Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

Babcock & Wilcox-led Nuclear Production Partners is giving up its fight for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Y-12/Pantex contract, the company said yesterday. NP2 three times protested the NNSA’s selection of Bechtel-led Consolidated Nuclear Security for the $22.8 billion contract, but the Government Accountability Office in late February turned away its last challenge of the […]

Funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons program is projected to continue to grow over the next five years, reaching nearly $10 billion by Fiscal Year 2019, according to the Obama Administration’s detailed budget justification for the agency that was released this weekend. The Administration requested $8.3 billion for the weapons program in FY […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration on Friday opened a procurement for facilities maintenance services at the Office of Secure Transportation and the agency’s Albuquerque Complex, issuing a draft Request for Proposals. The agency is seeking a small business to perform the work, which will take place in three locations: at OST headquarters in Albuquerque, at […]

The Obama Administration’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget request includes $8.3 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons program, and plans to modernize the nation’s nuclear deterrent are beginning to win over one of the staunchest critics of nuclear funding lapses. Speaking at a Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee hearing yesterday, Sen. Jeff Sessions […]

With the Obama Administration set to release its Fiscal Year 2015 budget request this week, Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) reintroduced legislation late last week that would cut $100 billion in nuclear weapons spending over the next decade. Markey first introduced the “Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures (SANE) Act” when he was […]

With the National Nuclear Security Administration considering alternatives to the Uranium Processing Facility, project officials are scaling back and restructuring current work on the facility, according to a recent memo from UPF Project Director Carl Strock. The Feb. 12 memo, obtained by NS&D Monitor, suggests that project officials will focus on “high-equity activities that would […]

The trio of peace activists that broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex in 2012 are in jail and will stay there for years to come, based on the sentences meted out yesterday by Federal Judge Amul Thapar. But Thapar—known as a straight-by-the-book judge—actually showed some leniency. Each of the three activists received prison terms […]

Retired Air Force Gen. Larry Welch, the former commander of Strategic Air Command and former Air Force Chief of Staff, was awarded yesterday with the second annual Johnny Foster Award by ExchangeMonitor Publications and Forums. Welch retired from the Air Force 24 years ago, but has been a fixture in the nuclear sector ever since, […]

Acting National Nuclear Security Administration chief Bruce Held confirmed during questioning at the Nuclear Deterrence Summit yesterday that a mid-January incident at Y-12 involved the mishandling of two vials of highly enriched uranium in an oxide form totaling 20 grams. Held said he’s still unable to discuss some details because of an ongoing inquiry into […]

The annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit will begin this week, kicking off in earnest Wednesday at 8 a.m. with speeches from acting National Nuclear Security Administration chief Bruce Held, Air Force Assistant Chief of Staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration Maj. Gen. Garrett Harencak, and Navy Strategic Systems Programs Director Vice Adm. Terry Benedict. Rep. […]

Acting National Nuclear Security Administration chief Bruce Held will meet with Y-12 National Security Complex officials today and hold an all-hands meeting at the plant to address a material accountability incident involving uranium oxide (U-308). NNSA spokeswoman Keri Fulton confirmed that an incident involving a small amount of U-308, triuranium octoxide, a common form of […]

President Obama should order the nation’s nuclear arsenal off “hair-trigger,” Washington Post columnist Katrina vanden Heuvel said in a Jan. 21 column outlining “a few dramatic and long-overdue actions” Obama could announce in the State of the Union address next week. The actions could help Obama “lead more forcefully in areas vital to the country […]

One of the most watched protest cases in the history of the nuclear weapons complex took another unusual turn Tuesday when the sentencing hearing for three Plowshares protesters had to be postponed—even as it neared its conclusion—because of an unexpected snowfall that forced the shutdown of the federal courthouse in Knoxville. After consulting with federal […]

Kansas City Plant contractor Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies is planning to trim its workforce by 84 employees, a spokesperson said yesterday. Honeywell spokeswoman Shaunda Parks said the plant’s move out of the Bannister Federal Complex and into a new home “necessitated” the reduction of the employees in late March. She also said changes in […]

President Obama should order the nation’s nuclear arsenal off “hair-trigger,” Washington Post columnist Katrina vanden Heuvel said in a Jan. 21 column outlining “a few dramatic and long-overdue actions” Obama could announce in the State of the Union address next week. The actions could help Obama “lead more forcefully in areas vital to the country […]

One of the most watched protest cases in the history of the nuclear weapons complex took another unusual turn Tuesday when the sentencing hearing for three Plowshares protesters had to be postponed—even as it neared its conclusion—because of an unexpected snowfall that forced the shutdown of the federal courthouse in Knoxville. After consulting with federal […]

Kansas City Plant contractor Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies is planning to trim its workforce by 84 employees, a spokesperson said yesterday. Honeywell spokeswoman Shaunda Parks said the plant’s move out of the Bannister Federal Complex and into a new home “necessitated” the reduction of the employees in late March. She also said changes in […]

Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 5/9/2014 Republicans this week turned away an amendment to the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the Fiscal Year 2015 National Defense Authorization Act that would’ve authorized an increase in nuclear weapons dismantlement work. The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) during a markup hearing on the bill, would have […]

Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 5/2/2014 Moving uranium processing operations out of the Y-12 National Security Complex’s 9212 complex by 2025 will be “extraordinarily difficult” without a drastically revised management structure that moves responsibility of the Uranium Processing Facility into the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Defense Programs, a Red Team that examined the project […]

HASC-Strategic Forces Markup Would Accelerate Cruise Missile Warhead, Creation of Pu Capabilities  Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 5/2/2014 Republicans on the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee are objecting to Administration plans to delay the refurbishment of the cruise missile warhead, and they are moving to authorize additional funding to accelerate the program in Fiscal Year […]

Kenneth Fletcher NS&D Monitor 5/2/2014 While the Department of Energy this week backed off from plans to immediately suspend work on the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility and released a long-awaited alternatives study, the plant’s supporters in Congress continued to pressure DOE to commit to MOX completion. Though the Department originally said it would begin […]

Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 5/2/2014 The United States had 4,804 nuclear weapons in its active deployed stockpile as of September of last year, having trimmed 309 weapons from the last time it declassified the size of its nuclear arsenal in 2010. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller made the […]

Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 5/2/2014 A new report from the Government Accountability Office this week said it’s unlikely that the National Nuclear Security Administration will meet its goals to dismantle all nuclear weapons retired prior to Fiscal Year 2009 by FY 2022, but it suggests slowing down the dismantlement work might help address a problematic […]

NS&D Monitor 5/2/2014 New National Nuclear Security Administration chief Frank Klotz will take his first tour of the weapons complex as the agency’s administrator next week, making stops at the Nevada National Security Site, the agency’s Albuquerque Complex, Sandia National Laboratories, and Los Alamos National Laboratory, NNSA spokesman Josh McConaha said this week. At Sandia, […]

Paul Donahue CEO, G4S Government Solutions Since taking over as CEO of WSI (G4S Government Solutions, Inc.) months before the Y-12 intrusion in July of 2012, it’s no surprise I’ve found it necessary to revisit, refocus and refine core security and oversight practices that did not adequately facilitate at Y-12 independence of thought and effective […]

Staff Reports NS&D Monitor 4/25/2014 When the actual job reduction targets for voluntary layoff programs at the Y-12 and Pantex nuclear weapons plants were revealed late this week, the proposed numbers weren’t as high as some expected. B&W Y-12 said it planned to eliminate about 140 positions at the Oak Ridge plant, with about 1,100 […]

Staff Reports NS&D Monitor 4/25/2014 With the transition of contractors at Y-12 and Pantex about a third of the way through, Bechtel-led Consolidated Nuclear Security President and CEO Jim Haynes has opened up more about plans and impacts and discussed some of the difficulties in what he’s termed the “mother of all transitions.” Haynes noted […]

Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 4/25/2014 In a new 23-page follow-up to a 2010 report that raised concerns about lagging development and validation of technologies planned for the multi-billion-dollar Uranium Processing Facility, the Government Accountability Office has identified some additional risks associated with the technology efforts. The GAO, at the request of Congress, is providing regular […]

Reichert Replaces Dan Glenn, Who Was Bid by CNS But Was Subject of B&W Lawsuit Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 4/25/2014 Bechtel-led Consolidated Nuclear Security has replaced Dan Glenn as the operations manager of the Pantex Plant with another former Babcock & Wilcox official, revealing this week that Michelle Reichert would head up operations at Pantex […]

Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 4/25/2014 The Red Team that analyzed alternatives to the Uranium Processing Facility planned for the Y-12 National Security Complex also weighed in on management of the multi-billion-dollar facility, and NS&D Monitor has learned that the team recommended a major management change for the project. The recommendations of the team, led by […]