Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
11/20/2015
The relationship between the federal government and national laboratories should be modified to ease the burden of federal regulations while promoting transparency and trust between the two entities, according to the co-chairs of the Commission to Review the Effectiveness of the National Energy Laboratories (CRENEL) and a laboratory director.
CRENEL, established last year, released a report at the end of last month outlining recommendations to improve the performance of national energy laboratories. "We find that the trusted relationship that is supposed to exist between the federal government and its national labs is broken and is inhibiting performance," CRENEL co-Chairman TJ Glauthier said Wednesday at a House Science, Space, and Technology Energy Subcommittee hearing. Glauthier suggested the Department of Energy (DOE) oversee programs on the policy level and allow the labs to handle the implementation of the policy "without needing as many approvals from DOE along the way."
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said that the national labs “spend an excessive amount of time to navigate through government red tape created by the DOE,” and Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas) asked: “How much discretion should the DOE delegate to contractor-operators while balancing the need to maintain DOE’s oversight responsibilities?"
In his testimony Glauthier recommended labs be given greater flexibility in the management of budgets and personnel compensation, the autonomous implementation of site assessments to avoid redundancy, and a simpler approval process for public-private collaborations, goals outlined in CRENEL’s report. Asked about the greatest inefficiency that exists between the DOE and its labs, Glauthier underscored the “transactional oversight” that involves the approval process for lab activities and the amount of investigations and inspections, processes that are “detracting from the time spent on the research mission." He noted that over 50 commissions, panels, and studies have assessed the national labs over the last four decades, a practice that could be streamlined by creating a “standing body of experienced people” to consistently offer their perspectives over time.
Glauthier also said that the labs overseen by the DOE’s Office of Science “generally have much better relationships with the DOE than do those in the other program offices,” including in the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). “We found that the planning and oversight processes in the weapons program . . . are not as effective as those in the Office of Science programs,” he said, calling for the DOE to adapt successful procedures across all its programs. Office of Science labs include the Argonne, Oak Ridge, and Brookhaven facilities that conduct research in advanced scientific computing, nuclear physics, and basic energy sciences, among other areas.
Peter Littlewood, director of the Argonne National Laboratory, agreed on the need for greater lab autonomy and risk acceptance, saying that "when DOE gives the laboratories and their contractors the authority to operate with more discretion, we are empowered to take the kind of risks that are imperative for scientific discovery and technological innovation. In return, we accept the need for transparency and accountability." Littlewood said that due to DOE’s "increasing attention to detail and attempts to reduce uncertainty," the national lab system has "reached a point where we punish failure rather than rewarding success" and "traded innovation for regulation."
Ultimately, Smith lauded the “unique, long-term research capabilities and facilities that could not otherwise be reproduced by universities or the private sector” offered by the DOE lab system, and Weber referred to the delicate balance of oversight, arguing that “too much discretion without effective oversight can lead to waste or misuse of taxpayer funds.”
Recruitment and Retention
Littlewood noted that the recruitment of a new generation of technical experts has been a concern for the national labs, and that “anything that we can do to bring people into this area of public service is something I would support.” He and Glauthier highlighted an increase in Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program funding as a way to recruit young scientists into careers in the nuclear security enterprise. Projects in the program “might serve as proofs of concept in emerging fields, address significant technical challenges facing laboratory programs, or explore innovative concepts to address DOE missions,” CRENEL said in its report, suggesting the cap on LDRD be restored to 6 percent unburdened following funding cuts in recent years.
Glauthier lauded the “very good record” that contractor-operated national lab facilities have in recruiting and retaining scientists, but added that “the run-down state of some of the facilities has been an impediment to recruiting and retaining really top-quality people.”
