Vol. 22, No. 04 
New Warhead Work in Nuclear Posture Review Would Badly Stretch NNSA Budget, Experts Say
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National Laboratories
UC and Team ‘Deserve’ Next LANL Contract With Their ‘Clever’ Bid, Regent Says
The University of California and its mystery teammates have submitted a “clever” bid to run the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) for the next 10 years, the regent in charge of the institution’s national lab activities said in a public meeting late Wednesday. “We do have the most excellent bid,” Ellen Tauscher, the incoming chair […]
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Plutonium Pit Production
NNSA to Publish Part of Plutonium-Pit Plan in February Budget Proposal
The Department of Energy’s plan for plutonium pit manufacturing will be made clearer in the Donald Trump administration’s 2019 budget request in February, agency officials told members of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board last week. That is according to a presentation uploaded to the board’s website Jan. 19 after a briefing with Department of […]
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Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile
Final Nuke Posture Review Coming in Early February, Pentagon Spox Says
The final version of the Donald Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review will arrive in early February, the Pentagon said Thursday. Dana White, the chief Department of Defense spokesperson, firmed up the date for the official release in a Pentagon briefing with the press. The long-awaited review, which leaked out in draft form earlier in January, […]
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Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile
Top HASC Democrat Blasts Trump’s Nuclear Buildup Proposal
Marc Selinger Defense Daily The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) criticized the Trump administration’s nearly completed Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) Jan. 24, saying its call for more weapons is unaffordable and unnecessary and would fuel an arms race. “This review is a missed opportunity to introduce realism into our nuclear weapons […]
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Budget & Policy
Shutdown Ends, But Budget Cliff Looms Again in Early February
The federal government reopened Tuesday following a three-day shutdown, after Senate Democrats largely dropped their opposition to a stopgap budget bill to keep agencies open through Feb. 8. President Donald Trump signed the bill late Monday evening after it quickly passed through both chambers of Congress. The measure funds the Department of Energy (DOE) at […]
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Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile
NNSA Policy Boss Takes Charge Temporarily as Trump Nominee Waits for Senate Hearing
Steven Erhart has been selected as the acting administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration, leapfrogging the semiautonomous Department of Energy branch’s highest-ranking career civil servant at the helm until the Senate confirms the White House’s administrator-designate. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced the move Jan. 19 at the bottom of a press release acknowledging the […]
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Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile
Outgoing DNFSB Chair Suggests He Lost Staff’s Confidence
In his farewell memo last week, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Chairman Sean Sullivan suggested he lost the confidence of the 120 staff members of the independent safety watchdog he led for a year and wanted to disband. “Our fine staff deserves to be led by an executive the staff believes in,” Sullivan, a board […]
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Contracts & Procurement
Smooth Sailing for Honeywell Post-Spinoff as 2017 Sales, Earnings Rise
Setting aside the effect of major spinoffs in 2017, Honeywell, a major player in U.S. nuclear weapons and waste programs, saw sizable sales and earnings boosts last year, while profits rose in the Aerospace segment that houses two of its big Department of Energy contracts. Excluding the effects of the spinoffs, Honeywell’s full-year per-share earnings rose […]
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Plutonium Pit Production
New AREVA Gets New Name
French nuclear fuel cycle company New AREVA officially has a new name as of Tuesday: Orano. Orano is the result of a corporate restructuring AREVA initiated in 2016 that late last year resulted in the sale of the company’s nuclear power business to French utility EDF and other entities. What was left was almost entirely […]
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Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile
Details of Suspicious Pack at Pantex Are ‘Need to Know’
A suspicious package triggered an emergency response at the Pantex nuclear-weapon assembly plant in Amarillo, Texas, on Jan. 16, but the details are on a strictly need-to-know basis, according to an official report from the Department of Energy. “On January 16, 2018, an operational emergency was declared, and the Emergency Response Organization was activated,” reads […]
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Contracts & Procurement
Nevada Site Contractor Praised for Infrastructure in Final Performance Report of Contract
In its last year on the job, National Security Technologies (NSTec) was praised for smooth handling of capital projects at the Energy Department’s Nevada National Security Site, including its work to solidify designs for a new underground, non-explosive weapons-testing facility. National Security Technologies in 2017 wrapped up its management of the Nevada National Security Site for […]
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Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile
Locals Air Frustration Over Y-12 Power Line
Officials with the National Nuclear Security Administration got an earful at a public meeting Wednesday over a contested power line for Y-12 National Security Complex’s new power substation. The substation will replace the existing, deteriorating power station for the Department of Energy facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn. It will provide the power needed for Y-12’s […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Judge Recommends Dismissal of Lawsuit Against SRS Contractor
A federal lawsuit accusing the management contractor at the Savannah River Site of forcing a worker to retire due to his sleep apnea should be thrown out, according to a recommendation from a U.S. magistrate judge. Judge Thomas Rogers wrote in his Jan. 19 recommendation that Steven Baxley, a former employee of Savannah River Nuclear […]
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Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile
It is Two Minutes to Midnight
The threat of nuclear war is as great as it has ever been in the atomic age, the nonprofit Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said Thursday in its latest Doomsday Clock statement. The Doomsday Clock is a metaphor the group created in 1947, in which midnight represents total annihilation of human beings and their civilization […]