TEXAS DROPS NUKE LAB BID

Despite year after year of scan­dals, safety lapses, and swiss cheese secu­rity, it looks like the University of California might keep on run­ning Los Alamos, the country’s most impor­tant nuclear weapons lab.
According to an (as-​​of-​​yet) uncon­firmed report, “the University of Texas (UT) will announce in tomorrow’s Dallas Morning News that it will NOT bid” on Los Alamos’ man­age­ment con­tract. UT was con­sid­ered one of California’s biggest com­peti­tors for con­trol of the lab despite some par­tic­u­larly tena­cious stu­dent oppo­si­tion. Another major can­di­date, Lockheed Martin, which man­ages the nearby Sandia National Laboratories, dropped out of the race last sum­mer. Texas A&M did the same in December.
None of this is par­tic­u­larly sur­pris­ing, of course. California has had an uncon­tested con­tract to run the lab since its incep­tion back in the 1940’s. Energy Department offi­cials finally agreed to put the $2 bil­lion per year deal up for com­pet­i­tive bid­ding after the fir­ing of two ex-​​police chiefs brought into the lab to invesi­gate cor­rup­tion. But in their ini­tial request for Los Alamos bids, those offi­cials put together a set of cri­te­ria that heav­ily, heav­ily favored the incum­bent. No won­der no one is inter­ested in the job.
THERE’S MORE: It’s con­firmed.

January 13th, 2005 | Los Alamos and Labs | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.