From Nuclear Research to Homeland Security

As in years past, the big-ticket items on the Energy Department's procurement list are contracts to manage and operate its production and laboratory facilities across the United States. Giant universities and engineering firms provide those services.

The University of California system is Energy's

largest contractor, snatching up more than 20 percent of the department's total purchases in fiscal 2002-about $4 billion-to manage nuclear weapons laboratories. Construction titan Bechtel Group is a distant second, but still garnered $2.6 billion in contracts and 14 percent of Energy's procurement market last year.

Energy's other high-profile contract expenditures include environmental cleanup projects, such as at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site in Colorado. Researchers there have found that radioactive materials and chemicals were released for nearly 40 years beginning in the early 1950s, when the site was known as the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant.

As part of the government's increased emphasis on homeland security, Energy now plays a leading role as a hub for research and development of counterterrorism technologies. Congress granted the Homeland Security Department use of Energy's national laboratories, and the two departments recently struck an accord making laboratory technologies and research capabilities available to support the war on terrorism, says Richard Hopf, Energy's procurement director. The deal allows Energy contractors to provide Homeland Security with a vast array of services, from nuclear threat assessment to chemical and biological agent verification to advanced scientific computing.