Book Description

Privatization acquisition strategies embody substantial contract reform principles-private financing and ownership, competition, fixed prices, and payment only upon delivery of services-which in time became the recipe for privatization of Department of Energy (DOE) Environmental Management (EM) cleanup projects. Privatization changes the federal government's approach from traditional cost-plus contracting, where the federal government pays the contractor as the project progresses, to a strategy where the federal government pays for products or services as they are delivered. To be successful, the privatization requires additional risk taking by the contractor. This paper focuses on why the Tank Waste Remediation System (TWRS) pursued privatization, how the TWRS Privatization Project matured, and why the privatization project moved to an alternate path. The paper is organized as follows: a description of the TWRS-Privatization framework, how the project changed from the original request for proposal through the decision not to proceed to Part B-2, and the lessons learned during evolution of the effort, including what worked as well as what went wrong and how such negative outcomes might be prevented in the future.