[NukeNet] Feds reject green bid for nuke lab, Oakland Tribune

[Marylia Kelley]

On point and a good read, one of the articles from today's papers...

Feds reject activists' Livermore Lab bid
'Green team' wanted move toward nonproliferation

Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
Inside Bay Area
(Oakland Tribune, Tri-Valley Herald)
01/06/2007

Federal nuclear weapons officials have rejected a bid by disarmament and
renewable energy activists to manage Lawrence Livermore weapons design lab,
saying the "green team" didn't fit federal plans.

The team, calling itself GREEN LLC, was led by two weapons-lab watchdog
groups, Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs and Nuclear Watch of New Mexico,
who never really expected to run the sprawling bomb lab.

But they were offended that the National Nuclear Security Administration
said the team's proposal ran afoul of federal law and "did not demonstrate
an understanding of the requirements of the solicitation where it proposed
'change in the overall direction' at the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory."

Officials of the nuclear agency so far haven't identified what laws might
have been broken by the GREEN LLC bid, which proposed a gradual shift from
weapons work into unclassified research on climate change and renewable
energy.

"It's ironic because our bid proposed to bring Lawrence Livermore Lab more
in line with national and international law," said Marylia Kelley, head of
Tri-Valley CAREs.

For the first time, the activists figured, the lab could be managed in
accordance with U.S. promises in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to
work toward full disarmament, rather than maintaining and designing new
weapons.

"Our proposal was arbitrarily and improperly eliminated because NNSA
rejects the principle that the U.S. should lead the world toward nuclear
nonproliferation by demonstrating restraint in its own weapons programs,"
said Jay Coghlan, head of Nuclear Watch of New Mexico.

Federal officials say GREEN LLC was proposing a different lab than the
government specified in its bid request.

"The bottom line is their proposal did not meet the criteria for running
the lab," said NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes. The activists said federal
officials erroneously claimed that mandatory pieces were missing from the
team's bid, yet the NNSA hasn't made itself available to discuss the matter
in a required post-bid debriefing.

"So in a weird way, there's no way for us to even tell them, 'Why don't you
look on this page and find what you say is missing,'" Kelley said. "We are
expecting our next step will be a (formal contract) protest."

###

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 at trivalleycares.org or marylia at earthlink.net

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 at trivalleycares.org or marylia at earthlink.net