The National Academy of Sciences panel that delivered a highly anticipated—and highly critical—report on management of the nuclear weapons laboratories this week took a pass on one issue central to the discussion about the privatization of the laboratories: was it worth it to significantly increase the fee at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories? Former Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Director Charles Shank, who will testify today before the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee about the panel’s report, was equally noncommittal about the issue in an address at the Fourth Annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit yesterday. “I think that time will tell whether that is a good proposition for the country or not,” Shank said. “Clearly Sandia does not have that level of fee and they have a high level of performance. I do not have an opinion, nor did the committee have an opinion, about what is the appropriate level of fee to attract the right kind of people to manage the labs.”
The panel did have an opinion about the management at the labs and the relationship between the institutions and the NNSA, calling the relationship “broken” and “dysfunctional” in its report. “In an era of cost containment it’s sad to spend so much effort working with the laboratories as non-trusted entities and managing them that way and having huge operational numbers of people required to do that kind of oversight,” Shank said.