Non-Proliferation

The Secretary of State used a meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency to talk tough on Iran this week, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee approved a couple of nuclear-nonproliferation nominees at State. Secretary Anthony Blinken’s Monday meeting with Rafael Grossi, director general of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), happened […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is “targeting” fiscal year 2026 as the startup date for a new facility at the Savannah River Site that will process 34 metric tons of surplus weapon usable plutonium for disposal in New Mexico, an agency official told advisors to South Carolina’s governor on Monday. That’s two years earlier than […]

A government employee and his wife were arrested last week for attempting this summer to sell classified information about the Virginia-class attack submarine’s nuclear reactor to a foreign government, according to an unsealed criminal complaint dated Oct. 8. Jonathan Toebbe and his wife, Diana Toebbe, were in federal custody by Saturday, according to a filing […]

A two-year extension on highly enriched uranium exports for production of the Molybdenum-99 medical isotope is set to come to an end in January, but the National Nuclear Security Administration on Tuesday started taking public comments about extending those exports. Federal law effectively allows the Secretary of Energy to unilaterally extend exports of highly enriched […]

In a hearing Thursday, no members of the Senate Armed Services Committee said they would oppose Corey Hinderstein’s nomination to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s top nonproliferation job. Biden on Aug. 9 nominated Hinderstein to be deputy administration for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). If confirmed, she’d run a portfolio […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee was set Thursday to question the Joe Biden administration’s nominee to fill the final Senate-confirmed leadership post at the National Nuclear Security Administration. Biden nominated Corey Hinderstein to deputy administration for defense nuclear nonproliferation on Aug. 9. She is currently vice president of international fuel cycle strategies at the Nuclear […]

New nuclear arms-control agreements should focus on all Russian nuclear weapons, including those unrestricted by the New START treaty, and “pursue new risk reduction measures” with China to address Beijing’s “rapid and opaque nuclear buildup,” the new U.S. under secretary of state for arms control and international security said this week. Bonnie Jenkins, confirmed to […]

New nuclear arms-control agreements should focus on all Russian nuclear weapons, including those unrestricted by the New START treaty, and “pursue new risk reduction measures” with China to address Beijing’s “rapid and opaque nuclear buildup,” the new U.S. under secretary of state for arms control and international security said this week. Bonnie Jenkins, confirmed to […]

The Joe Biden administration plans to nominate Sandia National Laboratories alum and State Department veteran Mallory Stewart to be assistant secretary for arms control, verification and compliance, the post responsible for ensuring the last remaining nuclear arms treaty is functioning as intended. The White House announced its intent to nominate Stewart just before the U.S. […]

The Joe Biden administration plans to nominate Sandia National Laboratories alum and State Department veteran Mallory Stewart to be assistant secretary for arms control, verification and compliance, the post responsible for ensuring the last remaining nuclear arms treaty is functioning as intended. The White House announced its intent to nominate Stewart just before the U.S. […]

Later this year and sometime next year, the Savannah River Site will install a crucial pair of upgrades at the H-Canyon chemical separations facility to help site personnel prepare plutonium from a Japanese reactor for on-site solidification and, eventually, deep-geologic disposal elsewhere. H-Canyon will get a new tank later this year and a new electrolytic […]

Later this year and sometime next year, the Savannah River Site will install a crucial pair of upgrades at the H-Canyon chemical separations facility to help site personnel prepare plutonium from a Japanese reactor for on-site solidification and, eventually, deep-geologic disposal elsewhere. H-Canyon will get a new tank later this year and a new electrolytic […]

The United States and Russia seek to “lay the groundwork for future arms control” with bilateral talks that will start “in the near future,” the presidents of both countries said in a joint statement this week following talks in Geneva. In the English-language statement released Wednesday by the White House, President Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, […]

The United States and Russia seek to “lay the groundwork for future arms control” with bilateral talks that will start “in the near future,” the presidents of both countries said in a joint statement Wednesday following talks in Geneva.  In the English-language statement released by the White House, President Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, the […]

The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Program would be formally closed out once and for all by fiscal year 2022, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s latest budget request shows, and the agency’s replacement plutonium disposal program would take delivery of key hardware. The Surplus Plutonium Disposition (SPD) Program will combine facilities at the Savannah River Site […]

Without much Republican support, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week favorably reported the Joe Biden administration’s nominee for the State Department’s top arms control post to the Senate floor. The Tuesday vote in the evenly divided committee was 12-10 on Bonnie Jenkins’ nomination for under secretary of state for arms control and international security. […]

Without much Republican support, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday favorably reported the Joe Biden administration’s nominee for the State Department’s top arms control post to the Senate floor. The vote in the evenly divided committee was 12-10 on Bonnie Jenkins’ nomination for under secretary of state for arms control and international security. The […]

In a budget hearing that was mostly a best-of, a couple Senators asked the acting head of the National Nuclear Security Administration about alternative means of meeting the mission objectives of the day, including by producing pits at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory or buying, instead of enriching, uranium needed to produce weapons-tritium in the […]

The Joe Biden administration will start its nuclear posture review soon and work on it into the fall, there’s no new Minuteman III life-extension study at the Pentagon and bad welds on some missile tubes won’t delay delivery of the first Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, witnesses testified late Wednesday before a Senate Armed Services panel. […]

The Joe Biden administration will start its nuclear posture review soon and work on it into the fall, there’s no new Minuteman III life-extension study at the Pentagon and bad welds on some missile tubes won’t delay delivery of the first Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, witnesses testified late Wednesday before a Senate Armed Services panel. […]

The U.S. Senate voted Tuesday to approve the nomination of Colin Kahl’s nomination for the Pentagon’s top policy job on a party-line vote of 49-to-45. President Joe Biden’s pick to be undersecretary of defense for policy, Kahl failed to win a single Republican vote, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), the top GOP member on the Senate […]

President Joe Biden this week formally sent to the Senate Frank Rose’s nomination to be principal deputy administrator for the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration. Last week  Biden announced his intention to nominate Rose to the No. 2 slot at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons […]

President Joe Biden announced Wednesday he has forwarded the nomination of Frank Kendall III to be secretary of the Air Force to the Senate. The nomination has been referred to the Senate Armed Services Committee. The White House announced Tuesday that Kendall, a former acquisition official at the Pentagon, is the administration’s pick as the […]

President Joe Biden on Friday announced his intent to nominate Deborah Rosenblum to be assistant secretary for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense at the Department of Defense. The nuclear, chemical, and biological defense program, currently led on an acting basis by Brandi Vann, is charged with detecting, defending against and responding to threats posed by […]

Reducing the political space for dialogue with Russia was a “critical error” in U.S. foreign policy and will hamper efforts to negotiate a new strategic arms limitation treaty with Moscow, a former energy secretary said during a webinar this week. There’s “a lot of interest” in a new arms control treaty on both sides of […]

A National Academies panel said Monday that monitoring, detection and verification of nuclear weapons and fissile material should be a higher national security priority and that more government coordination is needed on the issue. That is the crux of an interim report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, published Monday. The report, […]

Reducing the political space for dialogue with Russia was a “critical error” in U.S. foreign policy and will hamper efforts to negotiate a new strategic arms limitation treaty with Moscow, a former energy secretary said during a webinar Tuesday. There’s “a lot of interest” in a new arms control treaty on both sides of the […]

People in Nevada don’t want to see the U.S. government resume underground explosive-nuclear weapons testing in their state, Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) said Tuesday during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.   “Nevadans do not want to return to a time when there was explosive nuclear testing in our state,” Rosen told Admiral Charles Richard, commander […]

President Biden’s nominees to lead the Nuclear Weapons Council and the Department of Energy’s intergovernmental affairs programs are headed to the Senate, the White House announced this week. The Senate had not scheduled hearings on either nominee at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, nor for Jill Hruby to be administrator of the […]

President Biden’s nominees to lead the Nuclear Weapons Council and the Department of Energy’s intergovernmental affairs programs are headed to the Senate, the White House announced Monday. Michael Brown got the nod to be undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment. If confirmed, he would lead the joint Pentagon-Department of Energy council that coordinates nuclear […]