Draft ‘Transition Plan’ Says New EM Los Alamos Field Office Could Open by January

Mike Nartker
NS&D Monitor
11/7/2014

As the Department of Energy prepares to shift management of the remaining legacy cleanup work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to the Office of the Environmental Management from the National Nuclear Security Administration, DOE anticipates needing 18-to-24 months to have new “incentive-based” cleanup contracts in place for the lab, according to a plan NS&D Monitor obtained this week. The Oct. 29 report, marked as “pre-decisional,” outlines a draft transition plan for the management shift, which also envisions a continued near-term role for Los Alamos National Security, LLC, the lab’s managing contractor, in performing cleanup work, though DOE is considering a sole-source contracting arrangement with another firm if an agreement can’t be reached with LANS. EM and the NNSA are working to submit a final transition plan to the Secretary of Energy by mid-November. A DOE official said late this week, “The planning for the transition of the Los Alamos cleanup work from NNSA to EM oversight is ongoing and continues to be refined. It is premature to comment on any draft.”

Currently, cleanup activities at Los Alamos are overseen by the NNSA Los Alamos Field Office but funded by EM. DOE’s approach for managing the Los Alamos cleanup has come under new scrutiny in the wake of findings that issues with transuranic waste processing at Los Alamos may have been a factor in a radiological release that occurred earlier this year at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant that shut down the facility. In September, the New Mexico Environment Department listed having EM in charge of the legacy cleanup work at Los Alamos as one of the state’s conditions for restarting operations at WIPP, and later that month, DOE officially announced it would move forward with developing a plan for the management shift. “This change will align the focus and accountability of the cleanup with EM and enable the Los Alamos site prime contractor, Los Alamos National Security (LANS), to continue its focus on the core national security missions at the site,” acting Assistant Energy Secretary for EM Mark Whitney said in a statement.

Two-Phased Approach Planned for Organizational Changes

As part of the management shift, DOE envisions the creation of a separate EM field office at Los Alamos (EMLA), which could be in place as early as January, according to the draft transition plan. “Once established, there will be two distinct field offices at the single geographic site. This arrangement is similar to that at Oak Ridge. While other models were evaluated, it was determined that this model best achieved the transition objectives and will provide optimal EM management of the legacy environmental cleanup at Los Alamos,” the draft plan says.

Initially, the EM field office would be staffed by the 22 EM employees currently in the NNSA Los Alamos Field Office’s Environmental Projects Division, as well as four new EM positions, including a Senior Executive Service field office manager who would report directly to the No. 2 position in EM—Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary—as other EM field office managers currently do. The draft plan does not describe what role, if any, Pete Maggiore, assistant manager for environmental programs at the NNSA field office and an NNSA employee, may play in the new EM field office. “The immediate implementation of this first phase will prepare EM to assume direct management of any prime contracts to be established for accomplishment of the EM funded scope, as well as direct management of the associated regulatory agreements and requirements,” the draft plan says, adding, “It will, however, require the continued coordination and collaboration with the NNSA, who may continue to provide nuclear safety oversight of some EM funded activities, as well as other landlord-related functions and services.”

The second phase of setting up the EM field office, expected to be completed by early 2016, would entail the establishment of an additional 10-12 positions in areas such as nuclear safety and contract management. “It is recommended the planning and implementation of this second phase be pursued as expeditiously as possible, as the establishment of the EMLA nuclear safety expertise is needed for EM to assume maximum on-site oversight of the EM funded scope,” the draft plan says. “Until such time that this is achieved nuclear safety review and approval may transition to EM and be retained at EM Headquarters and worked collaboratively with NA-LA until the full EMLA office is staffed. However, continued local nuclear safety review may be required from NNSA for an interim period.”

The draft plan notes: “In any case, the broader EMLA Field Office should be fully staffed by early 2016 prior to award of the planned competitively awarded EM prime contracts later in 2016.”

New A&E Contract Envisioned, Work Possible for EM ID/IQ Contractors

To aid in the acquisition planning for the new Los Alamos cleanup contracts, EM plans to “non-competitively” award by the end of 2015 a small business contract to cover activities such as evaluation of acquisition alternatives, development of an acquisition strategy and scope statements, according to the draft plan. EM also plans to compete and award before the end of Fiscal Year 2015 a separate architecture and engineering contract to help “guide” the remaining Los Alamos legacy cleanup. “The scope of this A&E may include broad integration activities, owner’s representative, design activities, safety planning, review and oversight,” the draft plan says.

Also during the transition period, EM is considering using existing contracting vehicles, such as the nationwide Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity cleanup contracts to perform “small, severable work segments,” the draft plan says. “Such opportunities to break away small scope elements may provide advantages such as gradual ramp down of work scope currently included within the LANL M&O contract and … early experience encountering and resolving key transition and interface issues,” the draft plan says.

The draft report does not provide detail on how DOE plans to compete the anticipated new prime cleanup contracts for Los Alamos. It does say, though, that local stakeholders have expressed concerns that small businesses that are incumbent support contractors be retained to perform legacy cleanup work without being subject to a rebid process. “While EM will consider capabilities of incumbent subcontracts in the formulation of its acquisition strategy, it is likely much of the future work will be competitively awarded. Therefore, some local stakeholder expectations may not be fully satisfied,” the draft plan says, going to add, “The role of small businesses in the conduct of future legacy environmental cleanup scope will be carefully evaluated.”

DOE Wants to Complete Contact Mod with LANS By End of 2015

In the near-term, NNSA and EM plan to negotiate a bilateral contract modification with LANS to allow LANS to contract separately with EM and to move all legacy environmental cleanup scope out of the NNSA contract for the lab. “This change is … to be completed as quickly as practical and may occur as soon as December 2015,” the draft plan says. Once the bilateral modification is complete, EM will execute a “non-competitive contract” with LANS “the scope and terms of which will be as similar to the current terms as practical,” the draft plan says. “This is necessary to minimize worker and site-wide impacts, facilitate ease of transition and minimize impact to ongoing, regulatory driven cleanup activities,” the draft plan says.

Explaining the advantage of having EM directly contract with LANS for cleanup work in the near-term, the draft plan says: “This interim transition arrangement provides significant advantages, in that it may simplify near term management of workforce related issues and permitting changes. It also would allow EM to achieve the Secretarially directed objective of having increased management control and oversight of the EM funded legacy cleanup activities.”

If the contract modifications with LANS can’t be reached, though, EM could move forward with a non-competitive approach to provide for the possible transition of the legacy cleanup scope in Fiscal Year 2015, the draft plan says. “This strategy includes the following elements: a justification for other than full and open competition process; Secretarial approval of the JOFOC; notification to Congress and requisite holding period; parallel market research via a sources sought publication; discussions and award to a qualified prime EM contractor other than LANS and its corporate partners,” the draft plan says.

No Significant Workforce Impacts Anticipated in Near-Term

According to the draft plan, DOE does not anticipate any significant workforce impacts in the near-term at Los Alamos through the shift of the cleanup work from EM to NNSA, though that may change once the new EM prime cleanup contracts are awarded. The draft report says that “EM and NNSA recommend it attempt to stabilize/maintain current levels until award of competitively awarded new EM contracts. Preservation of the workforce avoids loss of institutional knowledge, avails time for needed contractual modifications and facilitates the execution of high-risk environmental scope.” The draft report adds, “Irrespective of any contractual change and transition, funding constraints and unanticipated scope changes have the potential to directly affect workforce levels.” If fewer employees are employed in the new EM cleanup contracts, “decisions and costs associated with retention or separation of the M&O workforce will rest with NNSA,” the draft plan says.

DOE also does not currently anticipate any pension-related issues in the near-term related to the transition, though that also could change once the new EM prime cleanup contracts are in place. “While the issues associated with pension transfers will likely be more complicated in the ultimate transition to the future competitively awarded EM contracts, pension management may be easily addressed in the transition to an EM prime contract with LANS if the pension programs remain with the NNSA M&O and EM simply reimburses the share associated with those employees transitioning to the EM prime contractor,” the draft plan says.

One question that will need to be answered for the new anticipated contracts will be if they are considered “successor” arrangements, which would require comparable benefits to be provided to employees that transfer over. The draft plan states, “Some individuals involved in the analysis to date have indicated a preference that the new EM contract(s) not be successor agreements to [avoid] the cost and difficulty of transitioning the employees and making changes to the current programs. However, there is experience at the site and within EM to conduct such a transition. A LANS manager who serves as chair of the pension board expressed support for any affected employees remaining in the LANS pensions and the new contractor(s) become sponsoring companies to that plan.”