FORMER LANL DIRECTOR ANASTASIO PICKED FOR NNSA GOVERNANCE PANEL

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 up Livermore from 2002 to 2005 before taking over as the director of Los Alamos from 2005 to 2011. Anastasio shepherded the lab through the transition to private management by Bechtel-led Los Alamos National Security, LLC, at a time that the lab was trying to strengthen safety and security practices that had led to several embarrassing incidents. But during the end of his tenure, he advocated that the lab be given more freedom from sometimes burdensome federal management—one of the issues that the panel is expected to tackle. In 2011, Anastasio told a National Academy of Sciences panel that despite strides in the areas of safety and security, “I don’t see that trust level has changed in a significant way or a positive way.” He also suggested that the NNSA “spend more energy enabling our success and less energy managing us.” The panel is expected to make recommendations on revising the governance structure of the NNSA in the wake of debate last year about reforming the agency.