Members of the Commission to Review the Effectiveness of the National Energy Laboratories (CRENEL) approved last Friday the group’s draft final report that reviews the Department of Energy’s (DOE) national labs and makes recommendations for improvement. CRENEL, established last year, was tasked with determining the extent to which the national labs’ operations align with the DOE’s mission. The commission’s draft report finds that the relationship between lab contractors and the DOE can be improved for greater transparency, that the labs should have greater managing autonomy, and that the DOE should grant fixed fee contracts rather than high incentive award fees to managing and operating contractors. During a public comment conference call held by CRENEL, anti-nuclear weapons activist Marylia Kelley, co-founder of Tri-Valley CAREs, called for deeper analysis of the mission of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) national laboratories, particularly that of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Kelley recommended that CRENEL explore "shifting the focus of Livermore lab from nuclear weapons to other missions," saying that her organization believes "the nation is not well-served by maintaining two nuclear weapons design laboratories, both Livermore and Los Alamos."