Chair Gold introduced and welcomed the National Laboratory representatives, Piermaria J. Oddone, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory; John Holzrichter and Charles Alcock, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; and Rulon Linford, Los Alamos National Laboratory. Chair Gold remarked that, in anticipation of the renewal of the National Labs contract, UCORP is educating the Academic Senate systemwide and at the campus level about relations with the National Labs under the new contract, in place as of 1992.
A. Consultation with Piermaria J. Oddone
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Created in a context where barriers for collaboration are lower, LBL has a strong tradition of programs carried out jointly by the campus and the lab. Dr. Oddone described the Laboratory's infrastructure as supporting research in a way that would be very difficult to create on campus. The Engineering Division, Information Division, and Instrumentation Group of LBL support the research of the entire institution. The Laboratory employs more than 3,000 people and has an annual budget of about $250M. About 200 faculty members are PIs at the lab; in many instances the faculty member may lead the project. LBL has expanded from its past primary focus on particle and nuclear physics, where it is still very active, to other disciplines and areas of research. As one example, researchers at LBL have developed a particularly powerful way of sequencing DNA. Other programs include robotics; electron microscopy; structural, molecular, and chemical biology; and nuclear medicine, among others.
At any one time approximately 400 graduate students are working on student research projects. The flow between the Laboratory and the campus is described as easy. LBL expects to expand its connections to other campuses, including UCD and UCSF. The University of California brings to LBL a perspective much broader than that of the scientific disciplines only.
B. Consultation with John Holzrichter and Charles Alcock
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Although the Laboratory's primary purpose at its founding was exploring science and technology in the interest of national security and defense, Dr. Holzrichter reported that 20% or less of current research is associated with nuclear weapons. About 7,300 people work at the lab, whose annual budget is about $900M. The lab's capacity to work in an interdisciplinary fashion on lab-campus projects, under its umbrella relationship with UC, has demonstrably grown. New technologies developed at LLNL to study the human genome are revolutionizing biomedical research. Other projects include isotope separation, high temperature physics, and dye laser technologies -- all done with an approach to academic thoroughness made possible only by the lab's relationship to UC. Confronted with a political, financial, or technical dispute, the University will arrive at an intellectually rigorous answer -- the value of the University's management to the taxpayer. Dr. Alcock, an astrophysicist, spoke specifically of his research connections with the University's campuses. He cited the accelerator mass spectrometer's use for biomedical and other innovative research applications, which would not have occurred without the collaborations between the labs and UC.
C. Consultation with Rulon Linford
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Since its creation LANL has maintained close collaborations and ties with the UC system, and UC plays a detailed, active role in the management of LANL. Dr. Linford stated that LANL wishes to have an institution like UC, rather than a profit-motivated company, involved in its management. LANL relies on UC's understanding of the importance of quality technical research, as well as its sensitivity to the moral aspects of technology's use. The stature, size, and capability of UC are extremely important in addressing the nation's problems through the multi-disciplinary approach offered that can be offered by the lab-campus collaboration, encompassing social science, policy, economics, law, and technology. Over 2,000 graduate and undergraduate students from universities throughout the nation work at LANL during the year. Ways of enhancing the lab-campus interaction are sought, including efforts to increase the level of interaction with faculty of UC campuses and the number of people who hold joint appointments.
Chair Gold strongly suggested the idea of using the MRU structure as a vehicle for developing increased lab-campus collaborations. The MRU provides a mechanism for reducing barriers to collaboration, as it provides a way for faculty to see what is being conducted and to evaluate it on a regular basis in an open manner, an environment conducive to creating trust and a sense of academic culture.
Chair Gold introduced and welcomed UCORP's guests: Professor Emeritus John W. Gofman, lecturer in Cell Biology at UCB, lecturer in Medicine at UCSF; Professor Roger Falcone, Chair, Physics Department, UCB; Dr. Lara Gundel, staff scientist, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory; Professor Emeritus Marc Pilisuk, Community Psychology, UCD and an affiliate of the School of Public Health, UCB; Professor Lara Nader, Anthropology, UCB.
The University of California's involvement with the National Labs, Chair Gold stated, is unique in the history of contractual relationship with the United States government. UC undertook management of the labs as a public service during World War II when the government initiated the development of nuclear weapons. When R. Robert Oppenheimer, UCB Professor of Physics, was selected to head the Manhattan Project, he requested that the University of California sign contracts to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory as well as the newly-founded radiation lab at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. UC's purview expanded to include Lawrence Livermore as part of the radiation laboratories, and in 1971 Lawrence Livermore became a separate national laboratory. Although the Board of Regents continues to be the University contractor, the government contractor has changed, variously, from the War Department, the Atomic Energy Commission, the Energy Research and Development Administration, and, currently, to the Department of Energy.
The vehicle for the partnership, Chair Gold continued, has been a "go-co," or government-owned contractor-operated laboratory. The University of California has accepted responsibility for operating the laboratories in the spirit of public service, understanding that it would incur neither financial gain nor loss from this activity. The contracts are renewed every five years, and the present contracts will be renewed in two years. According to the contracts, UC is responsible for the performance of the labs' programs in a sound, cost-effective, and safe manner and for the long-term institutional health of the labs.
The University of California has conducted several internal reviews of its relationship with the national labs. The 1969 review committee believed that the University was operating in a virtually hands-off manner; the administrative interaction between the University and the labs barely was discernable. The 1969 review committee recommended, as every subsequent review has recommended, an easing of security, more openness at the labs, and increased UC oversight of the labs. The UC report of 1979, Gold stated, favored continued management while arguing for a more active management role for the University, to wit: to foster openness to facilitate collaborations, to ensure freedom of inquiry and expression, and to invite discussion of controversy surrounding the laboratories.
In 1989 the Jendresen Report was issued, the result of almost two years' work of site visits and testimony to that committee by a variety of involved people. Six of the eight members of the Jendresen Committee favored a phase-out of UC management responsibility; two of the eight members of that committee favored continuing the relationship under a proposed separate corporate body within the UC structure.
Malcolm Jendresen was unable to attend today's UCORP meeting, and Chair Gold presented a summation of the Jendresen Report (previously distributed to UCORP on December 8, 1994). The Jendresen Report assumed that the end of the Cold War would mean a decrease in weapons-related work and an increase in non-nuclear research activity. In September of 1990 the Jendresen report was circulated for a mail ballot: 64% of the voting members of the faculty voted to support the Report's recommendation to phase out the contractual relationship; 43% of the faculty participated in the vote. All of the campuses, except one, voted in favor of phasing out the contracts. However, the President of the University decided to move forward, recommended that action to The Regents, and the contracts were renewed.
Under the current contracts, a major change in the nature of the administrative oversight on the part of the University is occurring. The President's Council on the National Laboratories has been expanded to include representatives from the labs, UC faculty, and nationally-known figures with expertise related to lab activities. The University's oversight activities have been increased by the formation of the National Security Panel, the Science and Technology Panel, and the Environmental, Safety and Health Panel. These committees, Gold believes, have taken on a great deal of responsibility in an attempt to more actively involve the University in its management of the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories.
UCORP's intention, Chair Gold concluded, is to educate the faculty of the University of California and to provide leadership for the Senate as UC approaches the new contract negotiations. Every internal University of California review has been critical of the relationship between UC and the national labs, and it is important to learn if significant change has developed under the current contracts. Each of the guests at today's UCORP meeting has a different focus and perspective on UC's contracts with the Department of Energy for the management of the national labs. Gold emphasized the informal nature of today's discussions as an opportunity to exchange as much information as possible.
A. Consultation with John W. Gofman
Professor Emeritus John W. Gofman has been associated with the University of California for 55 years, and he describes himself as a fierce loyalist for the University. His association with the "rad labs" began as a graduate student working on the Uranium 233 discovery. He then was involved in the Manhattan Project and in the isolation of the first milligram quantity of Plutonium. After completing his medical school studies at UCSF, Gofman joined the UCB faculty of medical physicists in 1947. In 1953 Ernest Lawrence, concerned about safety in the radiation lab, asked him to establish the Medical Department at Lawrence Livermore. Gofman held the position of industrial physician at Livermore until 1957, when he returned to UCB to work primarily on heart disease until 1962.
Professor Gofman thanked UCORP for the invitation to attend today's meeting. The 100th anniversary of Roentgen's discovery of the x-ray, he stated, is exceedingly germane to the issue of UC's oversight of the national labs. He called his agenda simple: good health is better than bad health, cured cancers are better than many cancers, and no future Hiroshimas are better than any Hiroshimas. Gofman said that the existence of a university has everything to do with life phenomena and with what we call civilization. That being the case, he believes that universities ought to be concerned with all things that may cause us to go out with a whimper, and all things that may cause us to go out with a bang -- both at issue, he said, at the Los Alamos and the Livermore National Labs.
In 1962, when Kruschev broke the voluntary moratorium on weapons testing, Jack Kennedy told the weapons laboratories that the government wanted to have a first class show, and they did. But, Gofman said, it was readily determined that the radioiodine exposure of Utah was extreme, in fact several times the allowable standard. Gofman stated, "that was immediately solved by setting a new [higher] standard." Because of the level of public concern in Utah, the Atomic Energy Commissioners, in an attempt to improve the situation, asked the Livermore Lab to establish a Biomedical Division. When the lab in turn asked Gofman to organize the Biomedical Division, he asked what biologists could do about fallout -- they couldn't stop it. He was told that "perhaps he'd help design new weapons in a little different way so that the total amount of radioactivity would be less." That was a possibility, so, "in a period of slight decerebration," Gofman accepted the job of organizing the Biomedical Research Division at Lawrence Livermore National Lab.
Professor Gofman informed UCORP that he has always supported the idea of a nuclear weapons deterrence program. He believes the Cold War is not over today and will not be over 100 years from today. Cold and hot wars will continue unless the "human species changes in some drastic fashion, which is not likely from a genetic point of view." Gofman stated that the University needs to be concerned about the issues of "going out with a bang" and of pollution by radioactivity. Thus, he acknowledges that his message is a somewhat mixed one. Though Gofman does "not believe anything coming out of the Lawrence Livermore or Los Alamos Lab on health effects of radiation," he continues to be a strong supporter of the idea of nuclear deterrence and does not want the labs weakened.
Professor Gofman is gravely concerned over the Department of Energy's and the laboratories' lack of public credibility about the health effects of radiation. The DOE's track record remains so bad, he stated, that in 1989 even DOE chairman James Watkins admitted that safety claims about radiation had no credibility with the public. DOE secretary Hazel O'Leary, in a 2-1/2 hour conversation with Gofman last year, did not disagree. Gofman does not believe that the laboratories and DOE can ever achieve credibility on the issues of health effects of radiation or other pollutants unless some powerful countermeasures to the obvious conflict of interest are established (the various laboratories of the DOE do not permit the voicing of dissident opinions by its employees). One possible measure, Gofman suggested, could be a permanent policy of setting aside a segment, perhaps 5% - 10%, of the health budget to be administered by independent, non-governmental citizen-based groups, who would sponsor on-site experts of their own choosing. Gofman believes that the daily on-site presence of potential whistle blowers would tend to liberate DOE-sponsored analysts from any humiliating pressures and would give their own work some real credibility. He said he cannot guarantee that this would work, but he does guarantee that more than powerless citizen advisers are needed to give DOE-sponsored health studies some credibility.
Studying the health effects of radiation since 1963, Professor Gofman has written several books on radiation and cancer. Roentgen's x-ray was introduced into science in 1895, and very shortly thereafter medicine started to apply the x-ray. Because, unfortunately, internal cancers occur primarily "5, 10, 20, 30, ... and probably even 60 years after radiation," he said, "medicine made a horrible mistake." 200, 300, 500 rads were given to people in a localized area of the body, and nothing happened. No adverse effects were apparent in the short run; scientists assumed the radiation was safe; and they became believers that it was safe. Gofman stated that 80 separate diseases, including asthma, inflammatory diseases, and pneumonia, were treated with x-ray.
When the Atomic Energy Commission was set up in 1945, Gofman said, the labs' biology and medicine divisions were run by radiologists who had been brought up in a culture that believed that everything was fine with x-rays; you had nothing to worry about. The AEC programs were built on the fact that everything was fine. In 1969 when Gofman presented a paper saying that everything was not so fine, even at low doses, the then-chairman of the joint committee on Atomic Energy responded, "What the hell do you think you are doing getting all the little ladies in tennis shoes up in arms about our Atomic Energy Commission programs? [The AEC assures me that ] if we gave everyone 100 times the allowable dose, there would be zero effects." The AEC had promoted programs, Gofman continued, on peaceful explosives, the nuclear weapons program, all kinds of uses of radioactivity, and he acknowledged the difficulty of backing off from a position that "everything is fine" to a position where everything isn't fine. Gofman stated, however, that he has published what he considers to be a definite refutation of the possibility of a safe dose of radiation. At even the lowest dose, reflecting 1 decay particle track per nucleus in a cloud chamber, there is cancer produced in humans.
During the extended discussion period following his presentation, Professor Gofman responded to UCORP members' questions. He said that, though the world would be better with fewer weapons than we have, he believes neither in unilateral disarmament, nor in nonproliferation treaties ("treaties are made to be broken"). Professor Narasimhan commented on the low-dose long-term issue raised by Gofman: the earth is more than several million years old, yet science and technology tend not to extrapolate and to accept effects which are apparently, on the short-term time scale, insignificant. Narasimhan and Gofman agreed, on a point of ecology, that everything is connected to everything else. The law of unintended consequences is given very short shrift in our thinking about biological consequences of radiation. Gofman said the solution lies in first recognizing that there is a problem, and then to start to think about it; and a great university is capable of placing a great deal of thought and effort toward a resolution of these critical issues.
Gofman said the question raised by Professor Radke has been asked of him many times: would some 10 experts of your stature and experience have a commonality of understanding on the issue of long-term effects of low-dose radiation, or is this one of the issues on which we would have honest, sincere people disagreeing in great measure? Gofman described the difference between valid scientists' consensus and what he terms an "artificial consensus." Many of his colleagues do agree with him; many of those that disagree have not read his publications; and the Federal Treasurer's checkbook may predetermine a consensus.
To UCORP members' questions about UC oversight of the national labs Gofman responded, "I think someone or many in the University faculty could be devoted to the idea of oversight, but it has got to be outside the structure. Don't expect someone in a university contract [fearful of retribution] to do the right thing." Classification clearance is a problem, but it can be obtained by outsiders. He believes that outside surveillance will eventually lead to less tension in the long run, in the classified as well as the non-classified areas, by lifting the pressure to conform within the institutional structure. Outsiders, Gofman stated, could very well be good people for oversight. Gofman proposed that some scientists could be brought together as a cadre for outside surveillance, financed by a 5% - 10% portion of the DOE budget for health, with the DOE having nothing to say about their livelihood.
Professor Gofman referred to his work on the Chernobyl accident. Two years ago a Swedish foundation awarded him one of the Right Livelihood awards for his work on Chernobyl. He had some hopes that something constructive could be done in the ex-Soviet Union, and he met with the newly-established Minister of the Ukraine to suggest that the Chernobyl accident be evaluated. "I regard these accidents as a sacred trust," Gofman said. "If we don't learn from our mistakes, like the Chernobyl accident, we are doomed to repeat them all over the place." Gofman's suggestion for oversight of the data gathering of the Chernobyl accident was approved, and he obtained 47 positive responses from some 50 scientists he had contacted around the world. When the Minister was moved to a different job -- and so the idea died, Russians, concerned about the deception surrounding the fallout and dosage, convinced him to write a book. Thus, a 600-page book, circulated in the Russian language, was written by Gofman on the consequences of the Chernobyl accident.
Professor Phinney asked if, correctly summarized, Gofman's recommendations were (1) that the University of California look at the life phenomenon and the radiation effects on humans, and (2) that University of California faculty become involved in faculty oversight? Gofman answered, "Yes. I don't have a recommendation that because the labs make weapons that they [be removed] from the University. I think that the idea of weapons and protection and security of the country is a very very reasonable University function." Gofman recommended that "in some form" UC should continue with its function of oversight. "The problem doesn't go away with the end of the Cold War," he concluded.
B. Consultation with Roger Falcone
Professor Roger Falcone, chair of the UCB Physics Department, welcomed the opportunity to comment on his perspective of UC's relationship to the national labs. Falcone stated that, first, he agreed with Professor Gofman that the national laboratories are incredibly important to the defense of the country and also to research, two missions described by Falcone as crucial to "stockpile stewardship."
Professor Falcone said that he was concerned over two issues: (1) the quality of the work done at the labs, and (2) opening up the labs as a resource for as broad a community as possible, a crucial issue in the current political environment.
The issue of maintaining the quality of the work, Falcone said, once assured by inter-lab competition during an era of classification, now shifts to a peer review system. Essentially, he said, the peer review system works by opening up the labs to other users, other universities, and for collaboration with the labs. Falcone stated that the peer review system, rather than the oversight committees, is clearly the way to maintain quality. The visiting committees, only briefly at the labs, tend to be sufficiently decoupled from the science. Peer review would be accomplished by having the DOE open up funds for universities to use the facilities and to engage the lab scientists.
Professor Radke expressed doubt that peer review could be involved in the directed, mission-oriented research of the labs. Though work which was once highly classified is now largely declassified, and we allegedly have an open system, the reduction in the size of the money pool may have had an adverse effect on the objectivity of the peer review system. Radke referred to work on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) as an example. Used to study the physics of high energy density matter, the NIF can mimic nuclear weapons explosions by training laser beams on pellets which then implode in a burst of energy. If our knowledge in weapons is to be maintained, then that knowledge must be maintained by use of the NIF for testing weapons capabilities. The strategic concerns and national policy surrounding nuclear weapons may prevent a truly open peer review system from maintaining quality control.
Professor Falcone responded that there are very many different uses for the NIF. One could image a third of the work as classified, defense-related work, reviewed only by whoever reviews that kind of activity. A third of the work is in the ICF program, which is competing with every other energy program in this country; and a third of the work then goes into basic science, which should be awarded by the DOE on the basis of the NSF peer review system. Therefore, Falcone suggested, these systems can exist simultaneously and in parallel. The NIF has significant promise as a tool to advance basic science and thus far surpass weapons work.
C. Consultation with Lara Gundel
Lara Hilder Gundel introduced herself as a working staff scientist in environmental science at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. She cautioned that nothing that she says is to be construed as policy of LBL, or DOE, or The Regents. Dr. Gundel stated that though she works in a non-classified academic model at a national lab, yet she has these concerns; "that in itself says something about openness."
Dr. Gundel discussed Lawrence Berkeley's official point of view of UC's management, as published in the LBL weekly paper. The implementation of UC's contract is highly rated at LBL, but rated on performance-based administrative aspects, rather than on programmatic interactions or oversight. Gundel stated that perhaps UC does not have opportunities to do real programmatic oversight. The academic model fits rather awkwardly for LLNL and LANL in Gundel's view. DOE's missions are defined at a federal level, and the weapons programs as a whole are organized through DOE and implanted in California or New Mexico.
The visible impacts of the UC management contract are seen in administrative, quality control and quality assurance aspects, as well as in more environmental accountability. But, Dr. Gundel said, there has been negligible impact on strategic mission planning, an issue that needs to be addressed by the new contract. At a time of very tight budgets, what is going to happen to the proportion of non-classified work at the labs? Gundel suggested that the Galvin Report ought to be carefully read. The budget pressure on DOE may be not to remove the weapons programs but to remove everything else.
Dr. Gundel recommended a careful consideration of the pros and cons of continued UC management and an examination of the benefit to UC's mission. How is your mission served by managing the laboratories; are you getting back what you need; is it the right public service? Maintaining management without thinking about various strategies to minimize the weapons threat, Gundel stated, is not in long term interest of either the University or the nation. Oversight by the University of weapons activities in the programs needs to be enhanced. UC needs to answer what Gundel believes is the biggest question: "Is meaningful oversight of weapons development and stockpiles stewardship possible?"
Collaboration, Dr. Gundel suggested, is another area where changes can be recommended in UC's management contract. Both Gundel and her peers would like to increase their collaboration with investigators from the UC system, but collaboration is administratively difficult. Overhead structures are different, and DOE is totally inflexible about its overhead rates. Specific barriers to collaboration include the whole aspect of proposal writing, at the many levels of review within the DOE bureaucracy. UC is really invisible in that, Gundel said; it's handled as if you weren't managing us at all.
Although, historically, there has been a great deal of involvement between UC faculty and LBL, particularly in fundamental groups such as chemical sciences, Professor Radke believes that the slope of faculty involvement is negative, not positive. One reason for the decline is the impact of the funding situation and the political move to make the labs' work more applied, more involved in technology transfer. Radke stated that the faculty, viewed as "rogues" by the administration, do not respond to this kind of direction and "do basically what they think is important, based on where they see the science going and to educate students." The administration's response is to move more and more faculty out of leadership of the various divisions. Another barrier to faculty collaboration is the enormous bureaucracy: paperwork, endless filling out of forms, and changing of direction in mid-stream. Radke said that the direction of faculty involvement, in leadership and in actual collaborative work, is clearly negative.
Professor Falcone responded that funding has a dual effect. The major initiative in molecular science, for example, is totally faculty driven. And that's the new money, Falcone said, the new initiative.
Professor Becker commented that the level of research publication by scientists at the laboratories appears to be suppressed, if not discouraged. Dr. Gundel replied that publication is important; promotions are based upon the level of publication. Professor Radke believes, however, that publication depends on "where you are getting your money from." For scientists in applied projects at LLNL, Radke said, publishing is a low level activity. He believes that perhaps more than 50% of the funding is for primarily mission-driven work, to satisfy the contractor, and the contractor is not interested in the level of one's publication. The interest and the emphasis is in technology transfer. A look at the publication record at the labs, Radke said, would show that this is a valid complaint. Falcone agreed that mission-oriented work reduces publication. However, Falcone said, publication is an important driver and outlet for maintaining quality of research. Gundel suggested, in the next UC management contract, that a higher level of publication could be encouraged in order to increase the use of the academic model.
Chair Gold noted that another component of increasing the academic level is joint appointments. If the model of increased faculty participation and collaboration is a way of ensuring openness and quality, then it would appear that joint appointments or campus-to-laboratory sabbaticals may be an important way of developing that kind of openness.
D. Consultation with Marc Pilisuk
Professor Emeritus Marc Pilisuk, Community Psychology, UCD, and an affiliate of the School of Public Health, UCB, distributed a February 1, 1995 article entitled, "An Alternative to the Galvin Report on Futures for the DOE Nuclear Weapons Laboratories," prepared by Professor William Weida, The Colorado College, Director of the Community Education Campaign, and by Professor Ann Markusen, Rutgers University, Director of the Project on Regional and Industrial Economics.
Professor Pilisuk briefly discussed the misrepresentations he believes are contained within the laboratories' case for continued association with the University of California. Pilisuk offered five points:
(1) Though the labs present themselves as "getting out of weapons," the major projects currently under consideration, including the NIF, development of plutonium triggers, and interest in uranium enrichment, are all examples of the continued emphasis on that which they do best -- research and development of those things related to the production and development of nuclear weapons.
(2) The laboratories argue that they "do only what Congress and the Feds tell them to do." Though there is truth in the statement, Pilisuk believes that the labs have been the progenitors, the genesis and the promotion of projects such as the neutron bomb, "Star Wars," and the Thousand Pebbles Project.
(3) The laboratories argue, Pilisuk said, that nuclear weapons are needed for safety and reliability. He stated that the concept of safety, as used by the labs, frequently refers to the safety of new weapons being developed. Reliability has not to do with whether the weapons will explode, but rather with the "yield". Pilisuk believes that safety and reliability, so defined, are unrelated to the deterrent capacities of the United States.
(4) The laboratories represent themselves as not having had a significant impact on the environment and even upon health. Pilisuk recommends that the statement be viewed in the context of the labs' larger effort in the development of nuclear weapons.
(5) The laboratories argue that the Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) Program, including the NIF, can have dual use for basic research with commercial applications as well as weapons. This assumption is based on the possibility that the ICF will become economically useful to them, Pilisuk said. He stated that he has not found anyone who believes "this is anything but an extremely large and long-term gamble." Pilisuk claimed that the misrepresentations do not reflect customary differences in opinion that we expect in an intellectually free institution. Rather, they reflect the consistent posture of an organization with an extremely strong commitment to a mission that must, of necessity, be carried out in secrecy because of the great danger of nuclear weapons. The power of classifying information has been used to conceal harmful findings, he said, particularly with regard to radioactive waste disposal and to radiation associated with testing. The extent of the organization's commitment to the task of nuclear weaponry suggests that the work has taken on certain symbolic meanings. These meanings have, according to Pilisuk, been the subject of study by psychologists and anthropologists. He said that the work confers high status, unmatched facilities, opportunity for scholarly work without the requirement of open review by peers, a recognized and rewarded role in society, and a setting for experts in this craft to practice. Pilisuk said that the consistent biases persist because members of this community cannot envision the possibility of a world in which their work on nuclear weapons is no longer needed.
Professor Pilisuk offered his analysis of the organizational culture in which people work at the Laboratories. He described the labs as a highly organized structure existing at a cultural pinnacle. Sustained by the value our society places on the achievement of scientific excellence and on national defense, the labs represent a "super science," Pilisuk stated. This science has access to unbelievable amounts of power, and the immensity of this drives a certain type of culture. Because the laboratories' work traditionally has been classified, Pilisuk said, the culture contains secrecy, extremely tightknit teamwork, and strong hierarchies. He stated that the senior people at the labs are known as the "priesthood." Pilisuk believes that the many different kinds of rituals that are involved at the labs, including the exercise of the cohesion of the team and a need for secrecy, emphasize many attributes commonly found in cult movements.
Though the laboratories work under the assumption that the national interest is being served, Pilisuk said that "national interest" is interpreted by the labs not as an evaluation of what would be of value to the nation, but as would be defined by the Prussian solider: what accentuates the power of the State is ultimately good.
Professor Pilisuk suggested some standards by which the University of California can evaluate its continuing connection with the National Laboratories. UC should take into consideration the fact that all claims made by the labs are likely to be biased. UC must decide that oversight is in line with its own mission, and that the integrity of its intellectual pursuit is not compromised. If in fact research in one area (weapons) has consequences that are dubious or harmful to another area (health or environment), then communication and access to research data must be free from the constraints of classification. If this is truly a University, Pilisuk stated, then we must be able to see the research findings and to question them.
At this time, according to Professor Pilisuk, the secrecy and separation of the laboratories from the remainder of the University, and the access of the Laboratories to government, serve to limit the potential contribution of the University to the attainment of multilateral nuclear disarmament (as required by Provision 6 of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty). Pilisuk stated that in political and policy issues UC can in fact develop alternative ways of solving disputes. The separation and classification of the labs prevents the University from making its potentially important contribution to the successful resolution of disputes without the use of destructive power.
Professor Pilisuk thanked UCORP for undertaking the Senate review of the University's relationship with the national laboratories. The issues involve precise questions of how the University can live up to its ethical mandate for the free exchange of ideas without serious monitoring of a secret organization within it. They involve, as well, the potential for a genuine redirection of the activities of the Laboratories that would have a tremendous impact on the future of this country. Pilisuk described the bottom line for the University in determining whether it continues to oversee the labs is to specify a condition that they convert, in deed as well as in word, from the secretive work in weapons development to the areas of open research on the global problems of energy, health and the environment in which they can collaborate, with pride, with the rest of the University of California.
E. Consultation with Daniel L. Simmons
Professor Daniel L. Simmons, Chair, Academic Council, stated that he has been a member of the President's Council on the National Laboratories for 18 months. Simmons is also a member of the Environmental Safety and Health Panel, and a member of the National Security Panel. He identified himself as a non-expert who has received clearance for classified material. He said that he intentionally sought clearance because he felt a responsibility to make his own assessment of the labs and needed a sense of the work being conducted in the weapons area.
Simmons said he believes that (1) the labs are not currently engaged in weapons development; and (2) only 22% of the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national lab budget is devoted to nuclear weapons research. The DOE and DOD budgets of both labs are far bigger than the 22%, Simmons said, because a huge chunk of those budgets are devoted to environmental research and environmental remediation.
Has there been a change in the relationship between the University of California and the national labs? This question, Simmons said, is probably the one upon which we should place the most focus. He believes a real change in the relationship has occurred, and he described a healthy recognition by the labs and the University of what the relationship brings to each. UC's benefits include access to the laboratories' equipment and scientific instruments, access to computing facilities that are unparalleled anywhere in the word, and access to quality science and scientists. From the labs' perspective, Simmons said, UC brings to the laboratories a focus on academic freedom and open discourse that would not be available to them without the university connection.
Positive changes have occurred under the new contracts. Professor Simmons said that one of the important negotiation points in the current contracts was the idea of academic freedom and openness. Simmons said that he believes that the labs are becoming more open and that the DOE is more interested than it was in the past in declassifying work. He referred to a "superb" paper on restrictions of publications ("Publications and Intellectual Property Ownership: Policy and Practice at the DOE Laboratories and the Campuses") written by Eleanore Lee, Office of the Vice Provost for Research.
Describing the current UC oversight committees, Professor Simmons stated that he personally has confidence in the quality of oversight that the President's Council on the National Laboratories is able to undertake. Representing a wide variety of views, the membership of the President's Council reflects substantial UC faculty representation. Simmons referred to the "top flight scientists" on the Council, people who are part of the scientific community that is exposed to, and thus in a position to assess, the quality of work coming out of the laboratories. The President's Council has four sub-panels: the Science and Technology Panel, responsible for an annual assessment of the work of the laboratories; the Environmental Safety and Health Panel, responsible for health and safety concerns within the labs and an overall examination of the labs' research in the area of environmental safety; the National Security Panel, whose charge is to examine the direction of classified work. The role of the Technology Transfer Panel is to assess the Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) and other methods for technology transfer.
Professor Simmons said that it would be difficult for him to picture an oversight structure that would work better than that provided by the University. The University's oversight does have an influence on the policy direction taken by the laboratories, and it does impose a certain layer of discipline that may otherwise not exist -- such influences may not be in the interest of a Martin-Marietta-Lockheed, for example, to impose. Under the University contract, the money in the lab directors' discretionary funds returns to the labs to fund additional research for much of the basic science that the labs are able to do. Under management by a profit-oriented enterprise, that money more likely would go to shareholders or some other capital investment in the company rather than returning to fund basic research. To the nation, in a sense, Simmons believes, that is one advantage of the University's management of the labs.
The long-term evolutionary nature of the organizational structure of the labs and UC's oversight, Simmons continued, must be kept in mind as we analyze the direction our relationship is taking. Simmons believes that the President's Council has played a critical role in developing guidance for the direction of the labs' research. The proportions and the kinds of research conducted evolve on a constant basis, and that evolution is to some extent a result of negotiation. Negotiations develop the national priorities of the research. The work that is done in weapons research may well have a huge impact on developing fusion energy. We don't know if it will because the research and experimentation needs to be done, he said, but we do have examples of past work done at the laboratories. For example, the computer code that is used by every car company in the world for crash simulations is, of course, the weapons code that was given away (at $50 a copy) to the auto makers. Those sorts of interrelationships may well come out of the NIF, so I think, Simmons said, that it is impossible to analyze the contributions of the labs separately from an analysis of the weapons contribution.
Professor Simmons offered his impression on the status of nuclear weapons research within the laboratories. The labs do not now advocate continued testing, he said, but they recognize that the test ban treaty does create difficulties because we don't know everything about how those weapons work. We are trying to reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons. Because new weapons are not being developed, for a period of approximately 30 years we are going to rely on weapons that were designed to last 5-10 years. Testing, one of the designers' principle tools, is the only way to determine what changes will occur to these weapons over time; and the NIF may be used to refine the computer code. How do we downsize this stockpile, keep these things safe and reliable for a long period of time, without being able to test them? These are the kinds of research problems on which the laboratories now are focused, Simmons said. The National Security Panel is trying to assess the weapons program and, indeed, provide some guidance on the direction the program should take.
One aspect of the weapons work currently being done at the labs, Professor Simmons said, is an assessment of the risk of dismantling the former Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal. The nuclear weapons of the former Soviet Union present an ongoing challenge, and the labs are installing monitoring devices at Russian and Ukrainian weapons storage facilities. Another piece of weapons research currently being done at the labs is nonproliferation work, work which represents a large portion of the DOE budget within the labs. An argument presented by the labs, and one that Simmons stated he is not personally in a position to fully assess, sets forth the premise that in order to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, we need scientists who, by understanding how to design nuclear weapons, therefore can identify the signatures of the development process of nuclear weapons within other countries.
Several layers of peer review of the classified and non-classified work of the labs are in effect, Professor Simmons believes. The two laboratories at Los Alamos and at Livermore "more or less peer review the classified work of each other," and that is part of the justification for maintaining two separate weapons laboratories. The two independent divisions basically are in competition with each other for weapons analysis (though Simmons stated he is unable to personally assess those arguments). Another layer of peer review is the review by outside scientists. Of course, Simmons said, the publication record also provides a mechanism for peers to assess the quality of the work being accomplished by the labs. Under the University's management contract, one final layer of peer review is the grading and annual evaluation of science and technology conducted by the President's Council.
Professor Simmons said, in conclusion, that he believes the lab directors have a sincere desire to enhance rather than to restrict collaboration with the University of California. The lab directors and the chancellors have a buzz word, "9 + 3," to indicate a deepening coordination of the labs and the University. Simmons said that if the University maintains its management contract on this basis of enhanced collaboration, a tremendous benefit will accrue to UC researchers from their access to the laboratories' instrumentation, equipment, and scientific models.
Chair Gold said that the lab directors, the lab representatives who spoke to UCORP last month, and now Professor Simmons describe 22% of the lab budget as devoted to nuclear weapons research. That figure is not supported by what is on paper. If one looks at what the DOE budget says goes for weapons-related activities, the figure is well over 50%, not 22%. If a public university takes the position that it is going to convince the public that it is providing oversight, that discrepancy is a very troublesome fact. We have a major commitment to truth as a university, as well as to the health and safety of the public who are exposed to the results of the work of these labs. Simmons commented that such questions are precisely the reason for the Senate review, and the answer is that UCORP should write a letter to the lab directors and raise the question: would you explain the discrepancy? Professor Becker asked if the University believes it can manage the information flow? If we cannot trust what the labs say about the health effects of radiation, is it possible to exert enough authority to change the culture? Gold said that is the real question. The lack of faith on the part of the public appears to be well founded. Doubts surround the issue of the budget figure related to weapons activities, and doubts surround the health effects related to the labs' activities. A tremendous motivation exists on the part of the people who are in place to maintain the status quo.
Simmons said that while he does not know the truth about the 22%, he also is unwilling to believe that "there is some vast conspiracy going on to hide the numbers within a budget. The system is vastly complex. What is classified is the technology of designing these weapons, and I am not sure that is something about which to be wildly concerned, he said. We should be concerned about the proportion of classified to non-classified work that is being conducted.
Professor Gofman stated that there are those within the folds who favor a strong condemnation of laboratory directors who suppress dissidents, but who will not take a stand alone. Gofman believes that if the President's Council and the University took a strong position that dissident thinking is to be encouraged, it "could make very large difference in terms of what Warren Gold was talking about, reliability of information. If you can just make people think they are not going to have their throats slashed for speaking up, I think you will get a very different picture out of those labs." Professor Falcone stated that he could not see a parallel institution where whistle blowing or dissidents really are the opening up of institution. In general, Falcone does not think it is an applicable model of oversight. Our audience is the DOE, Gofman responded. If the University really makes it clear that suppression of dissidents will not be tolerated, a change will occur, Gofman believes. The evidence of three decades suggests that the DOE wanted only a certain answer, and the lab management helped provide it to the DOE.
F. Consultation with Lara Nader
Professor Lara Nader, Anthropology, UCB, thanked UCORP for the invitation to attend this meeting and spoke about three issues: the American university, the conversion process, and open dissent in science. She said that many people think that the Cold War has had an impact, not present before, on our universities. However, if one looks back into history, she said, the military-industrial complex came onto the campuses after the Civil War. World War I, too, had a large impact on American universities. And each time, Nader said, the military-industrial complex was resisted by faculty who tried to maintain a distance in order to ensure academic freedom. The censorship of the McCarthy era also impacted American universities by making people very timid about speaking out. But, in all these periods, Nader stated, there have been faculty who have stood up and been counted in order to defend academic freedom.
World destabilization, Professor Nader said, must be considered. We are now in a very unstable situation, partly due to multinationals that have "crossed borders," as literature would say, and party due to the arms industry, in which the United States plays an enormous role. World destabilization creates two critical problems, Nader said: (1) within the destabilization of nations like the former Soviet Union, internal problems are created, and (2) those internal problems are often solved by scapegoating and looking to the outside. That, Nader said, of course brings us full circle into war again. A lot is at stake, she said, in how we deal with these problems.
As an anthropologist of law, Professor Nader has spent a great deal of time looking at the culture of science. She has studied how scientists and how the scientific organizations work, and said that she has some familiarity with the Los Alamos lab, having been invited to speak there as well as at Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley. "Because no dissent was allowed at Los Alamos, scientists came out of the woodwork to report the repression of dissent at the labs," Nader said. Just before the last UC management contract was finalized, Nader was giving a talk at LBL on the subject of why scientists in American should be freer ("trying to get [the issue of academic freedom] into the contract wording, which we did.") As she was speaking, a scientist on her right passed a note to a scientist on her left. She said she looked down, and the note said, "Can't you shut this lady up?" She thought, this is extraordinary. She had been talking about how to facilitate things for scientists, the absence of tenure, the absence of any kind of job security, the absence of dissent.
Professor Nader described a phenomena of standardized thinking sometimes referred to as "group think." This phenomena comes from the absence of real dissent in the laboratories -- the ability to stand up and tell your boss that you disagree on scientific grounds based on data and not have to worry about getting fired.
As a citizen, Professor Nader said, she believes that UC should manage the labs, because she is uneasy with the corporate management of a Marietta or a Union Carbide. As a professor, Nader really does not want the UC-lab connection; "I feel contaminated by being in the same organization with people who are developing weapons of destruction that can destroy the world over and over again." She does not have a simple answer, she said, except to suggest that the University, during this transition period until the contracts are ready for renewal, insist upon academic freedom for American scientists, and an incremental democratizing of science processes. Following the release of the Jendresen report, Nader said, the question the UC faculty voted on was not whether there should be nuclear weapons in the world. The stand taken by the faculty at that time was that the university should not be in the business of non-academic activity. Distinguished people, including a Nobel Laureate and a former California Supreme Court Justice, had been working together to try to open the discussion up, Nader stated, "not just knee-jerk, anti-science or anti-war, disgruntled faculty." Nader said that UC President Gardner basically ignored the faculty vote, did not send the message or the spirit of the message forward to The Regents, and blocked our intent.
The mandate of the committee today, Nader stated, or any faculty group that has anything to do with the UC lab management issue, is to focus on the question of open university dissent. She defined academic freedom as the primary issue: "If you can't have an open science in a democracy, then we are just kidding ourselves about being a democracy."
A second issue raised by Professor Nader is the one of conversion. An article published by Nader in Physics Today (1981), "Barriers to Thinking New About Energy," discussed the group think or standardized thinking evident in the culture of science in this country. Nader said that the article was met with an outpouring from American scientists. She received letters from Nobel Laureates, heads of labs, people who could remember the pre-militarization of American science. Standardized thinking shuts the door by telling people what findings they should have, and creativity, Nader said, cannot exist under standardized thinking. Unfettered conditions are required for creative and open science, she stated. In the current post-Cold War period, she said, we have a group of scientists who have been rewarded for doing something for a long time and who think in a certain way. None of the nuclear power countries had plans for conversion, she said, but the taxpayers, long generous with American science, now ask for conversion. She suggested one might read Melman's book Our Depleted Society for ideas on new priorities in science.
Barriers to thinking new exist, Professor Nader said, and the University should address those barriers. What kind of science are we going to have, she asked, a science that makes money for multinational corporations only? This country has chosen to do a certain kind of science that is predominantly military. We should take seriously the problem of conversion, and there should be a period of time allocated to the conversion period; the scientists cannot be expected to shift gears overnight. Americans, Nader said, are good at starting up, but not good at shifting gears.
Professor Nader believes that the first order of business is to democratize the workplace at the laboratories; dissent must be allowed. Inside and outside critics need to be encouraged; the scientists should listen to an informed public. American professionals tend to disregard the people. Tri-Valley Care citizens are not crazy, yet we are terrified of them. "There may be some indication that more sanity exists in those groups for survival than among professional groups who are interested in their own job survival over and above the rest of it," she said. Calling for an end to the fortress mentality that accompanies the national security state, Nader believes that a renaissance at LLNL, for example, could provide many jobs in environmental cleanup and in energy efficiency. An examination of the University of California's relationship to the weapons labs, Nader concluded, must carry with it a vision of a democratic scientific workplace. If they can't meet that vision, UC should not renew the contract.
Perhaps it is the cynic in him, Professor Simmons said, but he believes that our government is not willing to fund research, and he doubts if the people are really willing to fund research, without tangible results. It is not an accident that this great blossoming of American universities, creating the best education in the world, really started in 1957. The Russians were ahead of us; they were in space first; and a great explosion in funding for education occurred. And it is not an accident that with the end of the Cold War, the major crisis that American universities are facing is the cutback in federal funding. Defense has been the real driver, the real justification for research funding in this nation. Gold asked: "Hasn't a part of the problem been, in its function with the labs, that the University has been acting as a buffer, a force that isolates rather than opens up the issue to the taxpayers?" Simmons responded: "Unfortunately, research may be a luxury that we are provided by the people of California in order to educate their children." Simmons stated that people don't appreciate the value of the research program of the University of California; there is not much interest out there in funding research, and he thinks that's true on a national level. What has driven the availability of money for American universities these last years was the fear of hot and cold wars and the recognition that high-tech defense capability was what was necessary to protect us from the Russians. The elimination of that threat also threatens research funding for American universities, and Simmons stated that we need a new vision around which our society can coalesce.
The University's relationship with concerned taxpayers is an important one. Chair Gold raised the issue of the negative role the University has played, from the Tri-Valley Care group's perspective, on the question of environmental impact studies. Simmons believes that the Tri-Valley Care issue is a fairly narrow one, the environment in which they live; and he doubts that the group could ever be satisfied short of removing LLNL and its activities from their environment. The "anti-research," "anti-inquiry in my own backyard" position also is active at Laurel Heights in San Francisco. No one will oppose science that is beneficial; everyone will oppose the mistakes that are made along the way to finding that beneficial discovery. Professor Gibson said that Simmons' cynicism is based on reality; the difficulties of conversion are compounded because of the public's perception that truth has been withheld.
Minutes of the Meetings. The Minutes of the March 27, 1995 meeting were distributed by Chair Warren Gold. Minutes serve as the committee's record, Gold stated, and provide the documentation to inform future UCORP discussions and recommendations. The Minutes of March 27, 1995 are detailed, and members are asked to review them carefully for accuracy of tone and content.
National Labs and the University of California.
Chair Gold announced that today's meeting continues UCORP's review of the UC-National Lab relationship. Gold provided a brief overview of the DOE Laboratory oversight function performed by UC. The Board of Regents has ultimate authority for the University's management oversight of the three laboratories for the U.S. Department of Energy -- the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Management oversight of the laboratories is delegated by The Regents to the University's president. The Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Walter Massey, oversees the scientific and technical programs at the laboratories. V. Wayne Kennedy, Senior Vice President for Business and Finance, oversees the administrative functions associated with the University's laboratory management. The UC President's Council on the National Laboratories advises the President and The Regents on laboratory management.
A. Consultation with V. Wayne Kennedy
Senior Vice President Business and Finance
Vice President Kennedy provided a brief overview of the mechanisms involved in UC's administrative oversight. The current management contract, negotiated by the University with the Department of Energy (DOE), is a precedent-setting, performance-based contract. The performance is judged in two areas, science and management, equally weighted.
When the contract was initiated under his predecessor, Kennedy stated, a decision was made to have the oversight jointly shared by the two senior vice presidents. A Special Assistant for Laboratory Administration has been appointed to serve under Kennedy. The Vice Provost for Research, Jud King, and the newly-appointed Associate Vice Provost for Research and Laboratory Programs, Carl Poppe, help Massey with scientific oversight. The performance measurements used to evaluate the labs are defined in Appendix F of the contract. The evaluation is done on an annual basis. The idea, Kennedy said, was to have the University of California take that management responsibility with the hope and the assumption that over time the DOE would rely on the University's oversight and evaluation of the labs from the management perspective. I think it would be fair to say, Kennedy stated, that after two and one-half years it is beginning to work. A "great congruity between our evaluations of the labs last time and DOE's evaluation" has occurred.
In an attempt to increase, from a management point of view, the integration of the labs into the University, Kennedy estimated that approximately 10% of his time is spent on laboratory affairs. Kennedy and Massey meet with the directors of the laboratories on a regular basis and visit the labs frequently. Every other month Kennedy meets with the Vice Chancellors; every other week a conference call is conducted. The Deputy Directors of the three national labs have been invited to be a part of that process.
B. Consultation with C. Judson King
Vice Provost for Research
Lab-campus synergisms, Vice Provost King reported, are a major focus of his office. He distributed a summary of lab-campus interactions, "Campus/Laboratory Collaborative Activities," and stated that the largest volume of activity, interaction which occurs at the level of the individual investigator, may be the most difficult to measure. The interactions between campus faculty and laboratory scientists are particularly commonplace at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL), though such collaborations also exist at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to varying degrees. However, King stated, because the collaborations are at the level of the individual investigator, it has been difficult to inventory the campuses, or the labs, with regard to these interactions.
The next level of lab-campus interaction, King said, occurs in the form of institutes and centers established at all three labs. Perhaps the oldest and best known example of such institutes is the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP), a Multicampus Research Unit (MRU) with branches at both LLNL and LANL.
The Complementary Beneficial Activities (CBA) fund, derived from the new contract administration compensation framework negotiated with the DOE, was created to encourage and support lab-campus collaborations. King stated that two MRUs are funded out of the $3 million CBA fund: the IGPP and the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). The remaining $1.5 million of the CBA fund is designated as seed money to encourage initiation of long-term collaborative research programs. The Campus-Laboratory Collaborations Program was instituted, and 105 proposals have been received in response to the December 1994 RFP (UCORP agenda enclosure 2B). The second fund established as part of the recent contract compensation package, King stated, is the University of California Directed Research and Development (UCDRD) Fund. The UCDRD funds are available to support research activities at the discretion of the laboratory director. King described the mechanisms and the uses of the UCDRD funds, noting that there is an agreement and an acceptance on all sides that a very high priority use of the UCDRD funds is for lab-campus interactions.
Substantial changes and advances have occurred in the scientific oversight of the labs by the University of California. King provided examples of the enhanced UC management role: establishment of the positions of the Vice Provost for Research, the Assistant Vice Provost for Research and Laboratory Programs; the creation of the UC President's Council on the National Laboratories, in operation for two and one-half years. Science and technology performance assessment is conducted by the Council's Science and Technology Panel. King stated that UC faculty are very heavily involved in the science and technology reviews of divisions and programs of the labs. The President's Council S&T performance assessment process begins with input from external peer review committees, and King stated that the labs are using, "in a widespread complete fashion," external peer review committees.
To address the issue of academic freedom, King described a recent article about LANL in the New York Times that offered the possibility that in thousands of years, after containers had disintegrated, a nuclear explosion may occur at the Yucca Mountain Long-Term High-Level Waste Storage Facility. Though the report largely is not accepted within the scientific community, King said, the most important thing is that the generators of this report have been able to speak their piece and have not been censored, as might have occurred under a different, industrial manager of the laboratories. The issue has received considerable review and healthy discussion inside and outside of LANL, King stated, and a report will be given to the President's Council for its consideration and commentary.
C. Consultation with Robert Kuckuck
Deputy Director for Operations, Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory
Formerly UC's Special Assistant for Laboratory_Administration, Deputy Director Kuckuck has recently returned to LLNL as its Deputy Director for Operations. Kuckuck spoke to the history of UC's implementation of the performance-based management contract, in which UC sits with the labs and the DOE on a continuing basis. With the origination of the current management contract, the University established teams in each functional area: Environmental Safety and Health, Human Resources, and Finance and Management. The teams' members included UC, the labs, and the two DOE field offices -- one in Oakland to oversee LLNL and LBL, and another in Albuquerque to oversee LANL. The DOE cooperated fully with the University and sent representatives to UC's training sessions. The teams have operated for the last two and one-half years as strong, functional units for resolving issues and developing future performance measures. Kuckuck stated that the University presence is very real. Both the labs and the DOE have responded very well to the University, and performance indeed is improving. The labs, Kuckuck stated, take the performance measures very seriously and have diverted resources and great energy to satisfying the contractual requirements.
In a function parallel to the performance-based management cycle, the Issues Resolution Council was established. Kuckuck reported that Massey, Kennedy, the lab directors, the heads of the DOE field offices, and the assistant secretaries of major programs in Washington, D.C. meet on a regular basis. Though the contract requires one annual meeting, because of enthusiasm and participation, the group is causing itself to meet twice a year. An Issues Resolution Group consisting of the Associate Vice Provost, the Special Assistant for Laboratory Administration, the deputies of each DOE field office, and deputy assistant secretaries meet quarterly. Kuckuck pointed to one measure of success: no major issue has had to go to these bodies to be resolved. He described the process as very successful; "the process at the working level has resolved every issue."
The process of implementing performance-based management has improved; the lab management performance has improved; relations have improved. The UC contract and the UC approach has become the model, and Kuckuck described two new contracts negotiated by DOE which were patterned after UC's performance-based measures. The outcome, Kuckuck concluded, is a positive experience for the national labs and for the University, and the nation as a whole is benefitting.
UCORP members asked for clarification of the performance-based evaluations. Professor Becker asked for a description of the scientific performance criteria. Deputy Director Kuckuck responded that a 70-30 split is being used on the assessment of science and technology. The assessment of the individual divisions and programs of the labs represents 70% and occurs by the peer review committees of the individual labs and divisions, creating a report that includes a rating. That rating is then assessed and possibly adjusted by the S&T panel of the President's Council. The 30% portion of the assessment considers overall factors such as the planning process at the labs, overall planning, the mission, the interpretation of the mission, and research climate issues.
Professor Becker noted that incentives ought to be awarded to the scientific leadership of the labs as well as to the general administration. King replied that the administration, the associate directors, are scientists, physicists, and engineers. Professor Rocke concluded that the salary increase methodology of the national laboratories appears to be similar to one that is pursued at most universities other than the University of California. He said that the procedure described for the labs does not appear to be inconsistent with academia, although it differs from that applied at the University of California.
D. Consultation with Carl Poppe
Associate Vice Provost for Research and Laboratory Programs
Carl Poppe, Associate Vice Provost for Research and Laboratory Programs, welcomed the opportunity to meet with UCORP. Poppe reported that the Secretary of Energy has announced major reductions -- averaging about 27% -- in the DOE staff. The significant reduction in DOE staff likely will reduce DOE micromanagement of the labs. He also noted that the Galvin Report took a position one might view as a mandate for strengthening the "go-co" (government-owned, contractor-operated) concept of management that UC has been conducting during the last two and one-half years.
Associate Vice Provost Poppe distributed a document entitled "Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory FY94/FY95 Spending by Funding Source." UCORP members have raised questions about the budgets of the national laboratories, and Poppe said that his office is attempting to find a "transparent" format to explain the large, complex budgets of the labs. The entries reflect actual costs that have occurred and reveal trends and directions. The funding source of LLNL's budget comes from a variety of places, and Poppe's distribution lists DOE Atomic Energy Defense Activities, DOE Civilian Activities, and Other Agencies (e.g. U.S. Enrichment Corporation, NASA, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Department of Defense). King noted that "source" has to do with the way the government is budgeted, often with apparent inconsistencies of category. Under the general category of Atomic Energy Defense Activities, expenditures not related to nuclear weapons -- nonproliferation, environmental restoration, industrial collaborations (technology transfer) -- are listed. Poppe stated that he would like to find a consistent way to view this, one that is both accurate and transparent.
Chair Gold expressed the concern that one of the issues highlighted in the Galvin Report was a distrust developed among the public with respect to the labs and nuclear weapons testing. How then can UC, in its oversight role, regain the public trust? The inconsistencies in interpretations of the national laboratories' budget for nuclear weapons need to be resolved. Reading a line item in the Congressional Budget that says, in all caps, "NUCLEAR WEAPONS" one can calculate the percentage of this budget to be 55%. However, the representatives from the national labs report that 20% of the budget is allocated for core nuclear weapons activities. Associate Provost Poppe's goal to provide a transparent and accurate budget is laudable, Gold concluded. Poppe said that he believes that the Secretary of Energy is "very much trying to repair these problems that exist in terms of real openness and really making sure that the numbers are correct and understood." Referring to the LLNL 94-95 "Spending by Funding Source" document, Vice Provost King emphasized that the category "Core Nuclear Weapons Activities" is approximately 20%; the sub-total of "DOE Atomic Energy Defense Activities" is approximately 55%.
Professor Rocke asked for clarification of the purposes of the labs' itemized activities: which are classified, which are not? Poppe replied that it is very difficult to break the budget down under classification or to correlate numbers to the activity. In the nonproliferation area, for example, Poppe said that classification may occur during international negotiation by the United States and then become unclassified at the completion of negotiations. However, Poppe said, "the correlation of a dollar value to the activity may be impossible."
Professor Narasimhan remarked that once the DOE recognizes the importance of public trust, it can come up with an easily-understood way of stating numbers so that anyone could look at it and can say this is fair. Deputy Director Kuckuck replied that he has found it to be a very serious intent on the DOE's part. Kuckuck stated that a major, costly initiative is now in the DOE's budget to go through the entire archives of the labs and decide what can be unclassified, and a pilot study is being done at LLNL.
As previously suggested to UCORP, Chair Gold said, the National Ignition Facility experiments may be divided approximately one-third each among weapons, basic science, and alternative energy development. But who is doing the peer review to assure that such a division will occur? If, as the Galvin Report indicates, the one-third devoted to alternate energy development is threatened, how will the funds actually be allocated? The answer is very difficult, King stated, and is perhaps more than a decade away; at this point the divisions are speculative.
Professor Haraway raised the issue of the evolution and shaping of the labs' mission. What are the mechanisms, built into UC's role as an institutional contracted manager, to enable UC to shape the labs' mission at a fundamental, programmatic decision level? The shaping of mission ought to involve different mechanisms for consultation with faculty and with outside experts, including those who have produced alternative conversion budgets. Haraway stated that the lack of a priority push on the UC management role to shape the mission of the national labs lies at the heart of the UC faculty's repeated votes to decouple management. What are UC's articulated goals as manager for the shaping of mission?
Referring to the evolution of mission, Vice Provost King listed three areas of growth at the labs: environmental remediation, energy conversion and efficiency, and biological and biomedical activities. The President's Council, as one of its prime functions, assesses the selection of new missions areas and the growth into them. The lab-campus interactions, the synergies grown between the labs and the campuses, also will have the effect of becoming areas of evolution for the labs. Gold stated that the three areas of growth listed by King -- though important areas of change -- still are small percentages of the labs' budget. Gold asked: what is the role of the University in developing the methodology to shape the mission? How is the University the driving force in shaping those methodologies? Poppe referred to the DOE's requirement to obtain Congressional approval for its funding. The DOE must understand who its customer is, and how much of its customer is the Department of Defense, Poppe said. The DOE must meet their customer's needs. Professor Phinney remarked that "the mind set has to be changed at that point."
Mission shaping, Vice Provost King stated, perhaps could be divided into two ways in which UC might influence things: (1) how the labs respond to the DOE budget or national budget, and (2) how UC might help influence the national budget and the way that it is distributed. Those are two distinct divisions, King said. The mechanism he previously described involving peer review and the deliberations of the President's Council is directed to the first: the labs' response to the DOE or national budget. With regard to the influence on the national budget, that is handled in a totally different arena by UC's Washington office, our interactions and cooperation with other universities and associations of universities. The newly-created Federal Policy Advisory Group, co-chaired by Vice President Baker and Vice Provost King, is one mechanism by which UC can influence national policy and national budgetary distribution.
Chair Gold stated that, under the current management contract, an enormous and very real change in the University role has occurred. However, Gold continued, the picture of UC's role in determining the missions of the lab is still unclear. Vice Provost King replied that a sharp division does not exist between critiquing and leading. Discussion and interactions occur on the President's Council, within the office of theVice Provost for Research and the Laboratory Administration office under Senior Vice President Kennedy.
On the issue of academic freedom, Vice Provost King briefly commented on impact of the new management contract. He again cited the example of the article appearing in the New York Times on the Yucca Mountain High Level Waste Storage facility. King stated that, in his opinion, the matter was handled in a way that placed no suppression or predisposition of viewpoint onto the process whatsoever. The issue is being examined though an appropriate scientific peer review process. Also, the issues of academic freedom and openness of research are now criteria in the science and technology performance assessment.
A. Consultation with Carl Poppe
Associate Vice Provost for Research and Laboratory Programs
Dr. Poppe distributed, for UCORP's information, Beginning of Discussions with DOE to Renew UC Management of Laboratories, prepared by the Office of Research, July 24, 1995. The DOE contract for UC management of the three laboratories (Berkeley, Livermore, and Los Alamos) will expire on September 30, 1997. The DOE may decide to extend the current contracts, and UC could enter into negotiations for a new contract. Or, the DOE may decide to compete the contracts, requiring UC decision on whether or not it would participate in the competition. Either action, Poppe stated, will require approval from the Regents. The Office of the President will recommend to the Regents at their September meeting that the OP be granted approval to begin discussions with the DOE to lead to negotiating a renewal of the contacts for the three laboratories.
The present contracts, Poppe stated, recognize the importance of intellectual and scientific freedom to the success of the research mission of the laboratories and embody a performance-based management and evaluation system. As the discussions with the DOE toward new contracts evolve, a number of issues will be studied so that their potential impact on the University and the laboratories can be understood. Included in those issues is the potential for the involvement of Livermore and Los Alamos in the fabrication of replacement components that might be required to maintain the nuclear weapons that are scheduled to remain in the nation's active stockpile. The latter issue was raised by the DOE's preparation of a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) related to its responsibility for managing the nuclear weapons stockpile in the absence of nuclear testing. DOE has published a list of alternative sites in the Federal Register as a Notice of Intent to prepare a PEIS.
Poppe also distributed, for UCORP's information, a paper entitled Plans for Gathering Data on UC-Lab Collaborations, prepared by the Office of Research, July 15, 1995. UC is seeking ways to increase collaborations among the campuses and the laboratories. UCORP has asked for a list of faculty names and other data related to UC-lab collaborations. Though the Office of the President has made different attempts in the past to collect these data, the results have generally been unsatisfactory. The record keeping is not the same at each lab, and the product tends to be inconsistent. Also, many interactions, such as collaborations in which there is no flow of dollars from one institution to another, for which the gathering of data is difficult or impossible. Because the Office of Research believes that accurate data would be useful for analyzing the perceived benefits of UC management of the labs, it is working with the Los Alamos lab to institute a database system that could be used with a standard format by all three labs.
Poppe described the format and architecture of the proposed database system, which is in the form of a questionnaire to be distributed to the professional staffs of the three labs. The questionnaire will gather the following kind of data:
Poppe stated that any comments or additions to the data by UCORP members would be appreciated by the Office of Research.
UCORP Position Statement: National Labs and the University of California
Ultimately, faculty and students on each campus must be educated on these issues, perhaps by way of an open forum on each campus, with input from the labs, from faculty, from students, and from the public.
Does the operation of the Laboratories constitute a public service that is appropriate for the University of California to perform? Chair Gold requested that UCORP members re-examine the five general criteria of the Jendresen Report:
Members suggested that further data need be obtained and further activity conducted, including: a site visit, the actual numbers on UC-lab collaborations, publication lists, lists of the graduates trained, monies generated, all of the data that would go into a formal 5-year review of an ORU/MRU. What are the concrete resources that are obtained by faculty researchers by virtue of UC's management of the national labs?
A. Consultation with Carl Poppe
Associate Vice Provost
for Research and Laboratory Programs
UC has managed the three national laboratories, Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, and Los Alamos, essentially since their inception -- amounting to 157 laboratory years of management. Every 5 years separate contracts with the DOE for management come up for renewal at the same time. The present contracts were signed in 1992 and will expire in 1997. Two years before the contracts expire the process begins that eventually leads toward a decision on the new contracts. This year Congress may place the contracts under a competitive bid process; previously the contracts were extended and rewritten.
Under the current contracts University management has greatly increased, as reflected by the establishment of the Office of Laboratory Administration, which reports to Senior Vice President for Business and Finance Kennedy. That Laboratory Administration office is funded directly by the DOE and is responsible for all the business and operations activities of the laboratories. An additional office established under the current contracts at the OP is the Office of Research, which reports to the Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs King. Poppe, as Associate Vice Provost for Research and Laboratory Programs, and Sandra Weiss, Interim Vice Provost for Research, work within the Office of Research.
Each year the labs are evaluated under performance measures instituted by the current contracts. The oversight and evaluation of all the scientific and technological activities of the three labs is a responsibility charged to the President's Council on the National Laboratories, which succeeds the Scientific and Academic Advisory Committee. Poppe distributed to UCORP a document entitled Science and Technology Evaluation of the UC-Managed DOE Laboratories. These evaluations of the labs involve four panels of the President's Council: Science and Technology; National Security; Environment, Safety, and Health; and Technology Transfer. The Council determined that it would evaluate the scientific work of each lab using peer review, as is the accepted practice in the scientific community. The Council oversees the annual evaluation cycle of each lab, provides a report to the UC president, and that report is the basis for the University's report to the DOE on the labs' performance -- a contractual obligation.
Complete data on campus-laboratory collaborations are not currently available, but Poppe said that his office is attempting to provide UCORP with interim data. He has asked the labs to look at publication databases, participating desk databases, and all available data on student and faculty interactions. Unfortunately, no complete lists are available, and many informal arrangements may not be uncovered. Poppe distributed a list of 1995-1996 Campus-Laboratory Collaborative Program awards. Part of UC's compensation received for management of the labs is used to fund research collaborations. $11M/year (less unallowable costs) is returned to the labs for "UC Directed Research and Development" (UCDRD fund) at the discretion of the lab directors; $3M/year funds complementary and beneficial activities (CBA fund). Campus-lab collaborations extend the University's ability to stay at the forefront of scientific research, and the Laboratories' Institutes and Centers provide a structural mechanism for collaborative research. Poppe distributed an Office of the President news release, dated October 13, 1995: "New Campus-Laboratory Program Tackles Current Issues" (including earthquake engineering, water resources in the Western states, and future environmental change associated with Pacific Rim growth).
UCORP members discussed the process of the President's Council's evaluations of the labs' science and technology programs and suggested that the structure may have moved too far toward a "summative evaluation" assessment for decision-making purposes. A "formative evaluation," one which represents an effort to collaborate with those involved to decide how improvements could be made, may be a better model. Members noted that much of the evaluation appears to be on administrative efficiencies, rather than on the quality of the science. Poppe stated that peer review covers classified as well as non-classified research. UC management, he continued, is essentially in two parts: one has to do with oversight of the quality of science and technology; the other has to do with the business and administrative operations of the labs. UC does not, however, have oversight of the mission of the labs, which is set by federal policy.
B. Consultation with Anne Kernan, UCR
Jendresen Committee
Professor Kernan, one of the members of the original Jendresen Committee, is also an experimental particle physicist and, as such, has spent most of her career in association with the DOE national accelerator labs. She said that she has been on various oversight committees and is familiar with various aspects of DOE lab management. The Jendresen Report recommended that the University divest itself from the management of the weapons labs, LLNL and LANL ("Berkeley is totally distinct" because all work is unclassified); and any comments made by Kernan relate only to LLNL and LANL.
Kernan's impression was that the most important function of UC's management of the DOE labs is to appoint the lab director, though the recommendation must be approved. She also said that "obviously" the US government is responsible for defense policy and quoted former UC President Gardner as stating, "It is inconceivable to me that the University should undertake to advise the government on one weapons system vs. another." Kernan said that the Jendresen committee was not concerned so much with UC management of the quality of research but rather about more general questions, such as: can UC assure that the government receives objective advice from the lab director and the lab senior management? Though the Jendresen Committee felt a reasonable degree of academic freedom existed at the labs, freedom of information was not being exercised. The labs were not presenting a full range of possibilities to the government. During the time of the Jendresen Committee's review, several scandals, including Teller-Woodruff, were "quite embarrassing to UC." Further, members of LLNL and LANL, while on the DOE payroll, had gone to Washington to lobby against one of the proposed test ban treaties. "UC just pretty much sat on its hands through all of this," Kernan concluded.
The Jendresen Committee concluded that the cost to UC, incurred by its management of the DOE labs, is very great. President Gardner had claimed that he spent the equivalent of one two-week period a year working on the labs. Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Frazer reported that 20% of his time was devoted to the labs. The impression of the Jendresen Committee was that the University's top management suffered because of the responsibilities of the labs. If we look back five to six years, Kernan said, we might ask ourselves: if the top management had been really planning for the future, would UC be in the difficulties in which it now finds itself? At that period the Cold War was ending, and the crisis in the California State budget could have been anticipated. We do not have, Kernan asserted, much evidence that any long-term planning was being conducted in 1989.
Kernan offered the following comments. "Science-based stockpile stewardship," is a program that will allow the "weapons people to remain busy." She believes that the question is not one of maintenance, but of providing an opportunity, through experimental facilities and theoretical calculations, to "come up with even better weapons designs." We cannot fool ourselves weapons design will not continue, she said; that is their job. Regarding lab-campus collaborations, the labs' facilities are open to all universities. When the Jendresen Committee looked at the numbers, they found that 10% of the university people using LANL came from UC; 40% using LLNL were from UC. The question of utilization of lab facilities by UC, Kernan stated, is independent from UC's management. The Jendresen Report concluded: "The interactions and joint programs in unclassified areas between Laboratory staff and University faculty and students could continue and perhaps even be expanded under a new contractor." Most national labs have non-university managers, though Kernan does not doubt that the employees prefer UC's benevolent management. Also, a point about which "UC administration seems to be very insensitive:" people in the labs are often in competition with UC faculty for federal funding for research. However the playing field is not level, and UC faculty are at a disadvantage because the lab directors can provide matching funds.
The Academic Council's treatment of the Jendresen Report, Kernan believes, "betrayed UC faculty." The Academic Council Chair, instead of reporting to the Regents that a majority of faculty had voted in favor of divesting UC from the labs, said "only 28% of faculty approved" of the Jendresen Report. Gold commented that because of the importance of this issue, UCORP urges that a widespread educational effort be conducted through a series of campus forums. The forums would educate faculty, students, and staff on the issues and would provide an opportunity for interested faculty, lab representatives, and public interest groups to present informed positions.
Kernan reiterated the conclusions of the Jendresen Report. The responsibility for operating LANL and LLNL, "whose primary mission is the development of nuclear weapons -- a mission that involves a high level of classified work and explicit programmatic direction from the government -- is contrary to the fundamental nature of the University. The University will best serve the nation and the world by devoting its energies to its primary missions of teaching and research."
Announcements by the Chair
The examination of the relationship of the University of California to the National Laboratories, centered on the renewal of UC's management contract, was begun by the 1994-95 UCORP. A formal written and oral report will be presented by UCORP to the Academic Council in January 1996. Chair Gold expressed the wish that the campus Committees on Research will encourage discussion and take the lead in bringing the issue to the attention of the divisions. UCORP's review of the UC-Lab relationship has focused on the existing management contracts: do the new contracts significantly improve the relationship, existing under the preceding contracts, between the University and the National Labs?
UCORP has been guided in its discussion of UC's management of the National Labs by the review of various documents, including, among others, the Report of the Advisory Committee on the University's Relations with the Department of Energy Laboratories (Jendresen Committee), November 1989; Report by the Scientific and Academic Advisory Committee on Renewal of the University of California Contracts with the Department of Energy for Management of the Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories, May 1990; Status of campus Senate votes regarding the issue of renegotiation of the contracts for management of LLNL and LANL, June 1990; Alternative Futures for the Department of Energy National Laboratories, prepared by the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (Galvin Report), February 1995.
The five criteria for assessing public service functions appropriate to UC, as established by the Jendresen Committee, are: (a) is UC's management role supportive of the University's primary role of teaching and research?; (b) is UC's management role consistent with the University's essential commitment to freedom of expression?; (c) can the management role be performed at least as effectively by UC as by others?; (d) is UC paid adequately for fulfilling the management role?; and (e) does UC's management role contribute to human well-being?
A. Consultation with Malcolm Jendresen, UCSF
Chair, Jendresen Committee
Though the majority vote of the Jendresen Committee was for non-renewal of the management contract, Jendresen was one of the two members who voted for renewal. In his opinion, Jendresen stated, increased oversight of the labs by the University, beyond what had been exercised in the past, would be very difficult to accomplish. The interaction between the labs and the Academic Senate is minimal, and the labs' accountability is something less than normal campus accountability to the President and to the University as a whole. Jendresen has not been in close touch with changes that may have occurred in the past five years, but he believes that the activities and the atmosphere at the labs have changed a great deal. He cited once highly-classified areas at LLNL (in which he did work) that now are declassified. Jendresen strongly believes that the labs are a very useful resource for the University. He regrets the lack of data on UC's collaborations and interactions with the labs, especially when considering the benefit of the UC management contract to the individual faculty member. Since other universities also have access to the labs, what is the benefit to UC faculty of UC's management contract? He recounted his own favorable experience interacting with materials people at Livermore, and believes that similar lab-campus interactions could be increased if UC faculty members were better informed about the capabilities of the labs.
B. Consultation with Carl Poppe
Associate Vice Provost for Research and Laboratory Programs
The Campus Laboratory Cooperative (CLC) Program is funded out of the Complementary Beneficial Activities (CBA) Fund which is derived from the new contract administration compensation framework negotiated with the DOE, Poppe stated. Created to encourage and support lab-campus collaborations, the CLC Program has committed $2M to fund six proposals for a minimum three-year period, with renewals possible to nine years. Another area of funding, Poppe reminded the committee, is the pool of money the University receives as part of its risk management under the contract. As an incentive to the labs to keep their unallowable costs down, unused portions of the unallowable costs revert each year to the labs to be used for cooperative research and interactions with the campuses. The pool of money is substantial, the potential seed monies much larger than the $2M used annually to fund the CLC Program; the CBA funds institutes such as the Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP) and the Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). Target areas for future campus-lab collaborations have been identified: earthquake hazards, water supply and management, waste management, clean technologies, and air pollution.
UCORP members suggested that, since no one seems to have other than anecdotal information on UC (faculty and student) - DOE lab interactions, UCORP may wish to add a question on this topic to its proposed Research Climate survey. Poppe stated that, as a long range plan, a data base will be established to provide precise records of UC-lab interactions. In the near term, however, Poppe has asked points of contact at the two weapons labs to assimilate from the available databases a one-year summary of interactions with UC faculty and students, and a one-year summary of interactions with non-UC faculty and students. Poppe anticipates that the interim data will be available by the end of this month.
C. Consultation with Karl Hufbauer, UCI
Jendresen Committee
A member of the original Jendresen Committee, Hufbauer was among the majority who voted to sever UC's relationship with the labs. He indicated that the majority recognized that benefits existed in this relationship, but concluded that the costs outweighed the benefits. He does not believe that the management contract allowed any special access by UC faculty and students to the labs; "$2M does not go very far in research budgets," and he would be surprised if UC had a dramatically greater connection to the labs than did other universities. The greatest benefit of UC's management contract, Hufbauer stated, is the "tacit agreement between the DOE and UC" that if UC continues to manage the weapons labs, the DOE will continue to fund LBNL at the current level. (Poppe responded that he did not believe DOE would "hold Lawrence hostage.") Hufbauer's personal view, unchanged by the improvements obtained with the current contract, is that a university should not be involved with weapons work.
The national policy of the United States is that new nuclear weapons will not be developed, and "nuclear weapons research" now means reduction of the number of nuclear warheads (from 7K to 3K) and maintenance of the nuclear arsenal. Though Hufbauer hoped that LLNL would move out of classified and weapons work, President Clinton recently announced that nuclear weapons research will continue at both LLNL and LANL. Hufbauer believes that Clinton's decision was based on lobbying by the DOE labs: "18 months of very intense work to get this outcome have succeeded" (Executive Officer Ron Cochran, LLNL). LANL continues to do a great deal of weapons work, and Hufbauer encouraged UCORP to look at the 1993 issue of LANL's science periodical, specifically at a discussion conducted by Harold Agnew wherein the weapons culture is "alive and thriving."
UCORP members asked if a measure existed of the percentage of classified vs. non-classified work at the laboratories. How many buildings, square feet of facilities, are devoted to classified work? Poppe suggested that the new color code at LLNL might be helpful (e.g., a "white" building enjoys open access), but part of the problem with percentages or numbers is the way programs are funded in Congressional budget categories. For example, the category "atomic energy defense activities" includes environmental restoration. Hufbauer commented that environmental restoration is "paying the delayed costs of weapons work."
In an attempt to evaluate the benefits derived to UC from its management role, UCORP members suggested that the interactions between Oak Ridge and the University of Tennessee should be examined. A previous UCORP consultant, Anne Kernan of the Jendresen Committee, suggested that more interaction exists between University of Tennessee faculty and Oak Ridge (managed by industry) than, perhaps, between UC faculty and LLNL and LANL. What would be the net loss to collaboration, if any, if the UC management contract were not renewed?
D. Consultation with Daniel L. Simmons, UCD
President's Council on the National Laboratories
As a professor of law at UC Davis, Simmons completed on September 1st his term as Chair of the Academic Council. As vice-chair and chair of the Council he has been a member of the President's Council for the past two years. He was recently appointed to a three year term on the President's Council. Simmons also serves as a member of the President's Council's National Security Panel, which requires a security clearance, and the Environmental Safety and Health Panel. He believes that the structure and operation of the President's Council and its panels are examples of significant changes that have evolved out of the most recent management contract for the labs.
Weapons research is paramount in peoples' minds in any discussion of the University's involvement with the national labs, Simmons stated. Nuclear weapons are not currently being designed, and the number of nuclear weapons are to be reduced from 7K to 3K (approximate figures) if the START treaties are ratified by the United States and Russia. However, the weapons exist, and our national policy is that we must "learn to live with nuclear warheads." Unquestionably, the core competencies of both LANL and LLNL come from weapons work. Science-based stockpile stewardship not only makes possible a comprehensive nuclear test ban, but excellent science and technology has "spun off" from the weapons research. Simmons offered the examples of accelerator technologies, the laser technologies, the computer technologies and computer science being done at LLNL and LANL. Measurement technologies, critical to biological research, are focused at the national labs. Computer modeling used by every automobile manufacturer for crash testing, global climate modeling, and a "laser stud finder" are technologies directly developed from weapons research.
From his perspective as a member of the President's Council, Simmons believes that UC's management role has had positive effects on the policies adopted within the labs with respect to the development and application of science. The membership of the President's Council includes "a lot of the top names in the development of nuclear weapons and defense policy." The Council is chaired by Sidney Drell, the Deputy Director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. An Academic Senate presence is included on the President's Council through the representation of the Chair and Vice Chair of the Academic Council, and through the representation of faculty at-large. UC's management is viewed by lab personnel as an important assurance of openness and quality of research. Technology transfer initiatives, however, may work in opposition to openness and is an area to which Simmons recommends serious consideration be given.
Simmons believes that UC's management of the DOE labs fulfills a public service. Indeed, the nation is far better served by UC, rather than by industrial management of the weapons labs. Simmons stated that he broadly views UC's research mission as public service. Part of the mission of the research university, particularly the publicly-funded research university, is to provide society with the benefits of research in a full range of areas. From experience gained as a member of the President's Council, Simmons strongly feels that the University does provide a service to the nation by enhancing the quality of the research conducted at the National Labs. UC benefits as a result of the research generated by the lab-campus collaborative efforts. Simmons said that UC faculty have some advantage by virtue of the management relationship. He sees an enormous potential to UC faculty interaction with the labs. Simmons agrees that UC's management of the labs creates a "fairly substantial drain on time of the senior researchers and senior managers of the University," but he believes that adequate compensation exists in the contract to support the necessary UC administrative personnel. (Asked later in the meeting if he could conceive of a situation in which national interests, California state interests, and UC interests might be different, Simmons stated that he could not answer the question out of context. "Various UC constituencies would become aware of the issue and go from there." Asked if the President's Council would be responsive to the Senate's interest, Simmons responded that Senate representatives on the President's Council are in a position to convey faculty concerns and inform the Senate of issues of interest to the faculty.)
Simmons asserted that the labs see a tremendous benefit to the inter-connection that results from a common management in terms of peer review and the performance assessment conducted by the UC President's Council. The Council, operating primarily through the Science and Technology Panel, has developed a consistent and cohesive system for evaluating the work being done in the labs. Simmons suggested that the mechanism of the peer review assessment provides the labs with something the University of California badly needs and is missing: a device to assess the quality of the work being done in various units within the University.
Simmons concluded that, as Chair of the Academic Council, he had attempted to utilize the existing Senate institutional organization -- rather than "spinning off a whole number of ad hoc committees." Simmons assigned responsibilities to standing committees, or to ad hoc combinations of membership of standing committees, allowing deliberations to remain within the Senate. Accordingly, UCORP was assigned the task of analyzing the relationship between the National Laboratories and the University of California and providing a recommendation to the Academic Council. The resolution asking for UCORP membership on the Academic Council came forward during Simmons' year as Vice Chair of the Academic Council. He stated that by assigning UCORP the task of reviewing the UC/DOE lab relationship, he sought to "enhance the role and prestige of UCORP within the Senate by assigning UCORP responsibilities for this very very important issue."
[NOTE: Excerpt from July 19, 1995 Academic Council Minutes, page 5, paragraph 3: "Several members of Council stressed the need to educate the faculty on all campuses about the background and history of the labs and their relationship with the University. This is a complex issue and over the years many of the players have changed. Faculty need to be an integral part of these discussions; we need to hear their concerns, criticisms and suggestions if the decision is to go forward to renew these contracts in a way that is going to involve all of us for the betterment of this research university. Chair Simmons asked the Chair of UCORP, Warren Gold, to prepare a presentation for the Council on this issue for the January or February 1996 meeting."]
UCORP members asked Simmons for specific examples of useful technology that have resulted from weapons research. Simmons replied that he did not have extensive references at hand, but did point to the items mentioned above; Poppe indicated that this information is cited in the DOE reports. UCORP members requested a copy of the current report prepared by the President's Council on the National Laboratories, and Poppe said that he would make it available, after first alerting the lab directors.
The issue of open-ended environmental risks associated with the management contract was raised by UCORP members. Poppe responded that two legal issues have been identified by UC Counsel and that under the present contractual arrangement, the DOE is responsible for both of those issues. However, a new contract might attempt to move to a position of shared responsibility. Gold recommended that UC needs to be concerned about the public's perception of the environmental hazards involving the labs. Negative perceptions rebound to the discredit of the University. Simmons stated that the Environmental Safety and Health (ES&H) Panel is beginning to systematize ways to raise these issues through the President's Council. Gold expressed concern that the ES&H "hasn't taken off yet," and reminded the committee of the comments of one of UCORP's earlier consultants, John Goffman. Goffman believes that lower and lower threshold levels for radiation will result from further health effect studies; his experience with the labs leave him increasingly pessimistic about the way the labs will approach this problem (e.g. "databases changed after the fact"). Poppe stated that the labs are accountable since specific ES&H performance measures exist under the contract, and he has recommended that the ES&H Panel receive more support and guidance from his office. Audits are conducted and epidemiological records are forwarded from the DOE to the National Institute on Occupational Safety and Health. Simmons described the three levels of ES&H concerns: (1) workplace and hazards to local community; (2) fissionable materials; (3) safeguards with respect to the world community.
The current Academic Council encourages UCORP to provide a constructive overview of UC-lab management: where UC is involved, not involved, or should be involved. The Jendresen Committee's work and the faculty's concerns of five years ago resulted in significant changes in UC's management contract and in its performance evaluation of the labs. Oversite mechanisms were greatly enhanced. UCORP is encouraged to focus on those changes effected by the current contract.
Will the management contract be competed or not? Poppe stated that "the traditional position of the University of California is that we do not compete." The DOE will decide whether or not to compete the contract in the period March - May 1996; the Regents will decide whether or not to go ahead with the contract in October, 1996.
E. Consultation with Keith Miller, UCB
As a professor of Mathematics at UCB, Keith Miller was one of only three faculty allowed to speak at the September 20, 1990 Regents Committee on Oversight. He distributed to UCORP members (a) the media kit prepared for the September 20th Regents' vote, (b) documents on "President Gardner's highly successful efforts, with the collaboration of Academic Council Chair Fred Spiess, to minimize the significance of the 2-1 faculty vote and to convince the Regents, and (c) a packet sent out to UCB faculty in 1989, including communications to and from President Gardner as well as documents regarding the Woodruff - Teller LLNL scandal.
Miller said that he has a sense of deja vu listening to today's discussion. The concerns discussed by UCORP have changed little since his active involvement at the time of the last contract renewal. He stated that the Academic Senate does not have an active role in the type of oversight actually performed by UC. Simmons responded that faculty sit on the President's Council, and the lab directors are responsive to faculty voices. Various interpretations of "management" and of "UC," UCORP members suggested, imply that instead of through the active involvement of UC faculty and students, UC's management of the labs is conducted by professional managers. The early history of UC's relationship with the labs centered on faculty intellectual input. Though the President's Council is comprised of a group of distinguished individuals, relatively few are Academic Senate members.
Miller concluded that both President Gardner and the Academic Council had misrepresented faculty concerns at the time the last contract was negotiated, and he believes that the facts put forward in his handouts support this view.
A. Consultation with Walter Kohn, UCSB
Jendresen Committee
Professor Kohn welcomed the opportunity to meet with UCORP and provided members with the following reference materials concerning UC's management of the DOE weapons laboratories: (1) Report of the Advisory Committee on the University's Relations with the Department of Energy Laboratories, November 1989; (2) J. Weisman, "John H. Nuckolls of the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Laboratory Seeks to Preserve Funding," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 50 No. 4, 18 (July-August, 1994); (3) Federal Technology Report, March 16, 1995; (4) Letter to the Editor, Notice, Vol. 19, No. 6, April 1995; (5) T. Z. Collina, "Livermore on the defensive," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 51, No. 3, 42, May-June 1955; (6) Letter, Kohn to Simmons, June 9, 1995; (7) Letter, Kohn to Simmons, August 3, 1995; (8) "New Mission for the National Labs," Science 270, October_6, 1995; (9) Letter, Kohn to Gold, October 11, 1995.
A signatory of the November, 1989 Jendresen report, Kohn was one of the majority of members who favored non-renewal of the contract. Though each campus of the UC system endorsed the Jendresen report, Kohn was critical of the lack of support by Academic Senate leadership at that time. The first responsibility of University of California faculty, Kohn continues to believe, is to help maintain a university of the highest quality and of the highest integrity. Thus, Kohn identified the critical question addressed by the Jendresen report: "Does management of the weapons laboratory constitute appropriate public service for the University of California?" Kohn emphatically stated that the management is neither true to the University's fundamental mission nor does it constitute appropriate public service. The "greatest public university in the world should not be the steward of a nuclear weapons program."
Kohn continues to believe, as he did in 1989, that the University of California is "fundamentally unsuited" either to manage the national weapons labs or to engage in the "commercialization" of associated technology transfer activities. UC is used as a "cover" for effectively meaningless management. UC is a "tool of the federal government, used by the labs as an academic cover," Kohn stated. An issue at the heart of the question of UC's relationship with the labs, Kohn stated, is the National Ignition Facility, an ambiguous program presented by the labs to the Washington establishment as "essential for the concept of DOE's Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship," but presented to UC as a tool for basic research.
The President's Council on the National Laboratories was created after the 1989 Jendresen Report and replaces the former Scientific and Academic Advisory Committee. Though the President's Council includes some UC faculty in its membership, Kohn characterized the Council as an administrative committee. The chair of the President's Council, Sidney Drell, is also a paid consultant to the Department of Defense. Kohn stated that Drell constitutes "one of the last voices speaking against a comprehensive nuclear test ban." In opposition to the Galvin Report recommendation that nuclear weapons design be discontinued at LLNL within a 5-year period, Drell appears to have guided seven members of the UC National Security Panel to recommend that the DOE retain nuclear weapons design work at LLNL for at least 10 years (Federal Technology Report, March 16, 1995). Kohn was quite concerned about the procedure used by Drell and indicated that the letter recommending the 10-year period may have bypassed the complete President's Council. Poppe and Leiman stated that the recommendation was never a discussion item at a President's Council meeting and was a separate action of Drell's. UCORP members shared Kohn's worries about an obvious conflict of interest involving Drell's "multiplicity of roles."
Kohn has not perceived either a dramatic or sufficient improvement in the quality of UC's management under the new contract, even with the implementation of the President's Council and performance-based evaluation of quality control and oversight. He referenced past reviews, all of which had called for "improvements" over the past 25 years, as evidence of the ineffectiveness of UC management.
Kohn reminded UCORP of embarrassments and damage to UC's reputation because of its position of "impotence with respect to lab management." During the time that the Jendresen committee met, for example, the Woodruff scandal (created by an inaccurate statement sent to U.S. Presidential advisors on the capabilities of the Star Wars project) was on the front pages of California newspapers for months. Kohn recalled, from memory, that the earlier lab management contract specified $2M in research support "to obtain the agreement of members of the University community and of the public to the exceptions of the management of labs by the University." Though Kohn believes that this language has been removed from the current contracts, he suggests that the practice continues.
Referring to his distribution "Report on Visit to Oak Ridge, May 1, 1989," Kohn concluded that UC does not accrue a special advantage to its faculty and students by virtue of its management contract. During discussion Kohn stated that the national laboratories cannot by law, he believes, provide preferential treatment to the University of California. As national labs they must legally treat all universities on the same basis. The University of Tennessee, at a geographical distance from Oak Ridge comparable to that of UCB from LLNL, has considerably stronger ties with Oak Ridge than does LLNL with the entire UC system. Further, Oak Ridge -- as well as the Bell and Sandia labs -- are under "excellent" industrial management.
In his August 3, 1995 letter to Dan Simmons, then-Chair of the Academic Council, Kohn proposed that the Academic Council consider a resolution, in light of the 1989 Jendresen report and the 1995 Galvin Report, that UC sever its management ties to the weapons-related work (phasing out management of LANL, transferring weapons-related work from LLNL to LANL or its administration). Unfortunately, the President of the United States recently announced that weapons work will continue at LLNL and LANL, and the recommendations of Kohn's August 3rd letter became moot.
"Will the University of California forever manage the nuclear laboratories?," Kohn asked. More than 50 years have passed since the emergency World War II measure created the UC-lab relationship. If the issue is looked at squarely, Kohn believes, the observer will agree that UC's management of nuclear laboratories is not a natural function for UC or for any university. Kohn stated that his first priority is "to see that UC faculty and its leadership are encouraged to speak out on this issue." In order to make an informed decision, the Academic Senate must be provided with relevant information. Kohn asked, "Is this not a good time to begin the process to sever this unnatural relationship?"
B. Consultation with Hugh DeWitt
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Dr. DeWitt distributed to UCORP members his "Comments on the UC-DOE Weapons Labs." DeWitt has been a physicist on the staff of LLNL for the past 39 years and believes that UC "should have gotten out of the nuclear weapons business at the end of World War II...[as] the management of highly classified weapons research is hardly the business of a university that supposedly promotes open knowledge in all fields." DeWitt stated that he has personally benefitted from UC management of the two weapons labs since "it facilitated teaching arrangements on UC campuses, direction of graduate students in years past, and a number of research collaborations."
Though UC's management gives the labs an aura of academic respectability, DeWitt described UC's management as a "cover," ineffective and meaningless in practice. LLNL and LANL are government institutions wholly owned and financed by DOE and other government agencies. "As manager UC has no control and very little influence over the programs at the two labs, regardless of whether one is looking at classified weapons research or new energy production ideas or basic scientific research." DeWitt stated that the UC faculty Zinner Committee report of 1970, which characterized UC's role as a "benevolent absentee landlord," remains true today even though there have been substantial improvements. In the fourth year of a nuclear test ban, with a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty likely next fall, the fraction of the labs' budget for nuclear weapons work is now well below half. As Congress reduces budgets for basic scientific research around the country and at the DOE labs, continued UC management will not change these national trends. DeWitt observes that UC oversight of the labs has been minimal in the past and will continue to be so. UC is essentially helpless in defining the future of the labs.
UC's management of the labs creates an historical record of inadequacy, including DeWitt's own example of having his security clearance rescinded when falsely accused of publishing classified material (materials already reported in the Congressional Record). His security clearance was restored, but by the Secretary of the DOE. UC administration steadfastly ignored his requests for help. Should UC's management of the weapons lab continue, DeWitt stated, UC would have a duty to assure staff members of the labs the same intellectual and academic freedom that UC faculty members enjoy.
Responding to UCORP members' questions, DeWitt stated that the classified work conducted at Lawrence Berkeley (then the "UC Radiation Laboratory") was removed to LLNL; the separation was a result of the Zinner Report. Any present request by UC, as a condition of renewal, that work at LLNL be declassified (or moved), is rendered moot by President Clinton's announcement that weapons work will continue at LLNL. The physical separation of classified and non-classified work at LLNL would be difficult because the same people are involved in both types of work. DeWitt favors the NIF, which, although partly classified, he views as unrelated to weapons research. Rating the quality of programs, DeWitt described Physics at LANL and LLNL as "outstanding, world class." High quality UC-lab collaborations currently exist and could continue absent a UC management contract, but such programs (i.e., UCD's Bradbury's commitment to head up Biology at LANL) represent a very small part of an approximate $2B DOE lab operation.
If the UC-DOE lab management contract is not renewed in 1997, DeWitt does not believe that the UC system would be injured. Though excellent collaborative institutes exist at LLNL, notably the Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics, the situation at LLNL is quite unlike the close connection of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory with the UC Berkeley campus. The fact remains, he stated, that the main bulk of LLNL work has little or nothing to do with UC campuses. LLNL is not moving toward becoming an open, diversified research institution, and it is "going to continue primarily as a defense laboratory." DeWitt concluded that UC seriously should consider "whether it should be the overseer of US nuclear weapons labs indefinitely."
C. Consultation with William R. Frazer
Vice Chairman, President's Council on the National
Laboratories
Dr. Frazer is a past chair of the Academic Council and, as Walter Massey's predecessor, a Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs. In his role as Senior Vice President he had responsibility for the programmatic aspects of UC's relationship with the national labs. Dr. Frazer is currently the Vice Chairman of the President's Council and a member of the National Security Panel.
Important from his perspective, Frazer remarked, is the history of UC's management of the labs from their inception. Lawrence and Oppenheimer were both professors at UC. The original relationship would be better characterized as an "umbrella" under which the labs could function with more freedom than they would have enjoyed under military management. Changes in management have occurred as a result of the Zinner Report, the Gerbeding Report, and the Jendresen Report. The gradient of positive change "is always upward," Frazer stated; slow at first, in the past few years such changes have accelerated. The President's Council has taken on a broader role and has realized a significant influence on the laboratories, not only reviewing plans of the labs as they change their research agendas, but reviewing the scientific and technical quality of work undertaken at labs and monitoring the effectiveness of the labs in fostering an atmosphere conductive to scientific inquiry in the development of new knowledge. UC's quality evaluation of every scientific and technical program at the labs, Frazer stated, is an important contribution by UC. The rating of programs have an important effect in ensuring the continued scientific health of programs at a time that nuclear testing is not going to be done.
Technically the Board of Regents is the contracting agency, and the University President, through the Regents, has the direct responsibility, delegated to the Vice Presidents, for management of the labs. The "best people around the country" serve on the President's Council, by appointment, including many UC faculty. The Academic Senate plays an active role with the President in the appointment of those faculty members. The high quality of the University academic programs has a great influence on the labs. Frazer believes that the University sets a tone for the quality of the programs through its close interactions with the President's Council, the Council's panels, and through UC-lab collaborative programs. Collaborative relationships between the labs and UC have increased, partly as a result of the end of the Cold War and the reorientation of some of the labs' programs, but also as a result of the lab directors' consciousness of the value to the labs of these collaborative relationships. By virtue of its management relationship, UC enjoys not only the special funds from the contract earmarked for collaboration, but has an "inside track", a more intimate relationship because of the oversight committees, enabling it to seize on opportunities. One example, derived out of a defense application, is the adaptive optics program utilized by the Lick and the Keck telescopes.
Whether or not UC should be managing the nuclear labs, Frazer replied, is "one of those questions that is answered by individuals, many of whom come at it from his or her own moral or even ideological viewpoint." The University's role in science-based stockpile stewardship is "exceedingly useful in trying to help the labs interpret just what is or should be science-based stockpile stewardship, how to do it most effectively and maintain scientific competence." Frazer strongly believes that UC's management of the national labs not only is an appropriate public service but that it is very much in the national interest.
D. Consultation with Carl Poppe
Associate Vice Provost for Research and Laboratory Programs
Vice Provost Poppe distributed the first of two documents, "UC Compensation for Managing the DOE Laboratories" and detailed the financial arrangement of the DOE/UC agreements. In addition to the collaborative research funds (the Complementary and Beneficial Activities Fund, and the UC-Directed Research and Development Fund), the UC general fund receives $6M/year as "fixed payment in lieu of indirect costs," plus $5M/year for "ground lease for LBNL land." The state "offset" of $11M/year would probably not be restored by the state, Poppe stated, should the contracts between the University and the DOE not be renewed.
During the first two years of the UC management contract, $15M was set aside as a contingency fund for future liabilities in the eventuality that the contracts are not renewed. UCORP members earlier raised questions about possible University liability, and Poppe has conferred with Ron Nelson, an attorney with the Laboratory Administration Office. Nelson assured him that two issues are associated with environmental liabilities: (1) the cost of an environmental cleanup, against which the University is indemnified under the current contract, and (2) the cost of any criminal penalties associated with an environmental hazard, an expense which would be paid by the DOE. However, Poppe said, in the area of criminal liabilities and penalties associated with actions of the lab directors, the DOE is beginning to require the contractor to absorb more risk. Poppe said that any increase in the risk to be assumed by UC would have to be matched by a corresponding increase in management fee.
Poppe also distributed data on LANL and LLNL Interactions with UC campuses and with other universities. Because the laboratories have not yet established a systematic data-gathering system for university interactions, these data were collected by hand, from various records; Poppe noted that they must be used with caution. During FY95 at LLNL there were 24.8 faculty collaborations on the average with UC campuses vs. 0.5 on the average with other universities. For FY95, LANL transferred $8.96M to 123 U.S. universities, for an average of $73K per institution. Of this total, 26.5%, or $3.23M, went to UC campuses for an average of $359K per campus. The FY94 report indicated that for publications associated with laboratory-directed R&D projects, 68 authors were from UC compared to 155 from other U.S. universities.
E. Consultation with Claire Max
Director of University Relations, LLNL
Director Max discussed the role of UC directed research and development (UCDRD) in campus-lab collaborations, and distributed a presentation prepared for today's UCORP meeting. Approximately $4.1M UCDRD funds will be available this coming year at LLNL, and the goal is to use these funds for collaborations in new areas for UC and LLNL. The UC Council of Chancellors, last summer, defined strategic areas for future campus-lab collaborations. These target areas include earthquake hazards, water supply and management, waste management and risk analysis, atmospheric particulate pollution, and clean manufacturing. Further, the UCDRD funds will supplement CLC projects in the target areas defined by the Chancellors. Current LLNL-UC institutes are the IGPP, the Institute of Scientific Computing Research, the Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, and the Center for Image Processing and Integrated Computing. Five new institutes are under consideration for start-up at LLNL: the California Energy Institute; the Materials Science Institute; an institute to do science on LLNL's lasers, including Nova and NIF; a joint institute in micro-electronics; and an LLNL branch of UC's Institute of Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics.
LLNL has a very active program of collaborations with university faculty and students, and the total LLNL funding for joint institutes exceeded $4.7M in FY/95. Also, important new collaborations are funded through regular LLNL Programs. The DOE's science-based stockpile stewardship initiative has rekindled interest within the academic community for using large lasers for fundamental science investigations.