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Regents Deliberate Future of Labs
by Elysha Tenenbaum, September 23, 2004

SAN FRANCISCO—The UC Board of Regents met yesterday to debate whether UC should put up a fight for stewardship of their three national laboratories.

Fueled by a recommendation from the UC President's Council on the National Laboratories, which favored a bid for lab management, the regents grappled over the pros and cons of the labs.

“I don't know what the answers are and I would hope that someone would tell us,” said Regent David Lee. “If someone can do a better job then I would let them do it. If we are the best, then we should step up to it.”

The regents may not have to come up with a decision until January, said Vice President of Laboratory Management Robert Foley. The Department of Energy has yet to lay out a time line for bidding for the labs.

Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories, both nuclear weapons research labs, are scheduled to open for competitive bidding in September 2005, but Foley said UC's Livermore contract could extend up to two more years.

UC's contract to manage Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory expires in January 2005.

Some regents expressed doubt over whether UC was equipped to manage the national security issues posed by its two weapons research laboratories.

Regent Norman Pattiz proposed steering the direction of the labs away from nuclear weapons research, which “have been used for a purpose that a lot of us feel uncomfortable with,” he said.

“We have great institutions and resources available and we'd like to implore those resources to go in a direction that would be much more compatible with the university,” Pattiz said.

UC President Robert Dynes said nuclear research will continue whether UC manages the labs or not. He said he would rather they be under UC's control than have UC be a “bystander.”

A string of safety and security breaches at Los Alamos lab over the past several years brought negative publicity to UC's management—referred to twice by Regent Peter Preuss as an “embarrassing zone.” The security blunders culminated in July when two missing classified disks from the lab prompted lab Director Pete Nanos to suspend the majority of lab operations.

Lockheed Martin, a private corporation managing several other DOE labs, was rumored to be the top competitor for the lab, but has since dropped out of the bidding process.

Foley told the regents that UC had started arranging to partner with Lockheed Martin before the company dropped out of the bidding process.

Although UC does not have any agreements set up with other private corporations, it continues to “chit chat” with companies to strengthen its management capabilities on the lab's operational side, Foley said.

Foley said if UC partners with private companies, the university would still hold full control of the science and technology research that is generated at the labs.

Elysha Tenenbaum covers higher education. Contact her at etenenbaum@dailycal.org.

Originally published by the Daily Californian.

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