Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

The ripple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and a June legal settlement between the state and the Department of Energy to prevent mislabeled radioactive waste shipments from again ending up at the Nevada National Security Site dominate the site’s just released 2020 environmental report. The settlement reached this summer calls upon DOE to increase the vetting and […]

Here are some events related to civilian-nuclear matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week. September 27 – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is hosting a two-part virtual meeting on its environmental justice review. Information on virtual access available here. Starts 1 p.m. Eastern time. 28 – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is hosting an in-person meeting on […]

The USS Wyoming ballistic missile submarine launched a pair of Trident II D5LE missiles from the Eastern Test Range near Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Friday, Sept. 17, the Navy announced in a press release over the weekend.  The launch of the unarmed missiles were part of Demonstration and Shakedown Operation DASO-31, the Navy wrote in […]

COVID-19 cases and deaths surged across the National Nuclear Security Administration complex in summer’s final month, with active infections hitting levels not seen since November and the agency confirming three new fatalities this week alone. At deadline, 25 people at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) labs, plants and sites were confirmed to have died […]

Here are some events related to defense- and civilian-nuclear matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week. September: 20: Meeting, House Rules Committee – National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2022; continuing resolution to extend fiscal year 2021 budget into the 2022 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The meeting will stream […]

Recent federal employee forms show 90% of workers at the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board have been vaccinated against coronavirus infection, a spokesperson for the board said this week. All Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) personnel have submitted the recently-required forms to attest to their COVID-19 vaccination status, said Tara Tadlock, associate director for […]

The Department of Energy redentlydefended a 2020 update to a key nuclear safety management regulation but said the agency will work with a federal nuclear watchdog over its “technical concerns” with the final rule — including as it relates to aging nuclear facilities. The DOE “continues to conclude that its current regulatory framework, as revised […]

The current trillion-dollar nuclear modernization regime is based on obsolete thinking that fails to consider the emerging nuclear danger posed by China, the head of U.S. Strategic Command said this week at the virtual STATCOM Nuclear Deterrence Symposium. The U.S. is modernizing against “old requirements” developed with the assumption that China is a “lesser included case” in the nuclear […]

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm was to lead the U.S. delegation to the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency’s 65th General Conference, the formalities of which were scheduled to begin Monday with an opening plenary session. Granholm and her entourage will arrive in Vienna, Austria, only days after the U.S. announced that it and the United […]

The story “NRC Gives its Blessing to Interim Storage in Texas” (Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, September 14, 2021) should have said that the bill signed into law last week by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) only banned the storage of high-level nuclear waste.

Recent federal employee forms show 90% of workers at the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board have been vaccinated against coronavirus infection, a spokesperson for the board said Tuesday. All Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) personnel have submitted the recently-required forms to attest to their COVID-19 vaccination status, said Tara Tadlock, associate director for board […]

The current trillion-dollar nuclear modernization regime is based on obsolete thinking that fails to consider the emerging nuclear danger posed by China, the head of U.S. Strategic Command said Monday at the virtual STATCOM Nuclear Deterrence Symposium. The U.S. is modernizing against “old requirements” developed with the assumption that China is a “lesser included case” […]

Here are some events related to defense- and civilian-nuclear matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week 13-24: Virtual Deterrence Symposium. U.S. Strategic Command. Online only. Register here. 16: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB), Paducah. Streaming online on YouTube. 6:30 p.m.-8:00 p.m. Eastern time.  

A liberal bloc of House lawmakers on Friday urged President Joe Biden to cut the nuclear weapons budget in fiscal year 2023.  In a letter led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the bloc of 29 U.S. representatives told Biden “to use the forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) to set a nuclear strategy that aims to […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Uranium Processing Facility will start up in August 2025, almost a year later than once anticipated but with months of margin to spare to reach full operational capability by the long-promised date of December 2025. That’s according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s DNFSB latest Oak Ridge site report. […]

Six weeks after telling unvaccinated feds and contractors to wear masks and be tested regularly for COVID-19, President Joe Biden on Thursday took things a step further and said such workers must either take the vaccine or find another job.   “If you want to work with the federal government, do business with us, get vaccinated,” […]

In a legal settlement announced this week in a regulatory filing, uranium fuel broker and enrichment technology developer Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., said it got the millions of dollars it was seeking from the Department of Energy for the old U.S. Enrichment Corp.’s pension fund this week. Centrus will collect about $43.5 million from […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Uranium Processing Facility will start up in August 2025, almost a year later than once anticipated but with months of margin to spare to reach full operational capability by the long-promised date of December 2025. That’s according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s DNFSB latest Oak Ridge site report.  […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration in August confirmed that four more employees of the nuclear security enterprise died of COVID-19 during an explosive summer case surge, even as some federal contractors took their most forceful workforce vaccination measures to date. In the final week of August, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) had 419 confirmed, […]

The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday approved about $425 million in funding above the president’s request for nuclear-weapons infrastructure in fiscal year 2022 — money that corresponding appropriations bills would not yet allow the National Nuclear Security Administration to spend. The authorized funding came from an amendment to the committee’s 2022 National Defense Authorization […]

Jill Hruby, the new administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) continued her tour of the nuclear security enterprise last week, dropping by both the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. A resident of New Mexico at the time when she was confirmed to lead […]

An appeals panel within the Small Business Administration erred in May when it found Swift & Staley was too big to qualify for a $160-million Department of Energy set-aside contract for services at the Paducah Site in Kentucky, a U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge ruled. The ruling turned on whether a Swift & Staley […]

For the second review period in a row UCOR, the Amentum-Jacobs cleanup team at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, is pocketing 98% of its potential fee from the Department of Energy. The contractor earned 100% of its almost $7.9 million potential fee for the first half of fiscal 2021, from Oct. 1, 2020 through […]

The Department of Energy’s Jacobs-led contractor for remediation of the West Valley Demonstration Project in western New York could begin taking down the Main Plant Process Building this year, a manager said at a public meeting Wednesday. Deactivation of the contaminated facility should be finished later this fall, although the schedule could always slip due […]

The Government Accountability Office has formally dismissed a bid protest brought last month by incumbent Centerra over the Department of Energy’s $1-billion security contract award to a rival at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina — but that might not be the end of the dispute. In a notice dated Aug. 9, the Government […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration would have to report to Congress about the benefits of competitively awarding management and operations contracts for nuclear weapons sites by March 1, if the House’s version of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act becomes law. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), who holds the seat recently vacated by longtime Armed Services […]

The House Armed Services Committee wants the Air Force to review its approach to the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program, to include identifying potential steps for reducing costs and introducing more opportunities for competition in the operation and maintenance phase. The panel’s draft version of the next National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) notes the effort […]

The Department of Energy’s Jacobs-led contractor for remediation of the West Valley Demonstration Project in western New York could begin taking down the Main Plant Process Building this year, a manager said at a public meeting Wednesday. Deactivation of the contaminated facility should be finished later this fall, although the schedule could always slip due […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration would be authorized to spend over $425 million more than requested for infrastructure in 2022, if a Republican amendment proposed for the next National Defense Authorization Act becomes law. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, announced his amendment on Monday, two days before […]

A wildfire that started last week at the Nevada National Security Site was still burning over about 490 acres north of the Site’s area 12 at deadline Monday. “The fire is not burning, and has not burned, in any contaminated areas,” the site wrote in a press release on Friday. “Due to inaccessibility of the […]