“The budget is roughly through Congress. The National Ignition Facility [NIF] is back on track. The lab is in good shape,” says C. Bruce Tarter, explaining his decision to step down as director of the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as soon as a successor is found. “I wanted to leave at a time when things are stable.”
Things may be stable now, but Tarter’s tenure has been turbulent. About two years ago, shortly after then Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson proclaimed that NIF was on time and on budget, the lab let on that, in fact, the project had major cost overruns and technical difficulties. In addition, Livermore faced discrimination and security concerns in the wake of the Wen Ho Lee espionage accusations at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
At the height of NIF’s problems, Tarter did not get a pay raise. Since then, he has overhauled NIF’s...
