E&W APPROPS CHAIR TO SEEK MORE INFO ON LANL, LLNL AWARD TERM WAIVERS

After questioning the National Nuclear Security Administration on award fee waivers given to the contractors that run Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories late last year, the chairman of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee told NW&M Monitor yesterday that he would probe the agency for more information about its decisions. Neither Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS), nor Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (LLNS), earned enough at-risk fee in Fiscal Year 2012 to meet the 80 percent award-term threshold on their annual Performance Evaluation Reviews, with Livermore earning 78 percent of the fee and Los Alamos earning 68 percent. However, acting NNSA Administrator Neile Miller, then the agency’s Principal Deputy Administrator and Fee Determining Official, adjusted Livermore’s fee in December, giving the lab contractor an extra $541,527 to help it meet the 80 percent mark, and waived the requirement for LANS in recognition of the progress the lab had made in recovering from a delayed security upgrade project.

In a speech at the Nuclear Deterrence Summit last month, the Government Accountability Office said the agency did itself a “tremendous disservice” by granting the award term extensions, and House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee chairman Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) briefly raised the issue at yesterday’s subcommittee hearing. “There was some issue there?” Frelinghuysen asked NNSA Associate Administrator for Acquisition and Project Management Bob Raines. Raines responded by noting that the “Fee Determining Official decided it was still in the best interest of the Department to award the award terms.” When asked about the decision after the hearing, Frelinghuysen told NW&M Monitor that he would be asking the NNSA for more information, but did not offer specifics. “I think we raised the issue because we have some concerns,” he said, adding: “We want people to be consistent. We want to know what’s going on.”