Senate appropriators have raised questions about the National Nuclear Security Administration’s decision to shift protective force management at the Y-12 National Security Complex under management and operating contractor B&W Y-12, suggesting that the new approach is not the most cost effective, or efficient way, to provide security across the weapons complex. In the report accompanying the Senate Appropriations Committee’s version of the Fiscal Year 2014 Energy and Water spending bill, the committee noted that the NNSA had requested an increase of $57.3 million for protective force work in the wake of the security breach at Y-12 last year though it said numerous reports about the incident had pegged its cause on poor management and oversight rather than a lack of protective forces, training, equipment or funding. Communication between protective force contractor WSI-Oak Ridge and B&W Y-12 was also recognized as a serious issue.
In the wake of the security breach, the NNSA shifted WSI-Oak Ridge’s contract under B&W Y-12. WSI-Oak Ridge was then fired, and B&W Y-12 absorbed the site’s guard force, charging higher overhead rates for management of the work. At the same time, the agency abandoned plans to compete a separate protective force contractor for DOE work in Oak Ridge, Y-12 and the Pantex Plant, and has since folded in protective force work with its ongoing Y-12/Pantex management and operating procurement. “The Committee questions whether NNSA’s decision to pay $57,255,000 more for the same protective force services has resulted in any improvements in security,” the committee said. It directed the NNSA to report to Congress 30 days after the enactment of the spending bill why the Y-12/Pantex pro force contract was not separately competed, its future plans for protective force work at Y-12 “that offer the best protective services at the lowest cost,” and why overhead rates have increased as much as they have.
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