UC May Have to Chip In for Lab Closure

Members of Congress again criticized the University of California on Friday for its management of Los Alamos National Laboratory, saying the university should bear at least some of the financial burden of a lengthy shutdown at the nuclear weapons facility.

Los Alamos was the main focus of a hearing on security at the nation’s nuclear sites held Friday by the investigations panel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. UC has managed the New Mexico lab for the Energy Department for more than six decades.

Nearly all operations at Los Alamos were shut down in July after two incidents -- the reported loss of two classified computer disks and a laser accident that injured an intern -- prompted security and safety concerns. The lab did not fully reopen until late January, although many activities had resumed in previous months.

An official with the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Energy Department agency that oversees the lab, estimated Friday that the cost for lost or delayed work resulting from the shutdown could be as much as $367 million.

Los Alamos and UC officials, in contrast, put the figure at $119 million, and said the Energy Department figure included millions in costs not directly attributable to the closure. They said the UC estimate also took into account the gradual resumption of regular operations in many sections of the lab, while others remained shuttered.

Testifying before the panel, Los Alamos director G. Peter Nanos said that during the closure, the lab’s employees still came to the facility and concentrated on such activities as management assessments and safety and security training. Such work should be funded because it was authorized under the university’s contract, he said, adding: “We just normally don’t do it in such heavy concentration.”

Although an Energy Department investigation has determined that the computer disks originally believed to be missing never existed, Nanos said the lab had improved its handling of such classified materials and reduced the number of storage locations.

Still, the financial burden stemming from UC’s lack of oversight should not be passed on to taxpayers, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), told Nanos.

“How are you going to change the culture, and get responsibility?” asked Stupak, who was among several lawmakers who said the university and those responsible for the problems had not been properly sanctioned.

Employees who were implicated in the security breaches and in falsifying records had been terminated, Nanos said.

Several members of the panel said UC should bear at least some of the costs. “The University of California was hired to do a job and they didn’t do it,” said Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.). Taking the university off the hook, he said, would be outrageous.

Linton F. Brooks, who heads the National Nuclear Security Administration, said two investigations had suggested that the closure costs would be allowed under UC’s contract.

But the problems have not been without consequence for UC’s reputation and the lab’s finances, he said. In what it called the harshest financial penalty ever imposed on a national lab, the Energy Department in January penalized the university more than $5 million -- two-thirds of its management fee for 2005. That penalty would not affect the university’s other functions, UC officials said.

In addition, for the first time, the university’s contract to run the lab has been opened to competition. The current contract expires in September.

UC regents will decide whether to bid for the contract after the department releases more specific information on the request for proposals this spring, said Chris Harrington, a university spokesman.

Times staff writer Rebecca Trounson in Los Angeles contributed to this report.