University consortium faulted on management, accounting
Four years into the job of building the superconducting Super Collider (SSC)-and in the face of growing political pressure to kill the project-congressional and federal officials are questioning whether the university consortium that run the SSC is up to the job. Universities Research Association Inc. (URA), a group of 80 public and private research universities that also operates Fermilab, was selected as prime contractor in January 1989. But after repeated charges of mismanagement and accounting buses, the Department of Energy (DOE), which funds the project, is contemplating major changes to the contract, including terminating it. DOE Secretary Hazel O'Leary has begun a 30-day review of the project and has laid out three options: terminating the URA contract; awarding separate contracts for science and conventional construction; and renegotiating the existing contract to give DOE a larger oversight role. Sources close to the project predict that O'Leary will pick a variation of the third option and will remove at least one of the managers grilled at last week's hearing.
- OSTI ID:
- 6001483
- Journal Information:
- Science (Washington, D.C.); (United States), Vol. 261:5118; ISSN 0036-8075
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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