For the first time in 46 years, the contract to run Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research – worth $110 million a year – will be open to all bidders.
While the move offers a chance to improve the internationally renowned geoscience center, there are concerns among some researchers that it could open NCAR to profit and political pressures.
The center has drawn criticism from some politicians for climate research that predicts a future of higher temperatures, rising seas and stronger storms.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla. – who calls the notion of human- induced global warming “a hoax” – sent a letter in February to the National Science Foundation requesting confirmation that NCAR’s operating contract would be put out to bid.
“There are things NCAR has not been able to do under the current management,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University climate scientist. “But the price of improvement would be too high if it destroyed the world-class disciplinary research there.”
Since NCAR was created in 1960, the nonprofit University Corporation for Atmospheric Research has run the center, which employs about 1,000.
NCAR scientists study downbursts that can send an airplane into the ground, and how winds and weather influence wildfires.
They build computer models to predict weather and climate, and they study the sun.
The center consistently ranks as one of the five most widely cited geosciences research groups in the world, according to the magazine Science Watch.
Never put out to bid
NCAR’s contract – currently worth $548 million for five years ending in 2008 – has never been put out to bid, despite a 10-year-old federal policy that such contracts be open to competition, said the National Science Foundation’s Cliff Jacobs.
It’s now NCAR’s turn, he said. A detailed “solicitation” will be issued in the next few weeks.
Universities, nonprofit groups and private firms can offer initial proposals in January.
Princeton’s Oppenheimer said he sees a chance to improve NCAR’s research into how climate change affects people, and how communities can prepare and respond.
“If a shift addresses this crying need society has, that would be for the better,” he said.
Stephen Schneider, a Stanford University climatologist who worked at NCAR from 1973 to 1996, said the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research has occasionally focused too narrowly on creating sophisticated instruments for meteorology.
Still, Schneider said, “they’re asking great intellectual questions of national need.”
Inhofe is calling for greater oversight of federal funds for climate research – which reached $5.8 billion in 2006, according to the Office of Management and Budget.
“That’s more than pocket change,” said Matt Dempsey, a spokesman for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which Inhofe chairs.
Los Alamos shortfall
In the past seven years, the National Science Foundation has opened long-term contracts for two national astronomy groups – Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, with telescopes in Arizona, Hawaii and Chile.
Both contracts went to the original, nonprofit contractors.
The U.S. Department of Energy in 2005 opened to bid the operation of the 12,000-person Los Alamos Laboratory.
Oversight for the lab shifted from the University of California to a team that includes the university but is led by Bechtel Corp.
That for-profit consortium has just announced a budget shortfall of about $175 million and layoffs of about 350 contract employees – a number that could grow to 700.
Katy Schmoll, UCAR vice president for finance and administration, said she worries about a shift away from a nonprofit operator.
“In the case of Los Alamos, because they are now for- profit, that takes $50 million off the top every year for taxes,” Schmoll said.
“We don’t sway with political tides,” Schmoll said. “We don’t have stockholders that need a return on their investment. UCAR isn’t in this for the money.”
Staff writer Katy Human can be reached at 303-954-1910 or khuman@denverpost.com.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research
Founded: 1960
Administrator: University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a nonprofit consortium of more than 60 universities
Workforce: 1,000
Research areas: Climate change, weather forecasting, atmospheric chemistry and pollution, storms, sun and space weather
National Science Foundation contract: $548 million for five years ending in 2008
