Yucca project procurement office altered

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy has reorganized the Yucca Mountain procurement office, two months after the award of a $495,000 consulting contract that has been criticized by lawmakers and challenged by a bidder who was passed over.

The formal protest effectively has frozen the contract that was given in February to Longenecker & Associates to review engineering aspects of the government's bid to license a Nevada nuclear waste repository.

"The protest must be resolved before work can be undertaken," DOE spokesman Allen Benson said.

The identity of the bidder, the stated grounds for the protest, and information about how the matter is being handled were not immediately made available by DOE officials.

The contract protest was divulged at the same time that DOE officials announced two new contracts totaling $3 million for outside consultants to review key parts of the repository program.

Department officials also confirmed a personnel shift in the Yucca procurement operation that was carried out last week.

Benson said the reorganization was an effort to "make efficiencies" between procurement officers who evaluate contract bids and the contract authority officer who ultimately decides the awards.

Benson said the change was not tied to the handling of the Longenecker contract.

"Don't link the two. They are not linked," Benson said, adding they were part of broader changes being made by Ward Sproat, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

Under the reorganization, Ken Powers, the Yucca program's head contract authority, will supervise the Office of Procurement.

The 20-person procurement operation in Las Vegas includes officers who monitor contract finances and take part in evaluating contract bidders and recommending to selection officers which ones should be rewarded.

Besides sparking a formal bid protest, the Longenecker & Associates contract was criticized by Nevada officials after it was reported that the firm's board of directors and staff includes several former executives of the Yucca program, and that the firm has performed other work at the site.

Critics of the proposed nuclear waste repository 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas questioned whether Longenecker could provide an independent judgment of the project.

DOE officials responded that there were no conflicts. Company president John Longenecker said the bid was formed expressly to avoid conflicts of interest and that associates with Yucca Mountain were beyond arm's length of the new job.

On Thursday, DOE announced it was giving a $1.3 million contract to InfoZen Inc. of Maryland to assess the department's efforts to improve quality assurance at Yucca Mountain.

A $1.7 million job was awarded to Georgia-based Organizational Analysis Corporation to examine a draft license application for the proposed repository.

The majority of the work for both assessments is expected to be completed within six months, DOE officials said.

Benson said the bidders were screened for conflicts.

"The answer is, there is no problem," Benson said.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., called on the DOE to make public the consultants' reports.

"If DOE is going to spend $3 million in taxpayer funding on these studies, I do not want them thrown in the bottom of a desk drawer somewhere to hide the results," Berkley said. "The public is paying for this work, and the public has a right to see the results."