The majority of New Mexico’s congressional delegation on Tuesday said they have called on the National Nuclear Security Administration to ensure that small business participation is a key component of the next management and operations contract for the Sandia National Laboratories.
The semiautonomous Department of Energy branch said Monday it expects to release the final request for proposals sometime this month. The current contract, held by Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sandia Corp., expires on April 30, 2017.
In a letter to NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz, the four lawmakers thanked the agency for mandating small business involvement in the contract via the RFP, noting that the laboratory spends 39 percent of contract-related funds in the state, with more than $258 million directed to New Mexico small businesses. “Local companies provide site-tailored, value-added goods and services while also building regional capacity that helps recruit new employees and their families. We request that NNSA evaluate the contractor on annually negotiated local contracting goals,” says the April 27 letter, signed by Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall and Reps. Ben Ray Lujan and Michelle Lujan Grisham.
The Congress members also cited four other areas that should be sustained or augmented in the request for proposals: workforce recruitment and retention, including “requiring contractors to consider diversity and workforce retention when proposing any changes to compensation and benefits packages”; technology transfer, including evaluating the contractor’s performance partly on use of laboratory-produced technology by small and medium-sized businesses; encouraging lab collaborations with universities in the region; and support for charitable contributions and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education.