Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Fluor is receiving strong interest as it seeks a buyer for the government contracting business that does work for the U.S. Department of Energy and other federal agencies, CEO Carlos Hernandez said this week. “The interest in that business is very, very substantial,” Hernandez said Wednesday during an appearance at the Credit Suisse 7th Annual […]

The U.S. Department of Energy and anti-nuclear activists seeking to stop construction of the Uranium Processing Facility in Tennessee could find themselves in an appeals court in January to argue about a lower court’s September decision that forced a partial federal redo of the facilty’s environmental review. The public won’t know until 2020 exactly what […]

The Russian Federation appeared this week to support an unconditional and immediate extension of the New START nuclear arms-control treaty with the United States in the next three weeks or so, according to an official translation on the Kremlin’s website. “Russia is ready to immediately, as soon as possible, right before the end of this […]

NS&D Monitor was thankful to get a couple days off for the holiday during the week of Nov. 25, but nuclear news continued to pour in like gravy. Collected below are a few of the tastier leftovers from the short week.   Energy Dept. Still Struggling With Cybersecurity, IG Finds The U.S. National Nuclear Security […]

Dan Brouillette was sworn in Wednesday as the 15th U.S. secretary of energy, after the Senate voted 70-15 to confirm him for the Cabinet spot earlier this week, a Department of Energy spokesperson said. Brouillette had served since 2017 as the deputy secretary of energy under Rick Perry, who resigned as secretary effective Sunday. The […]

Congress had not produced a compromise National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2020 as of Friday morning, prolonging a lack of authorization for key nuclear modernization programs. It was a week of whiplash predictions from top defense authorizers Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), who in the aggregate appeared less certain of […]

The U.S. Senate will vote Dec. 2, its first day back in Washington after Thanksgiving holiday break, on Dan Brouillette’s nomination to head the U.S. Department of Energy. The floor vote should occur around 5:30 p.m. ET that day, according to a Thursday Twitter post by the Senate’s Republican majority staff. Earlier Thursday, the Senate […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) strategy to reboot its tritium-production enterprise went about as smoothly as it could have in fiscal 2019. And even if it is not a perfect microcosm of the whole nuclear security enterprise, it’s tough to ignore the similarities. First, as with just about everything else it makes or […]

A Bechtel subsidiary on Nov. 15 received three contract modifications worth over $1.4 billion in total to supply parts for the federal Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. The U.S. Navy issued cost-plus-fixed-fee modifications for existing awards to Bechtel Plant Machinery, based in Monroeville, Pa. The modifications are respectively worth $913.5 million, $483.7 million, and $31.8 million. […]

The U.S. government on Nov. 15 urged a federal judge to dismiss a revised lawsuit from the state of Nevada requesting the removal of half-a-metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium from the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). The U.S. District Court for Nevada “lacks subject matter jurisdiction to decide this matter because Plaintiff […]

Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor will not be published on Nov. 29 in observance of the Thanksgiving Day holiday. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Dec. 6.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday reaffirmed the Trump administration’s disinterest in renewing a strictly bilateral U.S.-Russian New START nuclear arms control treaty past its expiration in February 2021. As President Donald Trump and other administration officials have previously, Pompeo indicated China must be brought into the nuclear arms-control fold. “President Trump will never […]

Just over six years after the last U.S.-built uranium enrichment centrifuge closed down, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is poised to take a milestone step: choosing a technology to power the next domestic, defense-uranium-enrichment cascade. It’s a major, if preliminary, step toward a world in which the United States no longer relies on the […]

AECOM said Friday that CEO and Chairman Michael Burke plans to retire by next year, either once his successor is found or ahead of the company’s 2020 yearly shareholders meeting scheduled for March. Burke will be the last executive to hold the dual title, the Los Angeles-based infrastructure and engineering multinational said in a press […]

A multinational medical isotope company jumped the gun in demanding that the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) “show cause” against termination of its application for a federal license to export weapon-grade uranium to Europe, according to a lawyer for the agency. In any case, the argument laid out by Curium has no merit, NNSA […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday advanced three of the four Trump administration nominations for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). The nominees approved on voice vote were: Bruce Hamilton, current DNFSB chairman; current board member Jessie Hill Roberson; and Thomas Summers, former vice commander of the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air […]

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed another stopgap spending bill that will keep the federal government running nearly three months into the 2020 budget year. Major news organizations reported the president signed the agreement after the Senate earlier in the day voted 74-20 to pass a House amendment that extends the current continuing resolution to […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Tuesday it has reached a contract closeout settlement with the company that was hired to build and operate a now-terminated plutonium recycling plant at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. The settlement covers all “contract closeout matters” with MOX Services, according to a press release from […]

The U.S. Department of Energy should be required to “show cause” why the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should not dismiss its license application for shipment of weapon-grade uranium to Europe, according to a company that opposes the request. Failing that, Curium and other parties should be authorized to intervene in the NRC proceeding, according to a […]

Parsons this week posted higher third-quarter earnings due to a tax benefit, sales up on acquisitions in its Federal Solutions Segment, and to a lesser degree on an increase in organic revenue. Net income climbed 38% to $56.8 million, $0.57 earnings per share (EPS), from $41.2 million ($0.52 EPS), the company reported Tuesday. Adjusted earnings […]

International Isotopes said Thursday it incurred over $2.1 million in expenses through the end of September in connection with a radiological contamination incident last spring that occurred as its workers were removing a blood irradiator from a hospital research facility in Seattle. However, the Idaho Falls, Idaho, nuclear medicine company said it also received $964,958 […]

AECOM, the international infrastructure company that is preparing its exit from contracting for the U.S. Energy Department, on Tuesday reported record annual revenue but a net loss for its fiscal 2019. Company-wide revenue of almost $20.2 billion was up 2% from $20.15 billion in fiscal 2018, according to AECOM’s latest earnings report. But the net […]

Senior members of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee this week requested communications between the Department of Energy and Centrus Energy Corp. as part of a bipartisan probe into the award of a sole-source $115 million uranium-enrichment contract. In a nine-page Nov. 13 letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Deputy Energy Secretary Dan […]

U.S. Air Force Gen. John Hyten is scheduled to officially turn over command of U.S. Strategic Command to Navy Vice Adm. Charles Richard next week. The change of command ceremony is to take place Nov. 18, following a dedication ceremony for STRATCOM’s new command and control facility at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., according to […]

Dan Leone and Vivienne Machi WASHINGTON — Questionable “competence” within U.S. Air Force procurement ranks helped turn a competition to build a fleet of next-generation nuclear ballistic missiles into a one-horse race, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said here Wednesday. Proposals to build and deploy the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), silo-based missiles […]

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) dinged the National Nuclear Security Administration recently for not providing 10 years’ worth of cost forecasts in an annual report to Congress on defense nuclear spending. The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency by law must write a joint report each year with the Defense Department profiling the expected costs […]

The U.S. Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons programs would be funded at prior-year levels almost through the end of December, under a second stopgap spending plan announced Thursday to keep the federal government operating while Congress tries to finalize its fiscal 2020 budget. Meanwhile, the top Democrat and Republican members of the House and Senate […]

WASHINGTON — Dan Brouillette, who a few years ago was lobbying for the insurance industry and now is on track to join President Donald Trump’s Cabinet as secretary of energy, cruised Thursday morning through a Senate nomination hearing that briefly crossed wires with presidential impeachment proceedings in the House. With approval from the Senate, Brouillette […]