NNSA terminates prime contract award for Y-12 and Pantex, says it will now solicit each separately
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced yesterday that it is canceling its November 2020 contract solicitation for management and operation of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge and the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, TX, and also terminating the contract award announced a year later in November 2021 for the two sites.
In December 2021, the Government Accountability Office received protests of NNSA’s contract award. In January 2022, NNSA announced that it was taking voluntary corrective action to assess alleged organizational conflicts of interest and alleged proprieties. Based on NNSA’s review of the procurement record and our assessment of increased requirements at the sites, cancellation of the solicitation and termination of the resulting award is appropriate to safeguard the integrity of the procurement process and to best address NNSA’s mission requirements.
During NNSA’s voluntary corrective action, a team of NNSA experts reviewed the current Pantex/Y-12 contract structure, which manages the two facilities under a single contract. Given the accelerating workload at both facilities, the challenging geopolitical environment and the urgent need for NNSA to deliver on critical national security missions, NNSA determined that it requires separate contracts to manage Y-12 and Pantex.
Moving forward, NNSA stated its intention to hold two new competitions for separate contracts to manage each site. The full news release can be found here.
In last Saturday’s edition of Teknovation Weekend, we reported that Michelle Reichert, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Consolidated Nuclear Security LLC (CNS), current managing contractor of the Y-12 and Pantex facilities, will retire this Friday, completing more than three decades in the national security world. She will be succeeded by Bill Tindal, current CNS Chief Operating Officer (COO), who will serve as Interim President and CEO. Tindal joined the Y-12 team Y‑12 in 1995 as a Shift Technical Advisor in Building 9206, later served as Y‑12 Site Manager for six years and became COO in 2020.
