[pasttense01]

I think it is a poor idea for the Department of Energy to being hiring businesses or organizations to be managing the National Laboratories. This means there are three levels of management: the DOE, the managing organization/business (such as the University of Chicago) and the lab itself. Eliminate this middle layer--so that management is either done by the DOE or the laboratory.

[frumiousirc]

I expect many scientists would quit working for a lab if they had to become direct gov't employees and those who are non-US citizens would be even more excluded than they are now. Both results would degrade the quality of the scientific output of the labs and not necessarily save any gov't expenditure. I also suspect the contractor layer gives some continuity and smoothing of the rocky year-to-year games played by executive and congress critters.