With the Department of Energy’s Tier 2 and 3 contractors growing increasingly concerned over an apparent shift by some prime contractors toward self-performing work, DOE Office of Environmental Management Deputy Assistant Secretary for Acquisition and Project Management Jack Surash signaled yesterday that EM’s main focus is with its prime contractors. “In EM, the way I see things is the pertinent contract is between DOE and the prime contractor,” Surash said during remarks at this year’s Waste Management Symposium. “Quite frankly, we need to let the prime contractor do what they think is best. We’ve got performance-based contracts hanging out there with a lot of fee. We’re looking for performance. It needs to be safe. It needs to be high quality.”
Saying he was aware of prime contractors that are moving to “insource” work, Surash said, “As long as our primes are meeting their contract requirements, this is part of the arms-length relationship that is different in EM than I think in the rest of the Department.” He added, “I don’t want to leave anybody with the thought that it’s not something we care about, but it’s the contract that we’re focusing on.”
