Vol. 23, No. 23

Plutonium Pit Production

HASC Subcommittee Moves To Constrict DOE Plans For Nuclear Weapon Cores

Democrats on the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee on Tuesday used their majority on the panel to kill a GOP amendment that would have kept the Department of Energy’s plan to produce plutonium pits in South Carolina off the chopping block. Subcommittee Democrats, led by Rep. James Cooper (Tenn.), quashed the amendment from Rep. […]
  • Budget & Policy

    Big NNSA Funding, Policy Bills Due for House Action Wednesday

    Two of the most important bills of the year for the National Nuclear Security Administration are slated for consideration on Wednesday, when the full House and a key committee will take up proposals to fund and authorize critical nuclear security programs for fiscal year 2020. The House Armed Services Committee will vote on the 2020 […]

  • Contracts & Procurement

    SRNS Tees Up Procurement of Dilute and Dispose Hardware

    Savannah River Nuclear Solutions is laying the groundwork to acquire the three custom-built gloveboxes needed for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Surplus Plutonium Disposition program: the proposed replacement for the cancelled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. Under the currently unfunded and unauthorized program, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would install the gloveboxes at Savannah […]

  • Stockpile Stewardship

    NNSA Awards MITRE Corp. $5M Contract for JASON Studies

    The National Nuclear Security Administration has officially picked up the tab to keep the JASON group of independent scientists alive, awarding MITRE Corp. on Thursday an eight-month, $5-million contract to perform three nuclear-security studies, an agency spokesperson said. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) “has awarded a short-term, sole-source contract to the MITRE Corp. for […]

  • National Laboratories

    Ellis to Succeed Retiring Douglass as Deputy Director of Sandia

    National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia appointed D.E. “Dori” Ellis deputy director of the nation’s nuclear-weapons-technology lab, the Honeywell-owned lab-manager announced Wednesday. Ellis will be the lab’s No. 2 executive behind director Stephen Younger. She will replace David Douglass, who will retire in June, according to a lab press release. Ellis is a longtime Sandia […]

  • Non-Proliferation

    Dem Lawmakers on Key Committees Urge New START Extension

    Eight Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate on Wednesday urged President Donald Trump in a letter to extend the New START arms control treaty that limits the U.S. and Russia to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads. New START went into effect in 2011. The Barack Obama administration proposed the treaty, which the then-Democrat-controlled Senate ratified with […]

  • Uranium Enrichment & Fuel Cycle

    Energy Dept. Outlines Justification for Non-Compete Centrus Contract for HALEU

    The Energy Department published its justification for contracting a Centrus Energy subsidiary to demonstrate high-assay low enriched uranium (HALEU) production without competitive bidding. The federal government wants to deploy a 16-machine cascade at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio to demonstrate production of 19.75% enriched uranium fuel by June 2022 using domestic technology. Centrus’ American Centrifuge Operating LLC […]

  • Non-Proliferation

    U.S. Authorized Two Transfers of Nuke Tech to Saudis After Khashoggi Murder

    The Department of Energy authorized two transfers of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after that nation allegedly authorized the murder of U.S. resident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Tuesday. Beginning in 2017, the Department of Energy granted seven companies Part 810 authorizations — named for the section of the […]

Get Published in ExchangeMonitor Publications