The prime contractor for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California did not properly document more than $1 million worth of work it did in 2015 under a number of interagency agreements, the Department of Energy’s inspector general reported just before the new year.
The roughly $1.26 million in costs the Inspector General’s Office tagged were only a fraction of a percent of the total costs — almost $1.5 billion — Lawrence Livermore National Security (LLNS) booked in 2015, the DOE watchdog said in an audit report published Dec. 22.
Without breaking down the work involved, the inspector general said LLNS “was unable to provide adequate supporting documentation” for 13 interagency agreements the contractor entered into in 2015. Contractor officials said they never requested such documentation during the interagency agreements, and DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) — which oversees the lab — said the contractor was not required to.
Nevertheless, the IG recommended the NNSA Livermore Field Office determine whether the costs questioned in the report were allowable. Any expenses that were not, the inspector general said, should be recovered. In a reply to the inspector general, NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz agreed with the recommendation and said any unallowable costs would be recovered by March 31.
Lawrence Livermore National Security is a consortium led by the University of California with industry partners Bechtel National, AECOM, Battelle, and BWX Technologies. Work on the company’s management and operations contract began in 2007 and would, if DOE picks up all its options, run through 2026. Total annual costs for the current eight-year option on the contract range from $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion, with total available fees ranging from just over $33 million to about $40 million per year.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory helps maintain the potency of the U.S. nuclear arsenal with, among other things, high-energy physics programs that simulate the effects of nuclear explosions without detonating nuclear weapons.
