Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The Senate last week reappointed the three serving members on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) and filled one of its vacant positions. The Senate on July 2 by voice vote approved the nominations of Thomas Summers, Joyce Connery, Jessie Hill Roberson, and Bruce Hamilton, according to the website Congress.gov. Summers is the only […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) has replaced nearly 10,000 sprinkler heads at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, completing a $46 million retrofit of safety hardware last touched in the 1960s, according to a press release this week. The new sprinkler heads, installed in six different facilities, replace some that were at or near the […]

The Senate last week adopted language that would scale back, but not eliminate, some of the new oversight and influence the chamber’s Armed Services Committee proposed to give the Pentagon over civilian nuclear weapons budgets via the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). On July 2, the Senate unanimously adopted an amendment from Sens. […]

A House Appropriations panel this week followed through with its promise not to grant a $20-billion budget request for civilian nuclear weapons programs, approving instead $18 billion for fiscal 2021 as part of a spending bill that would also forbid preparation for a nuclear yield-test, limit Pentagon influence on Department of Energy budgets, and potentially […]

The Navy portion of the House Armed Services Committee’s draft of the fiscal 2021 defense authorization bill approved last week would add two vessels over the Senate version and argued a second attack submarine is needed to maintain the schedule for Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. The final HASC markup recommends authorizing the first Columbia-class ballistic […]

William Goldstein confirmed Tuesday he will retire as director of the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, as soon as the nation’s second nuclear-design facility finishes the potentially lengthy search for a replacement. Goldstein became the Livermore, Calif., lab’s 12th director on March 31, 2014. He joined the laboratory’s Physics Directorate in 1984 and remained […]

A federal judge has delayed sentencing the former Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist who pleaded guilty to lying about his connection to a Chinese talent recruitment program, giving the defense attorney a chance to persuade the court not to send his client to prison. It is the second sentencing delay for Turab Lookman, who worked at […]

There were 23 new active cases of COVID-19 this week at National Nuclear Security Administration sites, marking a second consecutive week of double-digit increases across the civilian nuclear security enterprise. That makes for a total of 69 active cases, up from 46 just before the Independence Day holiday, a spokesperson for the semiautonomous Energy Department […]

It is “likely” that some of a group of 15 Los Alamos National Laboratory employees were internally contaminated with plutonium-238 oxide that leaked out of a ruptured glove-box glove on June 8, the Department of Energy nuclear-weapon facility said this week. “Early bioassay results indicate low level intakes are likely in some of these workers,” […]

Nuclear spending debates in Congress often pit active weapons programs against the remediation of shuttered Manhattan Project and Cold War production sites, but this year’s proceeding has lawmakers on both sides of the aisle on guard against a provision they say could permanently subordinate legacy environmental programs to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Sen. […]

National Nuclear Security Administration sites this week started receiving respirators ordered in April to help protect personnel from COVID-19. It was forward progress in a week where COVID-19 cases nationwide continued to spike, and DOE headquarters cleared more federal employees to return to Washington-area buildings in the second phase of the agency’s return-to-the-office plan. As […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management is expected to decide soon whether to keep Nuclear Waste Partnership in place as the prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. The joint partnership between Amentum (formerly AECOM Management Services) and BWX Technologies is working under the first option of its $2.4 […]

BWX Technologies and the Virginia Department of Labor and Health are still investigating the circumstances that led to the death of an employee in a sudden and brief fire two weeks ago at the company’s Lynchburg, Va., plant. “The flash fire occurred in an isolated area of the facility and no other personnel were injured,” […]

To settle a 2018 lawsuit over storage of plutonium, the Department of Energy has tentatively agreed not to send more of the weapon-usable material to Nevada. Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford announced the development in a June 26 press release summarizing the unpublished settlement between the Silver State and DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). […]

The Department of Energy’s plutonium-pit production plant in South Carolina would get a little extra scrutiny, and civilian nuclear weapons programs would receive a little more funding than requested, under the major defense policy bill approved unanimously late Wednesday by the House Armed Services Committee. At about 15 minute before midnight, the committee approved its […]

The next issue of Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor will be published on Thursday, July 2, in observance of the Independence Day holiday.

Radioactive contamination is more widespread than first thought along a road outside the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, according to the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED). The area is part of a tract of land, which includes the site of a planned housing development, transferred from LANL to Los Alamos County […]

The labor group representing some 1,450 workers at the Department of Energy’s Y-12 National Security Complex last week struck a new five-year labor deal with the Tennessee site’s Bechtel National-led manager. Members of the Atomic Trades and Labor Council (ATLC), an umbrella organization representing upward of 20 unions, ratified the agreement June 18. The previous […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) ordered 2,000 custom lapel pins at a cost of about $5.45 each from Medalcraft Mint, of Green Bay, Wis., to mark the agency’s 20th anniversary. The NNSA did not specify, in its award to Medalcraft Mint, the people to whom it plans to distribute the pins. There are enough […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory got whacked with some $300,000 in fines this month for failing to notify the New Mexico state government about eight off-site waste shipments in 2017 and 2018. The eight shipments, comprising 18 containers, happened while contractor Los Alamos National Security was still in charge of the northern New Mexico nuclear-weapon lab. […]

Like death and taxes, the federal regulatory process continues amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as evidenced by Centrus Energy’s submission of a license application to enrich a 19.75% enriched uranium fuel. The review should be finished by June 2, 2021, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). That is almost a year sooner than the deadline […]

The Department of Energy on Friday issued the final request for proposals (RFP) for a stand-alone management contract for the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina. The laboratory contract is expected to be worth $380 million per year, or potentially $3.8 billion over 10 years. The agreement carries a five-year base period and an […]

A day after the National Nuclear Security Administration announced it would not pick up the remaining options on the existing management deal for its Y-12 and Pantex sites, the Government Accountability Office on Wednesday urged the agency to study whether the outgoing contractor’s cost-saving methods could work at other nuclear-weapon sites. Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) […]

International Isotopes’ failure to adequately address the 2018 breach of a radioactive source at its Idaho headquarters contributed to a similar, larger event months later in Seattle, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Following a routine inspection earlier this year, the agency on Monday cited the Idaho Falls-based nuclear medicine company with apparent individual violations […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday reported out two nominations to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) via voice vote. The nominations of serving DNFSB member Joyce Connery and new nominee Thomas Summers now advance to the full Senate, which had not scheduled a floor vote at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & […]

Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) said Tuesday she wants the next Department of Energy budget bill to prohibit spending that contributes in any way to nuclear-explosive tests. Titus made the request during the House Appropriations Committee’s annual member day hearing, which gives congresspeople a few minutes to publicly discuss measures they want in the various spending bills […]

The Department of Defense would get more control over the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons budget under the Senate version of the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) unveiled this week. The Senate Armed Services Committee filed the text of the bill, which sets funding limits and policy for defense programs, late Tuesday evening. […]

The Department of Energy will not pick up the remaining options on Bechtel National-led Consolidated Nuclear Security’s contract to manage the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee and Pantex Plant in Texas, which now will expire after Sept. 30, 2021. Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) will leave three years’ worth of options on the table, under […]