Editorial: Hoping to block coziness

Tuesday, May 23, 2000 | 9:47 a.m.

Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson should be commended for taking steps last week that he believes could root out poorly performing DOE contractors. Richardson said his action not only will increase the department's ability to sanction these companies, but also will give the DOE more authority to fire senior contract managers who aren't performing up to department standards. Ensuring that the DOE gets its money's worth from contractors is critical since it is so reliant on them. As the New York Times noted last week, the DOE has about 11,000 employees overseeing 110,000 contract workers. And of its $17.5 billion annual budget, about 85 percent is devoted to paying contractors.

Exacerbating this reliance on contractors is the so-called "revolving door," in which former DOE employees become contractors, making it more likely that they will receive preferential treatment -- whether it's keeping contracts despite poor work or getting bonuses when they're not warranted. So instead of civil service employees having the final say in handing out bonuses, Richardson said that in the future these financial rewards would have to receive the secretary of energy's approval as well. Richardson hopes this will stop the current cozy relationship between lower-level DOE employees and contractors.

Richardson's announcement Thursday comes on the heels of the DOE's recent firing of a contractor. Earlier this month Richardson terminated BNFL's contract with the DOE's Hanford, Wash., facility to build a high-level waste treatment facility because costs had skyrocketed out of control. In August 1998 BNFL said it could build this facility for $6.9 billion; by April 2000 it hiked the price tag to $15.2 billion, prompting Richardson's dismissal of the contractor.

Richardson's stewardship of the DOE has been been a vast improvement over previous secretaries. The only concern about his policy is that his successors might be willing to politicize this process, handing out bonuses based on whether the contractor is politically connected. Still, Richardson's proposals are better than the current situation, which increases the odds that contractors can get sweetheart deals with the DOE.