Lifestyles of the Rich and Nuclear

One of the great things about the stimulus bill, or the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), is that it requires the recipients and sub-recipients of federal funds to report the names and compensation levels of their top five officials. This provision is now helping to lift the curtain on the secretive world of contractors who run the labs that make up the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.

Last week, John Fleck reported in the Albuquerque Journal that Sandia National Laboratories Director Tom Hunter makes a whopping $1.7 million per year, and that Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Director Michael Anastasio makes $800,348 per year. As Dan Hancock of the Southwest Research and Information Center pointed out, this means that Hunter makes four times as much as the President of the United States, and that Anastasio makes twice as much.

We found Sandia’s defense of the high salaries quite laughable. “They are making complex decisions that are actually affecting the security of the United States,” Sandia spokesman Neal Singer said. “They’re paid for the difficult decisions they make.” Unlike the President??

A disclaimer: a Department of Energy contracting regulation caps the taxpayer-funded portion of the executives’ annual compensation at $684,000. This is still nearly $300,000 more than the President’s salary.

-- Ingrid Drake

UPDATE: NNSA contacted POGO to say that it reimbursed the lab directors at far less than the $684,181 cap, and provided these figures for the amounts that the Department of Energy contributes to certain lab directors salaries (with the rest coming from the private companies that share in the management of the labs): LANL's Michael Anastasio, $397,341; Lawrence Livermore National Lab's George Miller, $348,400; and Sandia's Tom Hunter, $366,119.

Comments

[Bryan Rahija]

JJJJJJ --

Looks like your document is from a different year (2006).

[someone]

According to this document.
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/2006/salaries0306_miller.pdf

George Miller was payed over the amount reported by LLNL in 2006.

Did he get demoted in 2009 ?

[jjjjjj]

This is a lie.
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/2006/salaries0306_miller.pdf

[Dr. Edward Current]

excellent blog. Now lab employees are being told to accept a 2 year pay freeze. Of course, the fat bonuses of lab upper management will be unaffected, since that is not part of freeze. Lab employees cannot accept gifts from contractors - it seems to me an ethical problem that top management can accept hundreds of thousands of $ from private companies, especially when there is an obvious conflict of interest, i.e. presumably the better the lab is "managed" in govt PR, the more the bonus for the lab director. As for comments on the decisions that the directors make - they do not make technical ones that are the most difficult - most of their decisions over that past few years has been on how to reduce the benefits of the lab employees (first by grandfathering benefits and now reductions to induce retirement).

[JL scoob]

In times of shrinking budgets, manager's salaries are rising.
When the director of LLNL stands in front of the employees and says they are his extended family and he cares about every single one of them, he is being a hypocrite!

[Ed Vernon]

Do you want the CEO of a Nuclear Weapons Lab to have the major portion of his/her income provided by a private corporation which can clearly turn around and sub-contract to the weapons lab? This appears to be a direct conflict of interest.

[Lou]

many Sandia employees are upset at finding out Tom Hunter's ehuge salary. He speaks of cost austerity and doing things better, fast, cheaper... and continuously brings up that need for employees to take on bigger and bigger burdens of medical care and retirement. These CEOs are LM employees and it is not felt they are looking out for the interest of Sandia Corporation, but rather LM profits. The entire employee medical contribution for all of Sandia could be shouldered by his salary alone. Horse puckey!

[EJ]

Sandia touts "Exceptional Service in the National Interest."
Based on this story, a more accurate characterization is "Exceptional Compensation in the Personal Interest."

[Dfens]

$1.7 million/year, that's peanuts. Lockheed has one line of business, selling to the US government. Their CEO, Robert Stevens makes $34 million/year. He makes $34 million/year straight out of the US tax coffers, and you people should just feel lucky he doesn't take more from you. He makes about the same amount in a day that one of his engineers who actually design the products makes in a year. He couldn't make that much if he worked for the government. He couldn't make that much if he worked in a competitive industry either. Fortunately, he works as a government contractor where he can bleed you dry and all you know to say is, "thank you sir, may I have another?" You've gotta love this fascist economy of ours. I don't mean fascist in the way of an epithet. I mean as in the rich elite control the means of production and the government tells them what to produce, kind of thing. You know, the definition that gets lost because of everyone using "fascist" as an epithet. Without fascism, we couldn't have these government funded elites who control so much of our wealth. Wouldn't that be sad?

[Dave]

So as I understand it, NNSA pays a "management fee (profit)" to Los Alamos National Security LLC between $75 and $80 million a year to run Los Alamos Lab. Is it not out of this fee that the Director gets the additional $400K+ to his salary? I do not believe that Bechtel is paying the director this out of its non-LANL related profits.

[LMB]

If you consider that these folks are far more educated than the Pres with vastly more experience in their industry, this is hardly a comparison. We're talking about individuals with the credentials to manage nuclear facilities, not a figure head that appoints dozens of other decisions makers. Additionally, compare the salary of private industry. These guys aren't making that much comparatively.

[Bryan Rahija]

Hi Sheppard--

Thank you for pointing out this error -- I have corrected the post to show that it's Hunter that makes more than four times the President's salary, while Anastasio, not Hancock, makes twice as much. If you have any thoughts on the Southwest Research and Information Center's findings, we'd love to hear them!

Bryan

[Michael Stevens]

Interesting. However, I actually believe the salaries are very reasonable when you consider the salaries of CEOs in private industry (which, as we all know, can be upwards into the 10-30 million dollar range, not to mention the ridiculous severance packages they often receive upon leaving). We're talking about the nation's national security R&D laboratories! Those labs manage highly complex, muli-million dollar technical programs in homeland defense, energy systems, and nuclear weapons safety and non-proliferation. Hell, less than $2 million per year for the top guy is a bargain.

[sheppard]

Excuse me but if you're gonna criticize folks as least proof read your remarks. Anastasio doesn't make 4X times as much as the President and Hancock's salary has nothing to do with this article. If you want to be taken seriously, be serious.....