Editorial: UC should bid on lab, avoid private ownership

Despite a stream of security breeches and bad press, the UC
should not simply bow out of the bidding process to manage the Los
Alamos National Laboratory after overseeing it for 60 years.

For the first time, the U.S. Department of Energy will allow
competitive bidding on the New Mexico lab, which the UC has
overseen since the birth of the nuclear age. The University of
Texas, Texas A&M and 10 private corporations have expressed
interest in the contract.

At Wednesday’s meeting, New Mexico Governor Bill
Richardson said if the UC chose not to bid, it
“wouldn’t be good for the country.” A panel UC
President Richard Dynes appointed also concluded in September the
UC should maintain its position.

The lab’s security breaches, many still unresolved, are
serious. But it’s difficult to put all the blame on the UC
when the DOE plays a major role.

Any institution would face challenges in running an operation as
complex as Los Alamos. The UC has six decades of experience with
the lab, and must now learn from its mistakes.

It’s hard to gauge the financial or academic benefit the
UC gains from managing the lab. But keeping such a volatile and
complex institute in the hands of a university should be reason
enough for the UC to bid. The thought of a private corporation
running the nation’s largest nuclear weapons lab is not
comforting.