Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

It will take a couple more weeks than earlier thought to certify it is time to begin constructing a new calciner in Building 9212 of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee: the U.S. defense-uranium hub that manufactures the secondary stages for nuclear weapons. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) “anticipates approval of the Y-12 […]

Federal contractors would get leniency for missing deliverables because of their COVID-19 response plans, and prime contractors would be in line for quicker payments, under a Democratic-authored relief bill slated for a vote Friday in the House of Representatives – and which President Donald Trump has said he would veto. The Senate’s Republican leadership also […]

Congress should keep its eye on cost overruns for the software upgrade that will make the Air Force’s version of the F-35 fighter aircraft nuclear-capable this decade by allowing the Government Accountability Office to keep investigating the program for a few more years, the congressional investigator said this week. The Block 4 package will eventually […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) order of 225,000 Chinese-made personal respirator masks will arrive, at the soonest, weeks later than hoped. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapon agency ordered the masks from suburban-Atlanta-area small business American Dream Builders on April 27 and had hoped for delivery by this past Monday, May 11. But on […]

By Cal Biesecker Defense Daily A pension benefit combined with strong operating results at its shipbuilding businesses drove a strong first quarter at Huntington Ingalls Industries, although workforce impacts at the company’s shipyards led it to forecast sales this year at the low end of prior guidance and company officials signaled uncertainty going forward. Net income […]

Honeywell, which owns or has a stake in multiple defense-nuclear site-management contractors, did better than it expected in the first quarter of 2020, but sees economic headwinds due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Quarterly net income for the period ended March 30 rose to more than $1.5 million, or $2.21 a share, from around $1.4 […]

The two senators who ordered a report about the Donald Trump administration’s attempts to sell nuclear power technology to Saudi Arabia said this week they would consider changing the law to mandate more transparency from the White House about such efforts. In a joint statement Monday, Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said […]

Centrus Energy CEO Daniel Poneman will receive the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star from the Japanese government for his work as deputy energy secretary during the Barack Obama administration. Japan will recognize Poneman for “his contributions towards enhancing the relationship between Japan and the United States of America in the energy sector,” […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) tracked five new cases of COVID-19 across its national workforce this week, raising the cumulative total since the outbreak started to 70. However, after accounting for recoveries, the count of active confirmed cases across the enterprise was down to 25, agency headquarters in Washington said Friday. The respiratory disease had […]

While some program delays are “inevitable” due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has done an adequate job of sustaining its nuclear-weapon work while minimizing the spread of disease among its workforce, the House’s top GOP military policy maker said Thursday. “There has been some criticism at NNSA, just like in […]

The White House this week shoveled more than 30 nominations to the newly returned Senate, including two for positions on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.  Former Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) Chair Joyce Connery was nominated to serve a term ending Oct. 18, 2024, while Thomas Summers, former vice commander of the 91st […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has decided it will not further extend the public comment period for an environmental review of the planned pit production plant at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Last month, at the request of constituents organized by the Santa Fe advocacy organization Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Sens. Tom […]

The Donald Trump administration this week nominated Marshall Billingslea, the former Treasury Department antiterrorism official nominally in charge of nuclear arms control negotiations, as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. Billingslea, as special presidential envoy for arms control, is already the point person for the White House’s more-or-nothing attempt to secure a […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) is giving the Department of Energy a little more time to respond to a recommendation against proceeding with proposed changes to federal nuclear safety management rules. “The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has received your April 27, 2020, letter requesting a 45-day extension to provide a response regarding […]

BWX Technologies brought in $542 million in first-quarter 2020 revenue, 30% more than the $416 million generated during the first three months of 2019. Net income for the period ended March 31 amounted to $75.5 million, $0.79 per diluted share, a significant year-over-year jump from $49 million, $0.51 per diluted share, the Lynchburg, Va.-based company […]

A panel of federal appeals judges this week appeared split about whether the law allows the Department of Energy to pay South Carolina $200 million for warehousing tons of plutonium at the Savannah River Site since 2016. The Energy Department does not deny that it would be on the hook for those fines  — written […]

Contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security dodged more than $1 million in fines from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for criticality safety violations in 2017 and 2018 at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee. At issue were accumulations of fissile material in processing equipment housed in Building 9212, the Cold War-era uranium processing facility at […]

By Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily The global economic hardship creates by the COVID-19 pandemic gouged Boeing’s first-quarter financial results, mainly in its commercial businesses, but even the defense segment reported top- and bottom-line declines. The KC-46A aerial refueling tanker being developed and built for the Air Force took an $827 million pre-tax charge, with $551 […]

The Air Force probably will not award a contract to build next-generation, silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles more than a month or two earlier than planned, the chief executive of presumptive prime Northrop Grumman said Wednesday morning during a conference call with investors. That would put the award around July or August. Northrop looks like a […]

A story in the April 24 issue of Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor should have said the National Nuclear Security Administration was tracking 65 cumulative cases of COVID-19. The agency reported the incorrect number of cases that day, due to what a spokesperson called an “administrative error.”

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic delayed General Dynamics deliveries of business jets in the first quarter, sending sales and net income lower. The company’s defense businesses overall reported slightly higher sales and profit. Net income fell 5 percent to $706 million, $2.43 earnings a share, from $745 million, or $2.56 a share, lagging consensus estimates by […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Pantex Plant in Texas said Monday it has assembled the “first production capability unit” of the W88 Alt-370 submarine-launched nuclear warhead, a precursor to the first production unit intended to prove the entire warhead design is ready for mass manufacturing. The phrase “first production capability unit” officially debuted in […]

New Mexico’s delegation to the U.S. Senate last week asked the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to further delay into mid-June the public comment period on an environmental review of pit production at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich (both D-N.M.). wrote to NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty on April 22. […]

The primary obstacle to the Department of Energy’s plan for diluting and disposing of surplus plutonium deep underground in New Mexico is scaling up the technology and workforce to do the job, a National Academies panel said Thursday in a long-awaited final report. At the same time, the congressionally chartered group warned, DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear […]

The Department of State has framed deployment of a low-yield warhead aboard U.S. submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles as a means of preventing a nuclear arms race. The agency’s 10-page, election-year publication is part of a series of Arms Control and International Security Papers and takes aim at most critiques against the low-yield warhead leveled by Democrats […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) might lose political support in Congress for a key mission if the U.S.-Russia New START nuclear arms control treaty lapses, the immediate past head of the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency said this week. About 80% of lawmakers on Capitol Hill support both nuclear arms modernization and international nuclear […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Monday it had issued a roughly $240,000 fixed-price contract to a small business in Georgia to provide almost a quarter-million, Chinese-made, KN95-style respirator masks for its contractor and federal employees. “This order is to procure masks for NNSA to meet expected demand when employees return to work,” an agency […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is willing to let Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) personnel attend meetings of the secretive Nuclear Explosives Safety Study Group at the Pantex Plant in Texas on a “trial” basis, according to a letter published this week. The two federal agencies have fought since 2018 over whether DNFSB […]