The Obama administration is studying shifting control of the national laboratories operated by the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration to the Defense Department, the Albuquerque Journal reported on Wednesday in a copyrighted story by John Fleck.
The Journal story said the paper had obtained an internal Office of Management and Budget memo detailing a study on the cost and benefits of moving the labs from Energy to Defense by 2011. The affected organizations include NNSA, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, both located in New Mexico, and Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said in a statement, "I think this is a very shortsighted approach and I will fight it tooth and nail if they intended to proceed with it."
Though the three labs' primary mission is on nuclear weapons design, they are considered the crown jewels of American scientific research, and some fear that any shift form Energy to Defense will narrow that focus even more.
Los Alamos, for example, has developed three new vaccines to fight the AIDS virus, developed a new 3D breast scanning technology to detect cancer, and developed technologies to detect outbreaks of a pandemic flu virus -- all research areas that could be dropped under Pentagon management.
A personal note on blogging versus reporting: I'm a reluctant blogger and know that good reporting will always beat any blog, as this Albuquerque Journal story illustrates. The Journal is a privately owned, independent newspaper (a rare item in these times) and is struggling to survive in an environment where all news is supposedly "free," but someone has to pay the bills.
Earlier this month the Journal laid off seven newsroom staffers because it -- like the rest of us in the news business -- try to figure out how to make a buck in a world of seemingly "free" news.
Kudos to Fleck and Journal publisher Thompson Lang for continuing to do a great job in tough times.
COMMENTS
I love the part about “[The candidate is] inquisitive enough to take advice from many conflicting perspectives, wise enough come to their own conclusion, and have the character to convince others that what they propose is the right thing to do.”
Caren Markus 10/23/10 07:47 am ET
How do you think this will continue or be affected in the next 5 years?
mark 09/06/10 07:46 am ET
@Marco I know what your saying there . In the current economy its difficult to find a career that pays good and is consistent. I have discovered that if you just work hard and are consistent you can go places . Look at the writer of this page , they are clearly hard working and have just been consistent over time and are now enjoying at least what would appear as somewhat of a success. I would encourage everyone to just keep hustling and moving forward.
San Diego short sale 04/25/10 09:52 pm ET
I’m a bit puzzled by this move. After working for sometime in my Agency’s CFO office, one of the things that we learn early in our careers is that in order to prevent waste, fraud and abuse (Statement of Assurance by every agency per OMB Circular 123), is to have separation of duties. GAO is heavy on this issue. That’s why the person that authorizes payments can not be the same person that disperses the funds, in order to maintain the integrity of the system and all the checks and balances. This keeps unscrupulous individuals from authorizing phony payments to accounts in the Caribbean and mailing the checks at the same time.
I always thought that the rationale for having NNSA at DOE is to keep the weapons producers at DOE and the weapon consumers/users at DOD. By separating duties you maintain a form of checks and balances for our nuclear arsenal. Are we departing from this doctrine? If I produce and consume my own nuclear weapons, would that make it easier to account for and verify? Am I missing something? I know that for conventional weapons, DOD produces and consumes its own material. Maybe the same philosophy can be used for nuclear weapons... who knows?
Joe 02/09/09 11:00 am ET
To the extent that the US needs weapons physics rdt&e we should support the NNSA. That work which is NOT related to weapon physics should be done elsewhere. The loaded man-year costs of LANL are outrageous but understandable. Q clearances, Pu filled glove boxes, double wire compounds... All needed for Weapons, but a waste when doing renewables or bio.
Close, consolidate, restructure and move on. NNSA come join the 21st century.
Bill Lynne 02/05/09 12:13 pm ET
Useful non-weapons research done at LANL need not end because the Lab becomes a DOD Lab. These projects can be done elsewhere and for less cost. (LANL has notoriously high overhead.) On the other hand if the Lab does go to DOD it will be even more difficult for citizen groups trying to track work at LANL to see over the wall into the beast's lair.
cathie sullivan 02/04/09 10:41 pm ET