Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Air Force Global Strike Command is looking to boost its number of bomber aircraft through 2040 and incorporate a number of new weapon systems on the fleet, even as dozens of current bombers may be retired by 2036. The service’s fiscal year 2021 presidential budget request included plans to cut 17 B-1B Lancer aircraft from […]

There were 51 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Friday among personnel working at sites housing National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) operations, up from 26 a week ago and nine the week before that. Spokespersons for the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency and its sites generally declined to say which cases were at which locations. But […]

The president of General Dynamics Electric Boat has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus while the company confirmed further changes to the workforce configuration to limit the disease’s spread within its facilities. In an April 4 message to employees, Electric Boat President Kevin Graney disclosed he has tested positive for the pandemic virus, noting his […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee called off an exchange of letters and statements about the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons budget that was scheduled for Thursday between lawmakers and top managers from the agency and the Pentagon. The committee had not announced a makeup date at deadline for the so-called paper hearing, which was delayed […]

Honeywell executive Eric Wollerman on April 30 will become president of the subsidary that manages the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Kansas City, Mo., National Security Campus. At the end of the month, the buck will stops with Wollerman at the NNSA-owned manufacturing hub for the non-nuclear parts of nuclear weapons. The Honeywell Federal Manufacturing […]

Essential federal workers, including those at National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plants that have not paused operations amid the COVID-19 pandemic, should have access to protective equipment and daily testing for the virus, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said this week. “Every day, if you go to work at the White House, […]

All but one of the main Department of Energy nuclear weapons production sites have now hunkered down into minimum mission-critical operations because of COVID-19, keeping only the personnel needed to assemble nuclear weapons and components, maintain key infrastructure, or provide security. The Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak […]

Because of COVID-19, the management and operations contractor for two of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) nuclear weapon-production sites may not know until June whether it will be kept on the job into 2023 and what fee it earned last year. “Due to the ongoing COVID-19 national emergency, the contractor notification date for the CNS [Consolidated […]

A recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report update lays out how the COVID-19 pandemic could impact the Navy’s shipbuilding programs and noted what action Congress has taken in the past to mitigate other events. The report, Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress, was last updated March 27. It notes COVID-19 […]

A longtime employee of the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has filed a lawsuit under the Americans With Disabilities Act against facility management and operations contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS). The case was filed last week in the Second Judicial Circuit of the South Carolina Court of Common Pleas by Richard […]

The Pentagon has agreed to tidy up records of responses to three Obama-era reviews of its nuclear infrastructure, personnel and programs, according to the unclassified version of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report from the fall. The three internal reports made hundreds of recommendations, but the Defense Department has done a poor job tracking which […]

International Isotopes said Tuesday it would no longer provide radiological field services for the Department of Energy, after the federal agency put a hold on all existing contracts in the wake of a cesium-137 spill last May during a job in Seattle. “Regardless of the DOE’s future plans for field service contracts, it is unlikely […]

A 6.5 magnitude earthquake shook Idaho at around 6 p.m. local time Tuesday, with the epicenter about 120 miles from the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory, the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed. “While ground shaking was felt, there was no damage to any INL facilities,” INL spokesperson Sarah Neumann said in a Wednesday email. It was […]

The Defense Nuclear Safety Facilities Board (DNFSB) is urging its inspectors and staff to press their newly bolstered authority to inspect Department of Energy defense-nuclear sites, as codified by Congress last year. Congress, at least in the board’s interpretation, used the National Defense Authorization Act of 2020 to short-circuit DOE Order 140.1, which was written by […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapon sites are modifying confinement vessels for planned underground subcritical plutonium experiments, after one such vessel blew a leak last year. A confinement vessel is designed to contain an explosive compression of plutonium metal, which is rigged to bring the material to the brink of a fission chain reaction. Observing that […]

The United States and Russia were each deploying fewer strategic nuclear weapons as of March 1 than they did six months earlier, according to the Department of State’s latest data on the bilateral New START nuclear treaty. Since the last official State-published tally in September 2019, Russia cut more strategic warheads from its arsenal than […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and Nevada have agreed in principle to settle a 2018 state lawsuit contesting the shipment of 500 kilograms of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium to the Nevada National Security Site. “The parties are currently working diligently to finalize the necessary documents and to obtain final government settlement approvals,” attorneys for the state […]

The House Armed Services Committee’s (HASC) annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) markup will be delayed as the United States issues more guidelines to counter the COVID-19 pandemic. Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) this week postponed the fiscal 2021 NDAA markup originally scheduled for April 30. There was no make-up date at deadline Friday, but Smith […]

Department of Energy contractors and subcontractors, including those working for the National Nuclear Security Administration, can be indemnified from damages arising from work to counter COVID-19, under a determination published this week  by Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette. “The unprecedented magnitude and challenges associated with responding to COVID-19 present significant potential – even if remote – […]

Nearly a month after COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, production of Centrus Energy Corp.’s new all-domestic enrichment cascade in Ohio is one of the first projects for the Department of Energy fearing delays from the viral outbreak. “We are continuing to make progress but we anticipate that there could be impacts on the project […]

Constellis, owner of Energy Department contractor Centerra Group, said Monday its lenders have approved an overhaul of the company’s debt package that should strengthen its balance sheet. The debt for equity exchanges received consent from 100% of term loan and revolving lenders, according to a Constellis press release. As a result, Constellis is cutting its […]

The Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility in South Carolina, like its planned counterpart in New Mexico, would be able to handle the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) planned plutonium pit production mission on its own if needed, according to an environmental document released Thursday. The NNSA draft environmental impact statement also examines the effects of […]

Morgan Smith, president and CEO for the Department of Enegy’s manager for the Pantex Plant in Texas and Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, is in quarantine at home after possible exposure to someone who displayed symptoms of COVID-19, sources said Friday. Smith is isolating at home after coming into proximity with a symptomatic individual […]

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 soared to 26 from nine across the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) national network of sites, laboratories, and production facilities, according to an official tally Friday by agency headquarters in Washington, D.C. The tally includes both NNSA-owned sites, and facilities where some NNSA-affiliated personnel are present.  The NNSA declined to say […]

Top Navy officials have not seen any shipyard delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic yet, but they are expecting and planning for future issues. “[T]o date we haven’t seen any sort of perturbations in that right now but we are anticipating that there will be, and we’re looking at what that might cost with respect […]

The Waste Management Symposia on Tuesday said both attendees at this year’s event who showed signs of possible COVID-19 infection had tested negative. Test results for “Attendee #1” were received Tuesday, one day after the results for “Attendee #2,” according to a statement from James Gallagher, chairman of the board for the annual nuclear cleanup […]

The containment vessel that blew a leak during a subcritical nuclear test last year in Nevada was not properly designed or procured, the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory concluded in a final report about the accident. The independent federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) summarized the lab’s unreleased report in a recent monthly review […]

South Carolina’s attempt to wrench hundreds of millions of dollars in fines over Department of Energy management of plutonium in the state is headed to oral arguments before a panel of appeals judges May 5, according to a recent court filing. The South Carolina state government has been trying to extract the money from DOE […]