Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
4/04/2014

The National Nuclear Security Administration is monitoring changes to Los Alamos National Laboratory’s ethics review process in the wake of a DOE Inspector General report that led to the resignation last month of Deputy Director Beth Sellers, and the agency hasn’t made a decision whether or not to take further action against the lab, according to a response to the IG report from acting NNSA Administrator Bruce Held. NS&D Monitor reported last month that Sellers was the subject of a draft IG report that revealed Sellers and her husband failed to notify lab officials of a potential conflict of interest before her husband, a consultant to the lab, was awarded a sole-source contract. The IG report was officially released this week. Sellers announced her resignation from the lab March 7. Sellers’ husband also billed the lab for work that he never performed, according to the report.

Held’s comments were included in the final report, and noted that Los Alamos began reviewing contracts to be awarded to individuals with “near-relatives or spouses” working at the lab. He also said that the lab’s Ethics and Audits Group emphasized the lab’s conflict of interest disclosure policies, which require prior approval for subcontracts with spouses of lab employees. “The Los Alamos Field Office has supervised the implementation of the recommended corrective actions and will engage in ongoing oversight to evaluate the sustained effectiveness of these corrective actions,” Held said. “Further, findings identified in this report were considered in developing the Laboratory’s fiscal year 2013 Performance Evaluation Report, and we are evaluating whether any additional management action may be necessary given the results of the Inspectors’ review.”