Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

An amendment that would prohibit defunding high explosive production at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, would be considered next week by the House Rules Committee as part of the 2025 Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), whose district includes the Pantex Plant that services all U.S. nuclear […]

An amendment that would prohibit defunding high explosive production at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, would be considered next week by the House Rules Committee as part of the 2025 Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), whose district includes the Pantex Plant that services all U.S. nuclear […]

PanTeXas Deterrence got the green light from the National Nuclear Security Administration to begin taking over as management and operations contractor for the Pantex Plant located near Amarillo, Texas. The transition to manage Pantex, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plant that services all U.S. nuclear weapons, will begin July 15 and end November 14, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration announced this week it entered into a multi-year agreement in May to expand operations and office space at the Kansas City National Security Campus in Missouri. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) made the agreement with Promontory 150 LLC in May to purchase both land and what a spokesperson for […]

Integrating “only” government-wide practices will not help keep nuclear weapons infrastructure projects on time and on budget, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration said in a letter published Tuesday. “We strongly believe that the incorporation of government best practices alone will not fundamentally change our ability to integrate the program and project cost […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee wants to require the Department of Energy to pick two to four possible sites for a new domestic uranium enrichment facility for defense programs, according to a bill report published Monday. The report was appended to the panel’s version of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which the Senate […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee wants the secretaries of energy and defense to brief Congress if either plans an alternative to the W80-4 warhead for a nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile, according to a draft National Defense Authorization Act released Monday. The briefing would have to detail the benefits and cost expectations of any alternative, according […]

Integrating “only” government-wide practices will not help keep nuclear weapons infrastructure projects on time and on budget, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration said in a letter published Tuesday. “We strongly believe that the incorporation of government best practices alone will not fundamentally change our ability to integrate the program and project cost […]

The Air Force’s next-generation nuclear-tipped, silo-based intercontinental ballistic missile will continue but will be drastically restructured amid further cost increases and schedule delays announced Monday by the Department of Defense.  The new overall cost estimate for Sentinel is $140.9 billion: 81% higher than the September 2020 estimate when the program entered its manufacturing phase and […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration would get about $25.5 billion, 2% more than requested for fiscal year 2025 and a roughly 5.5% raise year-over-year, if a bill released Thursday becomes law. Most of the increase proposed by the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee in the first congressional budget recommendation of the year for […]

Former President Donald Trump’s (R) national security advisor Robert O’brien argued the U.S. must test nuclear weapons again outside of a computer model in an article he published in Foreign Affairs. O’brien said that if China and Russia continue to refuse to engage in peace talks, and continue to upgrade their nuclear arsenal, the U.S. […]

Global spending on nuclear weapons increased by 13% in 2023, according to the latest annual report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons group, reaching $91.4 billion that year with a world-leading $51.5 billion spent in the U.S.  This 2023 total is $10.7 billion higher than the previous year, with all nine nuclear-armed states […]

Global spending on nuclear weapons increased by 13% in 2023, according to the latest annual report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons group, reaching $91.4 billion that year with a world-leading $51.5 billion spent in the U.S.  This 2023 total is $10.7 billion higher than the previous year, with all nine nuclear-armed states […]

The U.S. should declare nuclear “revitalization” in and outside of the National Nuclear Security Administration a national priority, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Wednesday. The call by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) was part of a 52-page proposal for “a generational investment in the U.S. military,” in which Wicker detailed plans […]

The U.S. should declare nuclear “revitalization” in and outside of the National Nuclear Security Administration a national priority, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Wednesday. The call by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) was part of a 52-page proposal for “a generational investment in the U.S. military,” in which Wicker detailed plans […]

On Friday, the Missouri House passed a bill offering tax breaks to expand the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear-weapons-parts plant in Kansas City. “This is a huge economic benefit for Kansas City,” Rep. Chris Brown (R-Kansas City), who sponsored the bill alongside then-state-Sen. Greg Razer (D-Jackson County), told the Kansas City Star on Friday. The […]

On Friday, the Missouri House passed a bill offering tax breaks to expand the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear-weapons-parts plant in Kansas City. “This is a huge economic benefit for Kansas City,” Rep. Chris Brown (R-Kansas City), who sponsored the bill alongside then-state-Sen. Greg Razer (D-Jackson County), told the Kansas City Star on Friday. The […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration will meet legal obligations to remove plutonium from South Carolina even though it delayed a facility critical to breaking down old plutonium pits, the agency said Friday. The agency made the declaration in a record of decision published in the Federal Register. The decision, the end of a required environmental review […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will let the Tennessee Valley Authority produce more tritium for U.S. nuclear weapons using the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Tennessee, according to a Tuesday regulatory filing. The NRC on April 15 approved a license amendment request the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) submitted in March 2023. The commission posted the amendment online Tuesday. […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will let the Tennessee Valley Authority produce more tritium for U.S. nuclear weapons using the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Tennessee, according to a Tuesday regulatory filing. The NRC on April 15 approved a license amendment request the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) submitted in March 2023. The commission posted the amendment […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration will meet legal obligations to remove plutonium from South Carolina even though it delayed a facility critical to breaking down old plutonium pits, the agency said Friday. The agency made the declaration in a record of decision published in the Federal Register. The decision, the end of a required environmental […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration seeks $70 million for a sea-launched cruise missile warhead for fiscal year 2025 as part of the agency’s list of unfunded priorities, a lawmaker said Wednesday. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm acknowledged at the start of a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee that the weapon was among the […]

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina will produce at least half the plutonium pits for the Navy’s W93 warhead after the facility opens next decade, a federal official said Wednesday. “We don’t think we can get that facility up in time to do all of the W93 builds, but it’s important that we have […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration seeks $70 million for a sea-launched cruise missile warhead for fiscal year 2025 as part of the agency’s list of unfunded priorities, a lawmaker said Wednesday. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm acknowledged at the start of a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee that the weapon was among the […]

Site prime Consolidated Nuclear Security planned a fundraiser Thursday to help cover some of the damages caused by recent wildfires near the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, the joint venture said in a press release. The fires, which drew the attention of major news outlets, forced Pantex, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) nuclear-weapons service center, to briefly shut […]

The separation of the Pantex Plant in Texas and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee took a baby step forward this week with the opening of separate federal field offices for the nuclear-weapons production sites. Consolidated Nuclear Security, still the joint operations contractor for the two sites, announced the split on Tuesday in a […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration on Tuesday officially announced Michael Mikolanis as its new top federal official at the agency’s Savannah River Site field office near Aiken, S.C. The Exchange Monitor reported in December that Mikolanis would make the move to the Savannah River Site from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The […]

Frank Rose, principal deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, will leave the nuclear weapons agency this spring, his boss said Tuesday in an all-hands email. “Principal Deputy Administrator Frank Rose will be leaving,” National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Jill Hruby wrote in the email. “Frank has been an energetic and deeply valued […]

The U.N. Security Council met this week in New York to discuss, among other things, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The U.N. released a summary press release of a portion of the meeting, in which U.N. Secretary General António Guterres warned that “geopolitical tensions [are] escalating the risk of nuclear warfare to […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration last week solicited bids for a one-year study about a pilot plant to test defense uranium-enrichment technology developed by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Bids are due April 15, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) wrote in a procurement notice posted online March 15 for the firm-fixed-price NNSA Domestic Uranium […]