Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

After a truncated hearing season filled with furrowed brows, skepticism, and hawkish posturing about unspent appropriations, the House Armed Services Committee is authorizing even more funding than the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) requested for fiscal year 2021 — and they’re not even cutting a submarine from the Navy to do it. Committee staff made […]

Centerra Group, the incumbent provider of paramilitary security at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, has withdrawn a Government Accountability Office (GAO) protest over procurement of a follow-on contract. Centerra filed the protest May 8, but then withdrew it on June 9, according to a notice posted on the GAO website. The […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) was tracking fewer active cases of COVID-19 across the civilian nuclear weapons complex this week, but the agency revised its tally to exclude Department of Energy employees in other branches. That cut 26 cases out of the agency’s weekly tally, which the NNSA  has shared with Nuclear Security & […]

Department of Energy contractor Strategic Management Solutions Inc. (SMSI) has hired industry veteran Matthew Nuckols for the newly created position of executive vice president. A civil engineer, Nuckols has 25 years of project and program management experience at sites within the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management and semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) complexes, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) this month formally marked the end of its program to downblend 10 metric tons of excess highly enriched uranium when it closed out a contract with Westinghouse Government Services. According to the Government Accountability Office, Westinghouse planned to sell the resulting low-enriched uranium to the Tennessee Valley Authority, which uses […]

Lockheed Martin on Monday completed its planned leadership transition, with James Taiclet entering as its new president and CEO. He succeeds Marillyn Hewson, who remains with the company as executive chairman. Taiclet, 60, will continue to serve on the company’s board, which he joined in 2018. Before leading Lockheed Martin, Taiclet was chairman, president, and CEO […]

Nora Khalil is leaving the National Nuclear Security Administration to become the lead Republican staffer on the Senate Appropriations panel that writes the agency’s annual budget bill each year,  a source familiar with the move said. Khalil is now the agency’s associate administrator for external affairs. She will replace Adam DeMella, who is leaving Sen. […]

Nuclear industry journeyman John Meyers has been hired to run point on TechSource’s business with the Department of Energy and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration. The Los Alamos, N.M., company in May hired Meyers as vice president for federal nuclear programs, making him the “principal officer for all National Nuclear Security Administration and Department of Energy […]

After it leaked to the media that the Senate’s annual defense authorization act for fiscal 2021 had a sliver of funding for nuclear-explosive test readiness, the five Democrats of Nevada’s congressional delegation released a letter to the White House condemning any return to testing. “With no stated justification to resume testing, we unequivocally oppose any […]

The Department of Energy is close to finalizing revisions to the federal regulation governing nuclear safety management at its facilities, according to a letter the agency recently sent to the federal government’s independent health and safety watchdog. The agency sent the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) a copy of the draft final rule on […]

In an official report to Congress about tritium-safety oversight, the Department of Energy again sought to avoid a legal fight about whether its workforce is subject to recommendations from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). The independent federal agency feared the Energy Department might have rejected a 2019 recommendation to bolster the Savannah River Site’s […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security in 2017 took a paycheck’s worth of wages from thousands of employees at Department of Energy’s Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, three employees alleged in a federal lawsuit. The short, estimated to be at least $10 million across the affected group, happened after the Bechtel National-led site management contractor shifted to […]

Fluor is paying over $1.1 million in separation agreements to two recently departed executives, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Executive Vice President for Systems and Supply Chain Ray Barnard is being paid a lump sump of $620,000, and Executive Vice President, Energy and Chemicals—Business Development and Strategy Jose Bustamante is receiving $525,000, […]

There were eight new cases of COVID-19 across the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) nuclear weapons complex this week, as agency headquarters remobilized additional personnel sent home during the pandemic and the Pantex Plant in Texas prepared to do the same. That makes for a total of 107 cases at the NNSA since January, when officials […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday voted almost unanimously in favor of promoting Undersecretary of Energy Mark Menezes to the No. 2 position at the Department of Energy. In the panel’s voice vote, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) raised the sole objection to advancing Menezes toward confirmation as deputy secretary of energy […]

The Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG) has re-elected Huntington Ingalls Industries nuclear and environmental group President Michael Lempke as chairman of its Board of Directors for another year. Sandra Fairchild, project services and support director of Energy Department Savannah River Site cleanup contractor Savannah River Remediation, was elected vice chair of the organization that represents […]

The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Air Force Gen. Charles Brown to become the next chief of staff by a vote of 98-0, ensuring Brown becomes the first African-American to lead the service. Brown currently serves as the commander of Pacific Air Forces, the air component command commander for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, and the executive director […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) agreed to share a strategic management plan it is preparing for sustaining microelectronics infrastructure at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico with the Government Accountability Office, which wants the nuclear-weapon agency to appoint a more powerful manager for the program. The plan will be ready around December 2020, […]

Tuesday was a good night for congressional incumbents in Nevada, who easily overcame primary challenges. The state’s four members of the House of Representatives all advanced to the Nov. 3 general election, according to unofficial results from the Nevada Secretary of State. Five-term Rep. Dina Titus (D) took home over 86% of the vote against […]

Nikki Grover was on June 12 to become chief financial officer for the Bechtel-led team managing the Department of Energy’s Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The chief financial officer for Consolidated Nuclear Security “oversees the financial activities at both sites,” according to the contractor’s website. Grover […]

The B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is building will work with the Boeing-built F-15E Strike Eagle, the Sandia National Laboratories said last week. “Sandia National Laboratories and the Air Force conducted the full-weapon system demonstration under a full end-to-end test scenario, demonstrating operational crews, representative carriage, release conditions and weapon […]

Five Democratic lawmakers, led by the chairs of House committees that control nuclear weapons budgets and policy, on Monday demanded that the Department of Energy and the Pentagon explain recently reported discussions about resuming nuclear explosive tests. The powerful House committee leaders want written answers to six questions by June 22 and a briefing from […]

As it holds out hope for some role in building the next generation of U.S. nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, Boeing continues modernizing parts of the existing fleet, including adding the ability to remotely update launch codes at all 450 missile silos. The maker of the current Minuteman III fleet, which in 2019 exited the Air Force […]

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) on Thursday made good on his promise to sharply increase the budget for Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs at the expense of the Navy’s attack submarines. The committee’s roughly $740-billion 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) would authorize the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) request for […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina had to set aside some N95-style masks last month after testing revealed the face wear could not filter enough particulates to be considered a personal respirator capable of protecting users from COVID-19. The independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) disclosed the issue in its […]

Defense contractors would not get much reimbursement for the costs of responding to COVID-19 in the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act briefed this week by the Senate Armed Services Committee, which wants appropriators to handle that work. The $740-billion legislation, approved by the committee Wednesday, authorizes some $45 million in COVID-19 “for vaccine and […]

Due “in part to a discrepancy in one site’s data,” the number of active COVID-19 cases among the National Nuclear Security Administration’s network of facilities rose to 33 this week from 23 a week ago, an agency spokesperson said Friday. That brings the total number of cases at the nuclear weapons agency to 99, since […]