Green Company Challenges Rejection of Bid to Manage Weapons Labs
Christina Aanestad / KPFA News/ Independent Media Center
January 30, 2007
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| Tri-Valley CAREs Staff Attorney Loulena Miles, shares the vision of a converted weapons lab devoted to survival, not destruction. |
The following stories appeared after the Livermore Labs GREEN coalition filed a protest on January 17 over the Department of Energy's dismissal of its "green bid" to manage the Livermore Lab. TriValley CAREs Director Marylia Kelley continues to promote GREEN message: "May the light continue to shine on alternative futures for Livermore Lab."
(January 17, 2007) -- Livermore Labs GREEN, a consortium of environmental and social justice groups filed a formal complaint with the National Nuclear Security Administration today, alleging the agency wrongfully rejected it's bid to manage the Livermore National Laboratory. Livermore Labs GREEN claims its bid to manage the nuclear weapons research facility was rejected because of misinformation and its environmentally friendly vision for the labs.
Imagine the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories as a hub for alternative energy and global warming research-a lab that plans to phase out plutonium and nuclear research. That's what Livermore Labs GREEN LLC is proposing to do in its bid to manage the Lawrence Livermore Labs, one of the nations two nuclear research facilities. Marylia Kelley is executive director of Tri Valley Cares and a founder of Livermore Labs GREEN LLC.
"About 85% of the Livermore Labs budget goes to nuclear research and development. This means nuclear proliferation worldwide. This means nuclear and toxic pollution, here in our communities. We proposed to move all the plutonium and highly enriched uranium out of the labs within 4 years and to transition all of the classified nuclear weapons work out with in 5 years. We would also make Livermore labs a center for the development of alternative non-polluting energy and we'd make it a center for developing new clean- up technologies fort toxic and radio active waste."
Last year the National Nuclear Security Administration or NNSA announced open bids to manage the Livermore National Labs. So, anti-nuclear proliferation and social justice groups formed a corporation called Livermore Lab's GREEN, LLC, to bid on the labs' management. But the NNSA rejected its bid. Kelley believes the bid was rejected because it went against the Department of Energy's nuclear policy. The NNSA maintains GREEN LLC's bid was rejected because it did not contain all the necessary paperwork.
Julieanne Smith spokesperson for the NNSA says the bids are confidential. "This is a procurement issue. Which means that ah, there are certain privacy issues certain laws we need to follow. And that isn't something that we could release. We can't even talk about how many people have submitted bids and who they are and what was in their bids. That's inappropriate and not something we would do."
According to Kelley the two other contenders for the labs management are the UC-Bechtel partnership which manages the Los Alamos Labs and Northrup Grummond a military defense contractor. Livermore Labs GREEN LLC is challenging the NNSA's rejection and asking the national nuclear agency to reinstate them as active bidders for the Livermore Labs management. Kelley says the NNSA's allegations are false.
"The department of energy treated our bid very differently than it treated the bid from UC Bechtel and the bid from Northrup Grummond. For example, in their rejection document the Department of Energy claimed that there were things missing from the bid package that simply weren't missing. All you had to do was look and they were there."
Livermore Labs GREEN consists of four groups, Tri Valley Cares, the Nuclear Watch of New Mexico, New College of California, and Wind Miller Energy, a green energy company. The management contracts last for 7 years. If denied the right to bid on this year's contract, Kelley says they may bid again, but, this years bid is to show the viable alternatives to nuclear research and development. Kelley is challenging the winning bidder to follow suit.
(c) 2000-2007 SF Bay Area Independent Media Center.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
Green Groups Say
Lab Bid Treated Unfairly
Complaint Charges 'Improper and Biased Handling'
By Sam Richards / Contra Costa Times
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| Site 300, a 10-square-mile open-air, high-explosives testing site located 18 miles from LLNL, contains a 26,000-square-foot enclosed facility (above) for the "safe and environmentally compliant firing of explosive charges." |
CONTRA COSTA (January 17, 2007) -- A team of organizations that includes a Livermore-based watchdog group filed a formal protest Tuesday with the U.S. Department of Energy claiming "improper and biased handling" of their bid to manage Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.
The proposal was submitted by GREEN LLC and led by the weapons-lab watchdog groups Livermore-based Tri-Valley Citizens Against a Radioactive Environment and Nuclear Watch of New Mexico. They claim their bid was rejected without proper consideration by DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration on grounds that were "factually incorrect, unsubstantiated, biased and prejudicial, contrary to regulations and/or easily corrected."
Also submitting bids in October to operate the Livermore lab were teams led by the University of California and Bechtel National and another led by defense contractor Northrop Grumman.
The GREEN LLC group asserts its operations bid was not treated the same as the other two bids, and that instead NNSA officials "acted in a biased and prejudicial manner" in dismissing its proposal.
The GREEN LLC group seeks reinstatement as an active competitor for the lab's management contract as well as suspension of the NNSA's procurement process until the GREEN LLC group is restored as an equal bidder.
Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs, said in October that her group never expected the Energy Department to choose the GREEN LLC bid, but she said the bid was strong. She reiterated that thought Tuesday.
"It's not that our bid isn't taken seriously... But there's a philosophical and political difference of opinion with the (NNSA) as to the mission of the lab," Kelley said.
NNSA spokespeople in Livermore could not be reached for comment late Tuesday afternoon about the protest.
UC has managed the lab since its inception.
A new operating contract for Lawrence Livermore is expected to be awarded this year.
(c) 2007 ContraCostaTimes.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. www.contracostatimes.com
Posted in accordance with Title 17, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
Group Files Protest over Bid Rejection
The Independent Newspaper
LIVERMORE, CA. (January 18, 2007) -- A team of organizations seeking to transform the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) into an environmental research facility, on Tuesday, filed a formal protest with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for denying its management proposal. The fourteen-page document claims "improper and biased handling" of the group's bid.
Livermore Lab GREEN, LLC charges that DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) acted improperly in rejecting the bid on grounds that they were "factually incorrect, unsubstantiated, biased and prejudicial, contrary to regulations and/or easily corrected." The bidders seek legal relief in the form of "reinstatement" as an active competitor for the LLNL contract. The protest also requests a suspension of the NNSA's procurement process until the group is put back on equitable footing with other bidders. The protest was filed under provisions of Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR).
The protest charges the NNSA:
Made factually-incorrect assertions in its grounds for rejecting the bid, including the claim that information was missing from the bid package when it was there.
Made unsubstantiated allegations in its basis for rejecting the bid, including allegations that the bid would "inhibit NNSA from complying with the law" even though the bid closely aligned with congressional directives to remove weapons-usable plutonium from Livermore Lab before 2014.
Acted in a biased and prejudicial manner in its rejection of the bid by treating the Livermore Lab GREEN, LLC and its proposal differently than it treated competitors.
Used grounds in rejecting the bid that could easily have been corrected under the provisions of FAR, for example by rejecting the group's proposal because it provided the managing entity's board of directors list but not the lists for other partners.
The group also cited congressional disapproval of the NNSA's Livermore Lab bidding process. The GREEN LLC's protest includes Representative David Hobson's letter late last year as Chairman of the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee. Hobson wrote: "In mandating competition, it was the intent of Congress to attract the widest possible group of interested bidders... The Department of Energy has resisted moving in the direction of fair and open competitive processes. Unfortunately, the Department has telegraphed to the contractor community that innovative ideas and concepts would not be favorably received."
Under the Federal Acquisition Regulations, NNSA is required to provide for inexpensive, procedurally simple and expeditious resolution of the Livermore Lab GREEN, LLC protest. This process can include alternative dispute resolution, third party review and use of other agency's personnel.
(c) Independent Newspaper, www.indenpendentnews.com
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Feds 'Biased' Against 'Green' Plan
For Nuke Weapons Lab
by Catherine Komp / NewStandard
Jan. 18 -- A coalition opposed to nuclear weapons is fighting the federal government over rejection of its bid to turn a national laboratory that engages in nuclear-arms research into an environmental science center.
The US Department of Energy is considering bids to manage and operate the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Livermore, California. This is the first time the federal government has initiated a competitive bid to run the $1.6 billion dollar "national interest" research facility since its creation in 1952. The current contract with the University of California, which has run the lab since its inception, expires in September 2007.
But groups opposed to nuclear weapons have a different vision for the Livermore Lab, which focuses largely on war-related research, and they have banded together to turn it into a "world class center for civilian science" within five years.
The coalition, Livermore Lab Green Renewable Energy and Environmental Nexus (GREEN), is made up of two nuclear-watchdog groups -- Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment and Nuclear Watch of New Mexico -- as well as the New College of California, and the renewable-energy firm WindMiller Energy.
In its proposal submitted last October, GREEN said its plan discouraged nuclear proliferation, provided energy independence through sustainable sources, and addressed national-security goals.
"We propose to phase out the Lab's nuclear weapons programs over time, and to subordinate them under a new Associate Directorship of Nuclear Nonproliferation in the interim," wrote GREEN in its proposal. "We will direct science toward resolution of long-term national-security needs such as energy independence, conservation, environmental remediation and related technologies, and understanding and addressing global climate change."
But the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) rejected the bid in December, stating it found GREEN's proposal "grossly and obviously deficient." The NNSA said GREEN did not "demonstrate an understanding of the requirements of the solicitation."
In the NNSA's request for proposals, it stated the chosen contractor would need to take measures that "result in improvements in performance of the Nuclear Weapons Complex" and "strengthen the Laboratory's role as an important element in the nuclear weapons complex supply-chain."
But GREEN argues its proposal would support US obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The NNSA itself began reducing plutonium and highly enriched uranium from Livermore last month, stating it would remove nearly all of it by 2014.
The group says the Department of Energy has unfairly eliminated it from the competition because NNSA officials objected to its non-nuclear agenda for the facility. In a letter of protest sent to NNSA Tuesday, GREEN charges the agency with using deficient grounds in rejecting the bid, and acting "in a biased and prejudicial manner... by treating the Livermore Lab GREEN and its proposal differently than it treated competitors."
GREEN called for an immediate reinstatement of its bid to manage the lab.
The University of California, which manages two other US nuclear-research labs in addition to Lawrence Livermore, partnered with the firm Bechtel to submit its proposal. Weapons giant Northrop Grumman is also vying for management of the facility.
(c) 2007 The NewStandard.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
For more information:
Contact: Marylia Kelley, Executive Director
Tri-Valley CAREs 2582 Old First Street Livermore, CA 94551
Ph: (925) 443-7148
Fx: (925) 443-0177
Web: www.trivalleycares.org
Email: marylia@trivalleycares.org or marylia@earthlink.net
For more information contact:
