The Department of Energy Needs Better Procedures for Selecting a Contractor To Operate Argonne National Laboratory

As part of a continuing evaluation of the Department of Energy's (DOE) management of its substantial research and development resources and activities, GAO evaluated the DOE decision to extend the existing contract to operate the Argonne National Laboratory and the procedures it used in awarding the contract to the incumbent contractors. Argonne is unique because it is operated by two contractors, the University of Chicago and the Argonne Universities Association. Under the current contract, DOE pays each contractor an annual management allowance for its services, in addition to paying for the actual costs of Laboratory operations. However, the current contract does not have any financial performance incentives.

In its review, GAO found that: (1) DOE did little to determine the availability and potential benefits of competition; (2) DOE did not schedule its extend or compete decision early enough to award a new contract using competitive procurement procedures; (3) DOE did not carry out consistent and timely evaluations of the contractors' performances, based on preestablished criteria, with feedback of results to the contractors; (4) for the fifth consecutive time, DOE extended the Argonne contract for a shorter than normal period because one DOE program office was not satisfied with the contractors' performances; (5) DOE did not obtain contractors' commitments to fully perform their contractual duties despite DOE findings that neither contractor was fulfilling its assigned duties; and (6) DOE did not end the two-contractor arrangement even though the arrangement's primary original purpose, to permit member universities of the Argonne Universities Association access to a high-energy particle accelerator, no longer exists.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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