National Laboratories

Los Alamos National Laboratory has awarded a $50 million contract to Navarro Research and Engineering for enduring waste management services under an existing Master Task Order Agreement. The scope of the contract includes a variety of waste at the site, including low level waste and mixed low level waste, industrial waste, New Mexico special waste, […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory has improved processes related to characterization wells at the site since a 2005 report from the Department of Energy’s Inspector General first raised concerns, according to an IG report released yesterday. LANL constructed the 32 wells to characterize contaminants in the site’s groundwater, but the 2005 IG report took issue with […]

The Department of Energy is bringing on Idaho National Laboratory official Betsy Connell to serve as a senior policy advisor to Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz for cleanup-related issues, with an initial focus on tank waste, Weapons Complex Morning Briefing has learned. Connell currently holds the position of senior policy advisor at Battelle Energy Alliance, […]

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is looking to cut its workforce by up to 600 employees and is kicking off a round of buyouts to address potential budgetary shortfalls in Fiscal Year 2014, laboratory Director Parney Albright said yesterday. The buyouts will be available to all career employees at the laboratory, and one week of severance […]

Five former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory workers who had alleged they were unjustly laid off in 2008 because of age discrimination were awarded $2.7 million by a California jury late Friday. The five workers—66-year-old Elaine Andrews, 63-year-old Greg Olsen, 61-year-old Marian Barraza, 60-year-old James “Rocky” Torrice, and 57-year-old Mario Jimenez—are a “representative” group of 130 […]

More than 50 officials from 23 European countries toured Sandia National Laboratories last week as part of a demonstration of the U.S. extended deterrence commitment to its NATO allies. The delegation was led by Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs Andrew Weber and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear […]

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is considering its options in the wake of last week’s $2.7 million award by a California jury to five former workers that successfully argued that they were unjustly laid off in 2008, but the lab gave no sense that it is considering settling with another 125 former workers awaiting trial or […]

Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) earlier this week urged House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers to consider the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management reprogramming request, as well as a planned upcoming request to move $21 million in funding from the National Nuclear Security Administration to the Office of Environmental Management for cleanup of Los […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory yesterday officially announced the award of a Master Task Order Agreement to three small businesses—Terranear PMC, Navarro Research and Engineering, Inc., and Adelante Consulting, Inc. The awards, which were first reported by WC Monitor last month, cover technical services for the lab’s Environmental Programs directorate, which could total $150 million. The […]

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is seeking an industry partner to help it come up with new ways of processing and storing tritium for next-generation nuclear fusion facilities, the lab said in a sources sought notice earlier this week. Tritium is used at the lab’s National Ignition Facility—it is the fusion of deuterium and tritium that […]

If the Obama Administration wants support for plans to ship Hanford tank waste believed to be transuranic material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, it will have to do more to help with funding for WIPP and with Los Alamos cleanup efforts, New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall (D) said yesterday at a […]

More than two dozen California lawmakers are appealing to Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein to increase the budget for the National Ignition Facility, though it’s unlikely that Feinstein will come to the rescue of the program. In a reflection of a shift away from “ignition” shots in the wake of last year’s […]

New Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will meet with the directors of the Department of Energy’s national laboratories Monday in Oak Ridge in his first formal trip as a cabinet official in the Obama Administration, NW&M Monitor has learned. The location of the meeting appears to be somewhat symbolic, near the Y-12 National Security Complex site […]

SAIC has been awarded a contract that could be worth as much as $228 million to help streamline Sandia National Laboratories’ information technology services. The contract has a five-year base period with one two-year option, and under the contract, SAIC will provide mission-specific IT research, development and integration of capabilities while  providing support for central […]

If Physicist Ernest Moniz is confirmed as the next Secretary of the Department of Energy, he will have the opportunity to transform the agency, "if he is willing to reform, restructure, and refocus the organization to put energy innovation at the forefront of its agenda," the authors of a Clean Air Task Force and Energy […]

  Los Alamos National Laboratory has made at least two awards for Master Task Order Agreement 4—To Navarro Research and Engineering and to TerranearPMC, WC Monitor has learned. The $150 million multiple award contract covers technical support services at the site.  

Stymied in its attempts to achieve ignition last year, the National Nuclear Security Administration has shied away from setting an exact date for reaching the elusive goal at the National Ignition Facility. But budget documents released this week indicate that the agency expects to demonstrate thermonuclear burn that would enhance the uses of the National […]

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is shuffling its senior leadership ranks, moving lab weapons chief Bruce Goodwin into a new slot as associate director at large for National Security Policy & Research and shifting his deputy, Charlie Verdon, into the lab’s top weapons spot in an acting capacity. The lab also said that Center for Global […]

An age discrimination lawsuit filed by laid off Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory workers is expected to go to a jury this week as lawyers for the plaintiffs and defendants will give their closing statements Tuesday. The jury in the Alameda County (Calif.) Superior Court could return a verdict by the end of the week, deciding […]

Former Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Director Michael Anastasio has been picked by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as the 12th and final member of the Congressionally mandated panel on NNSA governance. Anastasio, the only former laboratory director on a panel largely dominated by former lawmakers and energy and defense officials, headed […]

With the National Ignition Facility transitioning to more of a user facility, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has named Jeff Atherton the director of the world’s biggest laser and shifted responsibility of the facility to the lab’s Science and Technology directorate. Former NIF Director Ed Moses will remain the principle associate director for the NIF and […]

A recommendation by the Department of Energy’s Inspector General to consider shuttering some of DOE’s national laboratories has not gained a lot of traction, IG Gregory Friedman told the House Science, Space and Technology Oversight Subcommittee late last week. In 2011, the IG said suggested a “BRAC-style” commission should be formed to examine consolidating parts […]

An age discrimination lawsuit filed by laid off Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory workers finally got underway in earnest yesterday as lawyers for the plaintiffs and defendants began their opening statements in what is expected to be a five-week trial. The trial in Alameda County (Calif.) Superior Court pits five former lab workers that have alleged […]

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Sequoia supercomputer has enabled researchers at the lab to perform record-setting simulations that utilize all 1,572,864 of the supercomputer’s computational cores, which lab officials say could have major implications for research on energy, science and the weapons program. Sequoia was recently ranked as the second fastest supercomputer in the world, operating […]

After questioning the National Nuclear Security Administration on award fee waivers given to the contractors that run Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories late last year, the chairman of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee told NW&M Monitor yesterday that he would probe the agency for more information about its decisions. Neither Los Alamos […]

Sandia National Laboratories hired a handful of retirees as consultants and paid them higher salaries than they earned as full-time employees, in some instances violating internal lab policies, according to a memorandum released by the Department of Energy Inspector General yesterday. An investigation by the IG revealed that eight retirees were paid at a higher […]

A Department of Energy Inspector General report released Friday found that Cooperative Research and Development Agreements under the National Nuclear Security Administration’s national labs have been executed well, but noted several areas for improvement. “We found that NNSA laboratories were managing the use of selected CRADA activities that we tested in an effective manner,” the […]

The Department of Energy’s Inspector General has found several new areas needing improvement at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s low-level waste disposal area. The IG recently completed an inspection to follow up on a 2011 review of LANL’s Material Disposal Area G, and in a report released yesterday named additional areas of concern related to worker […]

National Strategic Protective Services LLC officially took over as the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge protective force contractor yesterday, and company officials say they’ve hired 100 percent of the incumbent workforce. NSPS, a joint venture between Triple Canopy and Securiguard, ousted WSI Oak Ridge earlier this year as the protective force contractor for Oak Ridge […]

With Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility set to run out of funding next month, the Department of Energy says it will need to reprogram $138 million to compensate for higher overhead rates that are being charged to the facility. In a reprogramming request sent to House and Senate authorizers and appropriators last week, […]