March 17, 2014

NAS PANEL: LAB CONTRACT TRANSITION NOT MAIN BLAME FOR MGMT. ISSUES

By ExchangeMonitor

A National Academy of Sciences National Research Council study panel says “serious” management issues are hampering work at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear weapons laboratories, noting a “persistent level of mistrust” between the labs and their federal overseers and calling the relationship “dysfunctional” and “broken.” The report, a copy of which was obtained by NW&M Monitor, will be released later this week in advance of a House hearing on the issue.

Notably, the Congressionally mandated panel stopped short of placing blame for the problems on the transition to private management at the labs, an accusation that has been levied by weapons complex observers and largely drove the creation of the panel. “Many of the bureaucratic frustrations raised at all levels appear to be either within the power of the Laboratories to address or driven by governance strategies above the Laboratory level: they are not traceable to the M&O contractor or the contracts themselves,” the panel said in its report, “Managing for High-Quality Science and Engineering at the NNSA National Security Laboratories.”

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