Despite UC's name still being on the contract, this signals a big shift for the lab. Like many of the nation's resources under this administration, it is being privatized and placed into corporate hands, a little further from public view.

Bechtel's victory may be a cause for surprise, but not necessarily for relief. Department of Energy (DOE) officials say Bechtel/UC will provide better "integration of the nuclear weapons complex." Could "integration" be code for monopoly? Bechtel subsidiaries already co-manage Yucca Mountain, the Nevada Test Site, Y12, Savannah River and Pantex -- and they subcontract at eight additional DOE sites. UC still runs Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley Labs, along with Los Alamos. Perhaps DOE couldn't risk introducing a new cast of characters to the legacy of waste, contamination and mismanagement plaguing the national complex, more of which undoubtedly would have been exposed by a clean sweep at LANL.

How much do we know about the privately owned Bechtel? For starters, they have a long and checkered past with DOE: cost overruns and delays at Hanford, suppressed records of a nuclear accident at Oak Ridge, fines for safety violations at Pantex, Oak Ridge, Paducah . . . Outside of DOE, Bechtel has attained infamy for EPA citations for hazardous waste spills, delays and overruns at the Big Dig in Boston, and investigation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for their work at Three Mile Island.

Bechtel has no monopoly on expensive mistakes. UC has also racked up quite a track record. Consider a decade of management, environmental, safety and security scandals, topped off by last year's costly operations stand-down and recent allegations of missing plutonium (over 700 kilos).

During the award announcement a DOE official noted "concerns with regards to past [UC] performance," a polite reference to the fiscal and safety problems. In fact, DOE was so displeased with UC performance in 2004 that it withheld two-thirds of the performance-based LANL management fee. Nevertheless, DOE predicts that Lab operations will be improved simply because the corporate partners will bring "what they do best" to LANL management -- while giving no details.

The retention of UC implies some continuity in Lab operations. But this gravy train has more drivers now. We will be watching closely as Bechtel and its network of corporate entities takes the reins of day-to-day nuclear lab operations. Will it become even more difficult to obtain information about what's happening and planned, now that the lab -- so long shielded from scrutiny by national security and academic aura -- hits the profit-driven corporate trail? How many veils of secrecy will we now have to penetrate to get the real story? It's never been easy.

Three bidding teams vied for the contract: Bechtel/UC; Lockheed Martin/UT; and Nuclear Watch New Mexico/Tri-Valley CAREs. Only the last team offered a real alternative, proposing a new Lab Office of Nonproliferation to shift away from LANL's aggressive nuclear weapons emphasis, so as to comply with the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty -- and with international opinion. By example, this would have provided solid leadership in countering the nation's gravest security threat (recognized by both presidential candidates) -- the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Sadly, DOE summarily rejected that proposal, and now the bid has been awarded to more "big business as usual."

Scott Kovac is the operations and research director of Nuclear Watch of New Mexico, and Sasha Pyle is the editor of The Watchdog Newsletter.