Nuclear weapons lab lobbied with federal funds to block competition for lucrative contract
Top officials at one of the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories secretly drew up a careful list of targets in 2009. But these were not Russian missile silos or Chinese leadership targets. The officials’ aim was instead to hit a small group of policymakers in Washington with enough political pressure to ensure that the laboratory’s managers could get a lucrative new, 7-year federal contract.
To ensure victory – which to the corporation controlling the lab meant avoiding a messy competition with any other corporations – those at the helm of Sandia National Laboratories devised what they called a “capture strategy” for senior Obama administration officials, according to a laboratory internal document. In part, it entailed hiring three high-priced consultants, at a total expense to taxpayers of up to half a million dollars, who helped craft the target list.
Those on the list were in many cases the usual suspects – members of Congress who served on key committees, their staffs, top Department of Energy officials, a governor of New Mexico and a retired senator. Meetings were held, emails were sent, letters were written, and Washington-based corporate staff was enlisted, all with the aim of keeping the Lockheed Martin Corporation in control at Sandia.
This was, Sandia said in one of its position papers, not merely in the corporation’s best interest, but in the country’s. “We believe,” one of the lab officials said at one point, “it is best for LM [Lockheed Martin], Sandia, and the nation to work together towards influencing DOE to retain this team.” Another message was blunt: “It is in the taxpayer’s best interest to not compete for competition’s sake, but to use the regulatory processes already available” to keep the existing contractor.
While this might seem predictable – after all, what federal contractor would not be eager to keep the federal monies coming in? – it is nonetheless noteworthy for one reason in particular: The analyzing, the strategizing, and the lobbying to get a new contract were all funded by the existing federal contract, according to the Energy Department’s Inspector General, who said this was a violation of federal law, not to mention Sandia’s contract language.
“We recognize that LMC [Lockheed Martin Corporation], as a for-profit entity, has a corporate interest in the future of the Sandia Corporation contract,” said Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman in his Nov. 7, 2014 “Official Use Only” report, which was released to the Center for Public Integrity under a Freedom of Information Act request. “However, the use of Federal funds to advance that interest through actions designed to result in a noncompetitive contract extension was, in our view, prohibited by Sandia Corporation’s contract and Federal law and regulations.”
“Given the specific prohibitions against such activity, we could not comprehend the logic of using Federal funds for the development of a plan to influence members of Congress and federal officials to, in essence, prevent competition,” Friedman said in the report.
Sandia did not see it that way. Its officials told Friedman’s investigators they were merely trying to inform officials in Washington about the work they were doing, an explanation Friedman said was contradicted by the lab’s internal documents.
At stake in the three-year effort was the Lockheed Martin Corporation’s proposal for a 7-year contract extension, with the option for a 5-year renewal after that. While the company’s prospective revenues were not stated in the report, the existing contract called for spending, on average, about $2.4 billion a year. So the total revenues might have exceeded $16 billion.
There’s more to this story. Click here to read the rest at the Center for Public Integrity.
This story is part of Up in Arms. National security-related events, reports and findings that deserve more attention. Click here to read more stories in this blog.
Related stories
The defense industry's friend inside Congress and outside Congress
Nuclear weapons labs hit with sizable fines for new security violations
Defense Department poorly managed design, construction of F-35 fighter, auditor says
Growing number of biosafety labs raises public health concern
Copyright 2015 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
