The University of Texas is exploring a bid to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory after receiving the green light Thursday from its Board of Regents.
The regents approved bid preparations that could cost up to $4.5 million in a Thursday meeting at the University of Texas at Austin. The meeting happened only days after the University of California — one of the lead partners with incumbent lab manager Los Alamos National Security (LANS) — said it too is “likely” to compete for a 10-year management contract the Energy Department is expected to put out for bids in September.
The “University of Texas System intends to be a lead on a team that would include private sector partners,” David Daniel, vice chancellor of the University of Texas system, said during Thursday’s webcast meeting. “We will need to secure teaming agreements with our partners. We may ultimately engage additional companies and even universities as subcontractors.”
Daniel did not identify any potential partners. He said the University of Texas at Austin “will have a particularly important roll” on the team.
The University of Texas last year joined a partnership led by Battelle and Boeing to manage the Sandia National Laboratories. A Honeywell-led team ultimately received the contract.
Meanwhile, the University of California is also eyeing its future place at Los Alamos.
“The decision on whether or not to bid rests with the UC Board of Regents and the board has not yet formally approved any bid, nor has the final RFP [request for proposals] been released,” University of California spokeswoman Dianne Klein said by email. “As such, it would be premature to confirm that UC definitely will bid. I will say, however, that it is likely.”
University of California’s expression of interest followed a Monday speech to Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) employees by Janet Napolitano, president of the university. Bechtel National is the university’s primary private sector partner in LANS, which also includes BWX Technologies and AECOM.
“We’re still very early in the process. We will continue to evaluate the opportunity as it evolves,” Bechtel National spokesman Fred deSousa wrote in an email Friday. “In the meantime we remain focused on working with our teammates to execute the lab’s mission safely and efficiently.”
BWX Technologies spokesman Jud Simmons declined to comment about whether that company would seek a role in the next LANL management pact. An AECOM spokesman did not reply to multiple requests for comment this week.
The University of California was the nuclear-weapon laboratory’s sole manager prior to LANS taking over in 2006.
More than 11,000 people work at the laboratory northwest of Santa Fe, roughly 7,200 directly for the contractor. About 65 percent of its fiscal 2016 budget of $2.45 billion was directed to weapons operations.
The current management and operations contract, worth roughly $2 billion a year, is set to expire on Sept. 30, 2018. The Energy Department decided not to pick up further options on LANS’ contract after a 2014 underground radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., was traced to an improperly packaged container of radioactive waste from the laboratory.
DOE released a draft solicitation for the follow-on LANL management and operations contract in July. The final solicitation for the expected 10-year deal is expected in September.
The NNSA has invited would-be bidders for the follow-on LANL management contract to tour the weapons lab on Aug. 29. The agency will also host one-on-one meetings with prospective offerors, each of whom may bring a maximum of four company representatives.
The draft solicitation for the work DOE released in July drew swift criticism from the local Los Alamos government, which was alarmed that the government intends to cap the proposed fixed fee for lab management at 1 percent of the estimated cost, with a proposed award fee of no more than 0.5 percent of the cost for each contract period. The planned contract consists of a five-year base period with five one-year options.
The NNSA, in an Aug. 11 question-and-answer document uploaded to an NNSA procurement site, appeared to preserve at least the option of keeping those contract fee limits in place.
“Solicitations are required to identify a maximum available fee and may invite offerors to propose a fee less than the maximum available,” the agency wrote. However, it insisted that “[h]iring the best possible contractor is NNSA’s priority, as reflected in the draft RFP [request for proposal].”
Los Alamos County, in a July letter to DOE, said the low fees might scare away technically capable companies from the competition. Also in their July letter, Los Alamos locals said the final solicitation for LANL management should include explicit language mandating support for northern New Mexico schools and businesses that the draft solicitation lacks.
In its Aug. 11 post, DOE said it would make sure the next LANL contract “honors existing subcontracts and other similar agreements” at the lab, as well as memorandums of understanding entered into by LANS. The agency also said the final solicitation would include language cementing the lab contractor’s legal requirement to support the Los Alamos Public School District.
The question and answer document did not identify the parties who submitted queries to the agency.
