Forum

Issues in Science and Technology, Summer 1997

DOE and the national labs

In "Fixing the National Laboratory System" (Issues, Spring 1997), Charles B. Curtis, John P. McTague, and David W. Cheney outline a set of next steps. Most of those steps are appropriate, but the pace of change needs to be accelerated significantly.

Reducing the Department of Energy's (DOE's) management burdens is critical, as highlighted in the Galvin task force report. This area has repeatedly been identified as the single most critical one for DOE reform and has been the focus of innumerable suggestions and critiques. Many critics of DOE are simply tired of waiting, and this frustration is evident in current congressional proposals to abolish the department. I want to give the new secretary time to effect real change, but unless progress is shown very quickly, the calls for abolishing DOE may intensify. In the simplest terms, management burdens will be reduced and results improved when DOE defines outcomes and stops micromanaging the process. Ideally, DOE would trust its contractors, then verify performance.

The authors discuss the need to improve the integration of their laboratories with universities, industry, and other government agencies. I strongly endorse their recommendations, but again the pace of change needs to accelerate. More laboratory involvement with universities is certainly important. The laboratories (especially the weapons laboratories) also need to significantly strengthen their partnerships with industry. Despite this need, DOE still has barriers, albeit somewhat reduced, against the use of the laboratories as true national resources whose expertise can be readily tapped by other agencies and industry. In evaluating the laboratories' integration with the other three major research providers, DOE should reexamine its direct funding of large companies in some programs, in order to ensure that these programs are adequately benefitting from the innovation and potential for revolutionary breakthroughs that universities, small businesses, and national labs can inject.

Some DOE burdens have been reduced, especially in business practices. But movements in other areas such as safety and health have been counterproductive. Under the banner of contract reform, DOE is intent on transferring risk to contractors, without evaluating whether all contracts are good candidates for such transfer. The plan to give many of the current rules the force of law may drive organizations, especially nonprofits, away from laboratory management. The plan to shift to external (Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Nuclear Regulatory Commission) regulation and away from internal oversight will help, but this step needs to be taken quickly, not on DOE's proposed multiyear schedule.

The GOCO (governmentowned, contractor-operated) concept of national laboratory management has served the nation well. I support the authors' enthusiasm for this concept, but DOE needs to move with some urgency to reestablish the relationships on which the concept was founded and depends. The concept is based on "no gain, no loss," in return for the contractor's management of critical government functions, such as stewardship of nuclear weapons. In most cases, contractors cannot accept risk that could jeopardize their fundamental missions (such as education, for university contractors). Furthermore, when contract reform seeks to emphasize incentive-based systems, DOE must be extremely careful not to undermine the GOCO concept, which relies on a trusting partnership between government and contractor. When the director of a weapons laboratory certifies the integrity of a nuclear weapon, no hint of an incentive system should affect that decision.

The article emphasizes in closing that the national laboratories must continue to provide scientific and technical leadership for national missions. That must be the overarching goal of future improvements in the laboratory system.

SEN. PETE V. DOMENICI Republican of New Mexico

Charles B. Curtis, John P. McTague, and David W. Cheney provide a very sensible approach to managing the Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories. They correctly state that the size and number of laboratories should not be decided a priori but instead must follow function.

I applaud the DOE Laboratory Operations Board for its progress in making the labs more efficient and for attempting to fix a system of governance that is broken. However, as the authors correctly point out, much is left to be done. It will take a sustained effort for several years.

The progress cited by the authors is threatened by two concerns. First, DOE continues to move steadily and without strategic intent toward dismantling the special relationship between the labs and DOE. This relationship, embodied in the GOCO (government-owned, contractor-operated) concept and implemented through the Management and Operations (M&O) contract, is being undermined by certain contract reform initiatives and by promulgation of increasingly rigid M&O procurement regulations.