UC Gets 5-Year Pact to Run Lab

The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday awarded a new five-year contract valued at $2.3 billion to the University of California to continue managing the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

For the first time, management of the lab was awarded through competitive bidding. The lab has been run by UC since 1931. The facility, located in the hills above the UC Berkeley campus, conducts unclassified science and engineering research across a range of disciplines.

It is one of three national labs -- including the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons centers -- that UC long has managed for the federal government.

UC’s continued management of the two nuclear facilities remains in doubt. After a series of management and security problems at the Los Alamos facilities in New Mexico, the Energy Department in 2003 ordered that contract opened to competition. Congress later directed the contracts for Livermore and Berkeley to be put up for bid as well.

UC leaders have not decided whether the university will bid for the management of the nuclear facilities, although they are preparing to do so.

Federal officials would not say whether any other bids to run Lawrence Berkeley were submitted.

Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman, in a news release, said, “Because of its outstanding work, including 10 Nobel Prizes won by its scientists, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory has helped ensure U.S. scientific leadership for more than 60 years. This contract award will allow LBNL and its outstanding researchers and staff to seamlessly continue their work as they set new standards of scientific excellence.”