I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) has released an internal U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) memo that was highly critical of Los Alamos National Labs (LANL) and even threatened to pull funding for the facility if it didn’t improve its “chronic poor performance.”
But the problems appear to have already been corrected.
Owen Lowe, the acting director for radioisotope power systems at the Office of Nuclear Energy, didn’t mince words in the January 9 memo.
“I cannot allow expenditures of taxpayer funds with no accountability,” Lowe wrote. “If the laboratory does not provide an adequate task plan and a detailed financial and technical report by February 15, 2009, I will take steps to stop work and withdraw funding.”
The project in question was a project “which involves making plutonium-powered fuel elements for NASA spacecraft” according to the Albuquerque Journal’s science blog.
John Fleck, who is the science writer for the Journal, got a response from the National Nuclear Security Administration as well:
A National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman said the problems had been corrected in the months since Lowe wrote the Jan. 9 memo. “This is a clear case of a group taking information out of context to mislead the public. The fact is that government oversight in this instance effectively served the taxpayer’s interests. The Department raised issues with the lab and requested a planning document, which was immediately provided. The issues have been resolved to the Department’s satisfaction, and any suggestion otherwise is simply irresponsible,” Damien LaVera said in a statement.
