Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

As part of a much larger spending request, the White House has requested $28 million in emergency 2020 funding to help the Department of Energy telework during the COVID-19 pandemic. The DOE share will pay “for additional information technology requirements and telework support, also including increased cybersecurity costs, in response to coronavirus,” according to a […]

By Richard Abott Defense Daily A bipartisan group of over 100 lawmakers pushed House appropriators in a letter to fund a second Virginia-class submarine in the fiscal 2021 defense budget bill. Led by the chairman and ranking member of the House Armed Services seapower subcommittee, Reps. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) and Rob Wittman (R-Va.), the letter […]

A federal judge last week rejected a request to dismiss the government’s February 2019 fraud lawsuit against a former contractor and subcontractor for the Department of Energy’s never-completed plutonium recycling plant at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Project prime MOX Services and subcontractor Wise Services failed to explain why the case should be […]

Nevada and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) are attempting to resolve the lawsuit seeking the immediate removal of 500 kilograms of weapon-usable plutonium from the Nevada National Security Site, court papers filed Tuesday show. To comply with a court order in a separate federal lawsuit, the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency shipped […]

Someone at Minot Air Force Base, home to a missile wing that operates nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles, tested positive for COVID-19, according to an announcement this week. “There is 1 positive case of COVID-19 of an adult, non-military member on base,” Minot stated Wednesday on its official Twitter account. “[B]ase leadership has declared a public health […]

James Taiclet will become president and  chief executive officer of aerospace and defense titan Lockheed Martin, of Bethesda, Md., effective June 15. He will succeed Marillyn Hewson, who has led the company since 2013, according to a press release. Taiclet, who came up in the defense industry through Pratt & Whitney and was later president […]

President Donald Trump will nominate a familiar face, Joyce Connery, to serve a new term on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), the White House said Tuesday morning. If confirmed by the Senate, Connery would serve a term expiring Oct. 18, 2025, according to the intent to nominate announcement. Initially nominated by President Barack […]

On top of the $6.5 billion required to build the Uranium Processing Facility by 2026, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will have to spend nearly $1 billion to modernize other facilities needed to support the next-generation weapon-uranium hub, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The spending figure comes from an integrated master schedule […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is soliciting bids for a potential five-year contract, encompasssing a one-year base and four single-year options, to store low-enriched uranium required for tritium production. The semiautonomous Department of Energy branch, civilian steward of the U.S. nuclear weapon stockpile, released the solicitation last week. The agency wants new deals in place […]

Despite massive work-pattern shifts at a couple of the nuclear weapons laboratories due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the first recorded case at Department of Energy headquarters in Washington, D.C., production sites under the agency’s National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) were operating without disruption as of Friday. Even as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in […]

By Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily Northrop Grumman on Thursday said it can’t currently predict the impact on its business from the COVID-19 pandemic but warned investors of potential increased borrowing costs and of potential disruptions to its customers and operations. In addition to higher capital costs and limits to capital, the company warned that “If […]

The Department of Energy’s three nuclear weapons laboratories had all widely expanded teleworking Friday due to COVID-19, with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California taking drastic measures as its host county went into lockdown. After lagging behind the other two labs, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico said Tuesday it had implemented […]

The Department of Energy should retool its proposed changes to the federal regulation governing nuclear safety management, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said Friday. This is the third recommendation from the independent federal nuclear health and safety watchdog to the Donald Trump administration and addresses a slate of changes DOE proposed to the […]

A federal judge last week dismissed a discrimination lawsuit filed by a former employee of the security contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, ruling there was no proof race played a role in the worker’s termination. In the March 6 order, U.S. District Judge Terry Wooten ruled in favor […]

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday told senators that industry is ready for and able to build two Virginia-class attack submarines in fiscal 2021, even though the administration’s budget request would fund only one. The Navy is under a Block V multiyear procurement contract that covers nine vessels with an option for a 10th. […]

The head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) should serve a fixed term, a National Academies panel said this week in an interim report on a four-and-a-half-year study into nuclear security governance. The National Academies panel did not say how long the NNSA administrator should serve. However, the group did cite the findings of a […]

Confirming what appeared intuitively obvious, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Tuesday the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico will have to manufacture 80 nuclear-weapon cores a year by itself in 2030, if a planned facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina is not ready by then. Planned upgrades for Los Alamos’s […]

There were no documented cases of COVID-19 among Department of Energy federal or contractor personnel at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, although one contractor was being tested for the disease. This person works for Mission Support Alliance, of Richland, Wash., the site-wide support services contractor for the sprawling, remote Hanford Site in […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) posted an open hearing that was scheduled for next week in Aiken, S.C., about the future of the Savannah River Site. The independent federal nuclear health and safety watchdog temporarily called off the event because of witness availability, and has not rescheduled it yet, a board spokesperson said […]

WASHINGTON — Some new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent intercontinental ballistic missiles might be deployed into silos with warheads from their predecessor, the Minuteman III, a senior National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) official said here this week. The fleet of next-generation missiles will use about a 50-50 mix of old W87-0 warheads, used on Minuteman III today, […]

Jury selection and trial are slated for late June in a $75,000 negligence lawsuit against the management and operations contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. According to a scheduling order filed Friday, Henry Bradley’s case against Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) will head to trial on or after June […]

As budget hearing season ramps up in Washington, D.C., hearings of a different kind are scheduled elsewhere in two court cases touching the nuclear security enterprise: one involving a former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist who pleaded guilty to lying about ties to China, another involving weapon-usable plutonium sent to Nevada for safekeeping. First, Turab […]

Age, like the budget, is sometimes just a number, as Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) hopes to prove in a sixth Senate term, candidacy for which the pro-nuclear Armed Services chair announced this week in an ad that appeared to feature him flying upside down in an airplane. Inhofe famously has said he will stop running […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is contemplating ways to cope with further spread of the novel coronavirus that broke out in China last year, potentially including postponing conferences and other events, a spokesperson said Thursday. The agency “has established a Unified Coordination Group from throughout the agency to assess the potential effect of a […]

Future efforts to secure Russian nuclear material left after from the Cold War are likely to bear little resemblance to the gold-standard programs of the past, if any get off the ground in the current era of significantly worsened relations between Washington and Moscow, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a recent report. “[T]he […]

WASHINGTON — At Congress’ direction, the Department of Energy is revising a controversial order that curtailed the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s (DNFSB) access to nuclear sites and personnel, Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette said Thursday. “We’re in the process of revising the order and I will be meeting with the DNFSB and we’ll have […]

Two of the Senate’s reliable nuclear skeptics last week asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the budget increase the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is seeking for the 2021 fiscal year. Among other things, the GAO should determine why the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency’s Weapons Activities budget needs a much greater increase […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is selling its own version of a funding skirmish within the Department of Energy that ended in January with President  Donald Trump approving a much larger raise for the civilian nuclear-weapons agency than expected — and they’re getting buy-in on Capitol Hill. The NNSA’s $19.8 billion budget request for […]