Vol. 21, No. 38 
LANL Management Solicitation Coming ‘Soon,’ NNSA Says
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Non-Proliferation
White House Might Walk Away From JCPOA, Despite Mattis Endorsement
The Trump administration threw signal after signal this week that it could walk away from an international agreement aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons — a deal the president’s own secretary of defense said is good for U.S. national security. The Washington Post reported Thursday that President Donald Trump plans to decertify Iran’s compliance […]
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National Laboratories
Unionized Sandia Workers Still on the Job, Will Vote Monday on New Contract Offer
Several hundred unionized workers at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., remained on the job this week after contract negotiations with the lab broke down, and are scheduled to vote on a new labor deal Monday. Sandia and the Atomic Projects and Productions Workers, Metal Trades Council (MTC), “met this week to address remaining issues […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
S.C. Governor Urges Congressmen to Continue Support of MOX
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster is urging the state’s congressional delegation to continue advocating for the MOX project at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site, which is again in danger of being defunded. In a Sept. 14 letter, McMaster provided all lawmakers from the state with a recent report from the governor’s South Carolina Nuclear […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
SRS Plans to Ramp Up Plutonium Downblending
The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site downblended 16 kilograms of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium in fiscal 2017, and is expected to nearly double amount in the current budget year. Officials from the South Carolina facility reported the figure last week during a bimonthly meeting of the SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB). Downblending began in September 2016, […]
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Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile
DOE Seeks Venue Change in UPF Lawsuit
The Energy Department wants to move a lawsuit filed by environmental and anti-nuclear groups that aim to halt construction of new uranium enrichment facilities to a federal court in Tennessee, according to court papers filed last week. DOE wants the lawsuit over the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee moved […]
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Budget & Policy
House Energy Leaders Concerned NNSA Oversight Burdens Contractors
The leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee wants the Government Accountability Office to examine whether the Energy Department’s contractor oversight practices are preventing company’s carrying out projects for the agency’s National Nuclear Security Administration from getting work done. The committee is worried that some of the agency’s “burdensome practices” might “limit the efficiency […]
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Non-Proliferation
Nonproliferation Programs Hard to Price Out, NNSA Tells GAO
The Government Accountability Office said the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) should draft tighter life-cycle cost and schedule estimates for its nonproliferation programs: something the Energy Department’s semiautonomous nuclear-weapon agency said is difficult to do, given the nature of the work. The NNSA should “require DNN [Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation] programs and subprograms to follow life-cycle […]
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International
Russia Within A Dozen Warheads of Meeting New START Obligation, State Says
The Russian Federation sharply cut its number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads over the past six months, putting the nuclear power within 11 warheads of meeting its disarmament obligations under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the U.S. State Department said Monday. The bilateral treaty, known as New START, requires the U.S. and Russia to […]
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Delivery Systems & Nuclear Triad
Air Force Taps Lockheed, Rockwell To Design ICBM Control System
Marc Selinger Defense Daily The U.S. Air Force has picked Lockheed Martin and Rockwell Collins to begin designing a replacement for the aging Airborne Launch Control System (ALCS), which allows command-and-control aircraft to launch land-based, nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Rockwell Collins have been awarded three-year contracts valued at $80.8 million and $76.3 million, […]
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Non-Proliferation
Anti-Nuke Group Wins Nobel Peace Prize
A Swiss anti-nuclear group that advocated for a United Nations ban on nuclear weapons this summer received the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) “is receiving the award for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for […]