategy is to keep people from preemptively bailing out. We can't keep everyone; I've seen the retention statistics and so have you. But I am hopeful with your help we can convince the talent on which this or any other laboratory ultimately stands or falls to hang in there for awhile and see what happens.

The first part of this strategy is obvious. Through August or September 2005 no one has any particular incentive to leave and you need to help me make them understand that. But I also have to make clear that one of the things you do if you run a world-class scientific establishment is make it attractive for world-class scientists. We must work in a way that gives people a reasonable expectation they are not flying into a cliff in October of 2005.

I have to be careful what I say about the outcome of a competition. I believe UC will be a very powerful competitor. However, there will almost certainly be other strong competitors; we don't know yet who they are.

That's another part of my strategy; convince the UC that some of the mythology they have heard is wrong (e.g. incumbents never winning in DOE contract competitions). One contractor who has won three times is running a laboratory and there are other M&O contractors who have competed and won. Convincing the University should be easy because we are working in an element of fact not judgment.

To carry out my strategy I have to do a couple of things. First, I have to convince first you and then the people who work for you that I am serious about looking out for the interests of laboratory employees. Second, I have to learn from you what it is that I have overlooked in this rudimentary approach I've devised so I can fold it in the strategy.

That's 100 percent of my remarks, now I will go to some of the questions that you have.

Q: Livermore is not part of this process?
A: Let me make sure you understand what we did and did not decide about Livermore. The report said the Secretary decides two things. One, as a matter of principle, neither law nor sound policy requires us to make the same decision about Livermore as we have made about LANL. Secondly, as a matter of practice, we don't have to make the LLNL decision for another year, so we didn't.
Does this suggest some value judgment about relative merits of labs? Were John Browne here he would recall for you the time I had an opportunity, in front of 9 Senators, to rank the national labs. I wasn't dumb enough to do it then and I won't do it now.
It reflects the reality of whatever problems we had in the past at Livermore - like the NIF overrun - the near-term problems uncovered here were not found at LLNL. Since the situations were different, there was no need to make the LLNL decision.
Where will we go on LLNL? One thing that bothers a lot of us is the notion of the two being run by different people. The only way to guarantee you are not in that world is to compete the two physics laboratories as a package. I don't know what we are going to do. A week from tomorrow I will be talking to people at LLNL and it will be a harder discussion. Everyone here knows what I am going to do. At Livermore they don't know because I don't know.
On the one hand, it is entirely consistent to extend LLNL while competing LANL. On the other hand, if you have a competition you have to be open to the possibility that you will get an outcome other than the incumbent.
Mike Anastasio is concerned about the two laboratories being run by different contractors. We may decide it is such a bad outcome we will make the competition two-fold. We will decide this early next year. If we compete LLNL, all the things I said about criteria earlier apply.
That's where we are. I don't like the ambiguity either.

Q: People are already saying they will move to LLNL to remove the uncertainty
A: That doesn't remove uncertainty; it actually adds to it. Good people left this lab and LLNL in anticipation we were going to announce an immediate termination last week. Making such an announcement would have been an extremely stupid thing to do. While not everyone agrees with what we did, we are not extremely stupid. I hope people will not make precipitous decisions they don't have to make until we have the facts. From some of the advance questions, I got the impression people are already looking to move to LLNL. Maintaining two strong labs is important; if too much movement to Livermore happens it would be bad and I hope it won't happen.

Q: I like that you are aggressively trying to get UC to bid, but if you examine the issue at their point of view, they have run the laboratories for all these years as a public service. What can you say?
A: Analogy is every year you are called up for jury duty; next year you have to compete for the privilege and there's an entrance fee (laughter).

That is the point of view of Dr. Atkinson, who will leave in October but he worries about that. If you look at his statement to the Greenwood committee and his public statement, on one hand he wants to compete, and on the other hand he's not sure it's the right thing to do.