Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

As Secretary of State Michael Pompeo flew this week to Saudi Arabia in the wake of missile attacks on the nation’s oil industry, Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) urged him and Energy Secretary Rick Perry to break off nuclear technology negotiations with the U.S. ally. “Sharing nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia, especially […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), a six-term congressman representing the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex, said he does not want to succeed Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) in the Senate. “I’m not going anywhere,” Fleischmann, 56, said during a presentation last week at the National Cleanup Workshop, an […]

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Keeping the threat of a bid protest in his back pocket, a Boeing Co. executive said here Tuesday the U.S. Air Force can save time and money building the next generation of nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles by scrapping a competition in which only Northrop Grumman is now competing. “What I am suggesting […]

Northrop Grumman on Wednesday announced changes to its organization and leadership it argued will better align portfolios. The company said there will be four modified operating sectors: Aeronautics Systems, Defense Systems, Mission Systems, and Space Systems. Changes will be effective Jan. 1, 2020. Northrop is a major contractor on the bomber leg of the U.S. nuclear […]

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – The U.S. Air Force is considering whether to move funding from the B-1B Lancer program to buy additional next-generation B-21 bombers in the fiscal 2021 budget, as changes are considered for the overall future of the aging bomber force. Accelerating procurement of the Northrop Grumman-developed B-21 Raider is a priority for the service, […]

As Congress moves to fund Department of Energy conversion of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) into a new nuclear-weapon parts plant, a federal attorney is urging the Supreme Court to bury a South Carolina lawsuit that seeks to block the government from shuttering the facility. Redeploying the same legal argument that helped seal […]

Senate appropriators could slow the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) plan to award a uranium purification-and-conversion contract to BWX Technologies, according to a report accompanying the upper chamber’s fiscal 2020 energy and water spending bill. The planned contract is the semiautonomous Department of Energy branch’s way of ensuring it has enough uranium to complete scheduled nuclear […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would be funded at an annualized level that is nearly 10% lower than requested for nearly the first two months of fiscal 2020, under a stopgap spending bill approved Thursday by the House of Representatives. In a 301-123 vote, with 76 Republicans joining 225 Democrats in support, the […]

The head of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) was briefly on President Donald Trump’s short list to replace John Bolton as national security adviser, media reported Tuesday. However, Trump on Wednesday announced via Twitter he had selected Robert O’Brien, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs at the State Department and a former […]

A Department of Energy budget bill that is working its way through the Senate would prohibit the independent federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) from reorganizing its small bureaucracy without Congress’ permission. The prohibition against reorganization unless “specifically authorized by law” is part of the fiscal 2020 energy and water development spending bill that got mired in […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security confirmed Wednesday it is investigating “potential discrepancies” between the hours employees at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, say they worked and the hours recorded by badge readers at the nation’s only nuclear-weapons assembly site. The local NBC affiliate, KAMR-TV, first reported the news. The Bechtel National-led Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) in […]

Minutes after President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that John Bolton would leave his job as national security adviser, voices in the arms control community wondered if the White House now would be more likely to extend the New START nuclear-weapon treaty with Russia. “Is there hope for the New START Treaty?” Madelyn Creedon, principal deputy administrator […]

With congressional negotiations set to begin next week on the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, the White House asked the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee not to cut development of new proliferation-detection technologies at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The Senate’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed in […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will flex up the Kansas City National Security Complex’s manufacturing capacity by leasing some 275,000 square feet of industrial space about a mile from the nuclear security enterprise’s main components shop, according to an environmental notice published Monday. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency plans to […]

The U.S. Air Force is not encouraging or discouraging a possible proposal where Boeing and Northrop Grumman team up to build the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, Air Force Assistant Secretary for Acquisition Will Roper told reporters on the sidelines of a recent industry conferece. “We are looking for the proposal that is best value to the […]

Two senior Democrats on Tuesday requested that the U.S. Congressional Budget Office evaluate the potential costs to the United States from expiration of the New START nuclear arms control treaty. The 2011 accord prohibits the United States and Russia from deploying more than 1,550 strategic warheads on a maximum of 700 fielded long-range delivery systems. […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would get every penny it seeks in fiscal 2020, and then some, under legislation advanced Thursday by the Senate Appropriations Committee. The energy and water bill sent to the full Senate would give the agency just under $17 billion for the budget year starting Oct. 1: about $425 million above […]

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday advanced legislation that would provide $65 million more than the White House requested for fiscal 2020 for the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation, nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile. The Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) program would receive $635 million for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, under the 2020 Defense Appropriations Act. The […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) hopes to receive a briefing in early October from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) regarding criticality safety at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee. Board member Joyce Connery, writing on behalf of DNFSB Chairman Bruce Hamilton, indicated in an Aug. 23 letter to NNSA Administrator Lisa […]

After three days of bracing for impact from Hurricane Dorian, officials at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site determined Friday that the storm was no longer a local threat as it moved up the North Carolina coast. According to the emergency status page for the 310-square-mile site near Aiken, S.C., “there are currently no Operational Emergencies or scheduled delays for […]

ARLINGTON, Va. — It could take 18 months longer than thought to finish a pair of crucial nuclear weapon refurbishments, a senior National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) official said here Wednesday. The first production units of the B61-12 gravity bomb and the W88 Alt-370 submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead are “going to be delayed by approximately 16 […]

It will take at least “the next several months” to clean up a cesium-137 spill from May at a University of Washington medical research building in Seattle, a spokesperson for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Thursday. The public has been barred from the seven-floor Research and Training Building near the Harborview Medical […]

The U.S. Department of Energy has until late September to either accept or reject the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s (DNFSB) recommendation that the agency fix perceived safety defects at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, the board said in a recent letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. According to the Aug. 22 letter, newly […]

Andrew McIlroy has become associate laboratories director for the Sandia National Laboratories California campus in Livermore, Calif., the New Mexico-based laboratory system said Wednesday. McIlroy now will lead the smaller, satellite campus of the main U.S. nuclear-weapon engineering laboratory, which employs about 1,000 people. Among other things, the campus includes the combustion research facility that studies […]

Calling the Department of Energy’s 2018 shipment of plutonium to Nevada a “nuclear incident” and a nuisance, the state is asking a federal judge to boot half a metric ton of the fissile material out of the Nevada National Security Site (NSS) and prohibit further shipments. The draft amended complaint filed late last week is the latest […]

Senate Democrats — led by a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Democratic presidential candidate — are calling on committee leaders to adopt several House-passed measures that would ban low-yield missiles deployment and extend the New START Treaty during future conference sessions over the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. Sen. Elizabeth Warren […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Wednesday it had completed the last of four new funding agreements for private manufacturing of the medical isotope molybdenum-99. This means Northwest Medical Isotopes, of Corvallis, Ore., will now receive $15 million from the NNSA that it must fully match. The announcement comes almost five weeks after […]