Vol. 27, No. 02 
NNSA has no reliable schedule, cost estimates for pits, GAO says
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Budget & Policy
Fleischmann could lead DOE’s major check-writing committee in House
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), a dependable ally of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex, is in the mix to lead the influential appropriations committee that writes the first drafts of DOE’s annual budget, a source said. Fleischmann, who since 2011 has represented Tennessee’s largely rural third district […]
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Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile
Permanent leadership for, purpose of, new NNSA headquarters offices to be set by October, agency says
The National Nuclear Security Administration plans by Oct. 31 to have permanent leadership for the three new procurement- and infrastructure-focused offices it created last year when it broke up the former Office of Acquisition and Project Management, according to a Government Accountability Office report published Tuesday. The agency “will establish specific outcome-oriented goals and performance […]
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Uranium Enrichment & Fuel Cycle
NNSA adds to Nuclear Fuel Services’ uranium purification contract
The National Nuclear Security Administration is adding about $10 million of work to the first phase of Nuclear Fuel Services’ contract to purify uranium for the secondary stages of nuclear weapons, according to a procurement note published Monday. The new work, which the nuclear-weapons agency did not describe in Monday’s sole source justification, brings the […]
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Contracts & Procurement
Bouncing back from 2021 loss, Centerra lands new 10-year, $1B SRS security deal
Incumbent Centerra Group has been awarded a new Security Services contract, potentially worth $1 billion over 10 years, at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The award, announced in a Thursday press release, is not a surprise. The DOE has been saying for many months it plans “corrective action” to its […]
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Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile
Santa Fe County officials to send concerns about surplus plutonium program to NNSA
Local officials this week voted to express formal concerns about the Department of Energy’s plan to ship weapon-usable plutonium through the Santa Fe, New Mexico area as part of long-planned materials-disposal effort. On Tuesday, all five Santa Fe county commissioners approved comments to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) about the agency’s Surplus Plutonium Disposition […]
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National Laboratories
Livermore test site battened down during historic California storms
Amid the winter rainstorms pounding California, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has temporarily curtailed all but essential activity at its experimental test site in the San Francisco Bay Area, a spokesperson said this week. “Site 300 was in minimum safe configuration this week due to infrastructure conditions on roadways leading to the site,” a lab […]
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Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile
NNSA fudged dates on correspondence, played loose with safety rules, defense board says
The National Nuclear Security Administration backdated letters to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and claimed its own safety rules actually permitted safety deficiencies the rules were supposed to prevent, the board said. In a letter late last year to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, the board complained about “the recent practice of the National […]