March 17, 2014

NNSA TO INCREASE DIRECT CONTRACTING ON CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

By ExchangeMonitor

The National Nuclear Security Administration is planning to expand the use of direct federal contracting for capital projects, and Acquisition and Project Management chief Bob Raines said yesterday that the agency is expecting 40 percent of its major projects to be performed outside its management and operating contractors over the next five years. Currently, two of the NNSA’s 14 projects that are under construction are contracted outside M&Os: the High Explosive Pressing Facility (HEPF) at the Pantex Plant and the Bear Creek Road relocation at the Y-12 National Security Complex. But since joining the NNSA two years ago, Raines has pushed to increase the use of direct federal contracts in order to potentially save money on simple infrastructure projects. “We’re looking at these for those kinds of projects that we believe anybody could do, that generally the M&O would have direct subcontracted 100 percent of the work out,” Raines told NW&M Monitor on the sidelines of the Energy Facility Contractors Group annual meeting. “We’re just looking to say, do we have a better value proposition.” He said the NNSA is currently working on a “hybrid guaranteed max type contract” that would mirror a direct-contracted deal, but he declined to say for which project the agency was planning to use that approach. 

Such an approach would lean heavily on the Army Corps of Engineers, which currently manages the HEPF and Bear Creek Road projects. The Corps and the NNSA signed a memorandum of understanding earlier this year to make it easier for the Corps to do work for the agency. “It’s a streamlining effect,” Raines said. “If we think the best way to do something is to use a fed direct contract and rather than me managing and awarding that, because it’s not in my sweet spot, if it’s a straight-out infrastructure project, that’s what the Corps has done for 100 years. We’ll go to them and I believe they will be more efficient than us.” Raines also said the partnership with the Corps would help the agency learn from the Corps and understand its processes and procedures.

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NEW: Via public records request, I’ve been able to confirm reporting today that a warrant has been issued for DOE deputy asst. secretary of spent fuel and waste disposition Sam Brinton for another luggage theft, this time at Las Vegas’s Harry Reid airport. (cc: @EMPublications)

DOE spent fuel lead Brinton accused of second luggage theft.



by @BenjaminSWeiss, confirming today's reports with warrant from Las Vegas Metro PD.

Waste has been Emplaced! 🚮

We have finally begun emplacing defense-related transuranic (TRU) waste in Panel 8 of #WIPP.

Read more about the waste emplacement here: https://wipp.energy.gov/wipp_news_20221123-2.asp

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