Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

It’s clear that Boeing, which designed, built, and serviced every Minuteman missile since the venerable launcher became the backbone of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, does not like any of the options available to it under the Air Force’s current procurement for the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD). That’s why the company quit the competition to build the […]

Longenecker & Associates promoted Mike Briggs to the newly created post of group vice president for High-Hazard Operations support, the small-business subcontractor at the Los Alamos National Laboratory said. Briggs joined the Las Vegas-based company last year and helped launch the business line that supports incident response and recovery at DOE sites, the company said […]

President Donald Trump has signed H.R. 3877, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019, into law after the bill passed the House July 25 and the Senate Aug. 1. The legislation, signed late last week after deadline for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, suspends the debt limit through July 31, 2021, and sets defense spending toplines at […]

A “trace amount of plutonium” found inside a glove box at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on June 27 did not endanger any employees, a spokesman for the Department of Energy facility in New Mexico said Wednesday. Employees discovered an “unexpected powdery residue” underneath a brush in a material management room glove box at the […]

The ExchangeMonitor is heading into its annual August recess, and Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor will not be published during the second and third full weeks of the month. We’ll still be in the office, so keep the news tips coming, and look for the next weekly newsletter in your inbox on Friday, Aug. 30.

The top brass at AECOM has received plenty of positive feedback since announcing June 17 that it would spin off the business segment that contracts with the Department of Energy and other federal agencies. “We are moving ahead of schedule” toward separating the Management Services line into its own publicly traded company, Chairman and CEO […]

The former Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist indicted for lying about connections to a Chinese government-sponsored talent-recruiting program is scheduled to be tried starting June 22, 2020, in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, N.M. Turab Lookman has pleaded not guilty to three counts of fraud and false statements for allegedly lying to the Department of Energy and […]

BWX Technologies is about halfway through repairing 12 submarine missile tubes it welded incorrectly in 2018, Rex Geveden, president and CEO of the Lynchburg, Va., nuclear-hardware and fuel provider told investors Tuesday. Under multiple subcontracts to Columbia- and Virginia-class submarine production prime General Dynamics Electric Boat, BWXT is on the hook to deliver tubes through 2021. […]

A half-decade after Congress gave the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) special authority to bar certain suppliers from providing components for nuclear weapons, the agency still has exercised that power, the Government Accountability Office said this week. The new report is the third time the congressional watchdog has checked in on the agency’s use, or […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said this week it has shipped 1 metric ton of weapon-usable plutonium out of South Carolina as ordered by a federal court in 2017. The Department of Energy and its semiautonomous nuclear-weapon branch “have removed not less than one metric ton of defense plutonium or defense plutonium materials from the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plans to start building the replacement for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) some time after Sept. 30, 2021, according to the agency’s latest annual report on its nonproliferation programs. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapon branch formally terminated construction of the Savannah River Site facility in October, […]

The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection (NDEP) expects by the end of this month to receive additional U.S. Energy Department information on numerous shipments of mislabeled radioactive waste to the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). After reviewing the latest material from DOE, the state “will determine whether the material is stable in the current disposal […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is still determining if problems with non-nuclear components will prevent the B61-12 gravity bomb and W88 Alt 370 submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead from entering service with the Air Force and Navy on time, according to an annual agency report released Wednesday. The details are included in the agency’s 2020 Stockpile […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry and National Nuclear Security Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty met Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) this week at the Nevada National Security Site, weeks after the agency halted prohibited shipments of nuclear waste to the facility and months after it received clandestine delivery of weapon-usable plutonium. That is according to a Thursday report […]

Debating nine of her rivals for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president on Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) made her case again for a U.S. policy against first use of nuclear weapons. “The United States is not going to use nuclear weapons preemptively, and we need to say so to the entire world. It reduces […]

“All options are on the table” at Fluor after the company’s $555 million loss in the second quarter of 2019, CEO Carlos Hernandez said Thursday. The government contractor — one of the main industry subcontractors at the Los Alamos National Lab, the manager of the Naval Nuclear Laboratory and leader of the team running the Savannah […]

The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed a budget caps deal that officially set defense funding toplines for the next two years, essentially doing away with future budget cuts via sequestration. H.R. 3877 sets the defense spending topline at $738 billion in fiscal 2020 and at $741.5 billion in fiscal 2021. The 2020 level is significantly […]

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday it plans to appoint a new director general in October, following the death in July of Yukiya Amano. Whoever succeeds Amano would take office in January, the United Nations body in charge of international monitoring of nuclear materials said in a Twitter message. U.N. member states may submit […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday approved Gen. John Hyten to become vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, following a hearing in which the Air Force four-star and current commander of U.S. nuclear forces fielded questions about his alleged sexual assault of a subordinate officer. The committee voted 20-7 to report the […]

The prime contractor for the Y-12 National Security Complex is tightening its criticality safety program and increasing oversight and monitoring of that regime to prevent an accidental nuclear chain reaction, following a recent federal report that deemed the existing program at the main U.S. uranium processing site “inadequate.” The Oak Ridge, Tenn., site houses National […]

A power outage at the Nevada National Security Site’s Device Assembly Facility (DAF) interrupted some of the site’s nuclear stockpile stewardship operations for about two weeks this month, a spokesperson said. The outage happened July 1, after a series of mishaps in replacing the DAF’s uninterruptible power source — a backup power supply system that […]

Fluor Marine Propulsion plans to move some 200 Naval Reactors Facility employees in Idaho off-site in 2020, when the prime contractor for the federal Naval Nuclear Laboratory expects to enter a five- to 10-year lease for office space. The Naval Reactors Facility, which stores spent fuel from nuclear warships and submarines, employs a total of […]

Second-quarter earnings fell at Huntington Ingalls Industries, the shipbuilder that also helps manage several National Nuclear Security Administration’s properties, even as sales rose. The Newport News, Va., company booked some losses in its shipbuilding business for the U.S. Navy, mostly on a contract for fleet support services. Lower performance on the Virginia-class attack submarine program, […]

The private company pushing the Donald Trump administration to fast-track sales of nuclear-power technology to Saudia Arabia is the latest incarnation of a long-running entity that periodically pitches “impossible” nuclear projects, one executive wrote in an email published this week by the House Oversight and Reform Committee. The details are part of a second interim staff […]

As long expected, the United States officially withdrew Friday from the 32-year-old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia, triggering a reciprocal withdrawal from Moscow and leaving both parties free to deploy ground-based missiles with a range of 310 miles to 3,100 miles anywhere in the world. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo made the announcement […]

Holtec International beat two competitors to take a roughly $4.8 million, firm-fixed-priced contract to design and build transportation equipment for tritium-producing burnable absorber rods, a spokesperson for the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory said Friday. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which Battelle Memorial Institute manages for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, awarded the contract […]

A good 2019 keeps rolling for Lockheed Martin as the company reported strong increases in earnings and sales in its second quarter, building on handsome gains in the first quarter. The strong results led the company to increase its guidance for sales, earnings, and cash this year. Net income in the quarter increased 22% to […]

Mark Esper was sworn in this week as the secretary of defense after the Senate confirmed him Tuesday by a landslide vote, ending months of uncertainty about the Pentagon’s leadership. Esper, who previously served as Army secretary since 2017, was confirmed by a vote of 90-8 Tuesday. President Donald Trump swore him in that night. […]