Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

South Carolina has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court’s 2018 decision to let the Department of Energy close a proposed plutonium disposal plant in the western part of the state, according to papers filed recently with the highest court in the land. After years of political and legal wrangling, DOE’s National […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security has received the go-ahead to install a piece of hardware at the Y-12 National Security Complex that will one day help the National Nuclear Security Administration end uranium processing in the World War II-era Building 9212 and transfer the work to the planned Uranium Processing Facility. In a report published on June 14, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to prepare an environmental impact statement for plutonium pit production at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., according to a notice filed this week in the Federal Register. The public will have 45 days to comment on the agency’s proposed environmental impact statement (EIS) regarding its contentious plan to […]

The House Armed Services Committee early Thursday approved its version of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act after about 18 hours of debate. The House committee’s annual defense policy bill, now headed to the House floor, authorizes about $15.8 billion for the active nuclear weapons programs managed by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security […]

The full House of Representatives will not consider several defense-nuclear amendments to a fiscal 2020 spending bill until next week. The House cleared the amendments for floor debate, but lawmakers spent much of Wednesday and all day Thursday discussing other aspects of the bill before adjourning. The chamber had no votes scheduled for Friday. Debate […]

The Department of Energy authorized two transfers of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after that nation allegedly authorized the murder of U.S. resident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Tuesday. Beginning in 2017, the Department of Energy granted seven companies Part 810 authorizations — named for the section of the […]

Democrats on the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee on Tuesday used their majority on the panel to kill a GOP amendment that would have kept the Department of Energy’s plan to produce plutonium pits in South Carolina off the chopping block. Subcommittee Democrats, led by Rep. James Cooper (Tenn.), quashed the amendment from Rep. […]

Two of the most important bills of the year for the National Nuclear Security Administration are slated for consideration on Wednesday, when the full House and a key committee will take up proposals to fund and authorize critical nuclear security programs for fiscal year 2020. The House Armed Services Committee will vote on the 2020 […]

National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia appointed D.E. “Dori” Ellis deputy director of the nation’s nuclear-weapons-technology lab, the Honeywell-owned lab-manager announced Wednesday. Ellis will be the lab’s No. 2 executive behind director Stephen Younger. She will replace David Douglass, who will retire in June, according to a lab press release. Ellis is a longtime Sandia […]

The Energy Department published its justification for contracting a Centrus Energy subsidiary to demonstrate high-assay low enriched uranium (HALEU) production without competitive bidding. The federal government wants to deploy a 16-machine cascade at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio to demonstrate production of 19.75% enriched uranium fuel by June 2022 using domestic technology. Centrus’ American Centrifuge Operating LLC […]

Eight Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate on Wednesday urged President Donald Trump in a letter to extend the New START arms control treaty that limits the U.S. and Russia to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads. New START went into effect in 2011. The Barack Obama administration proposed the treaty, which the then-Democrat-controlled Senate ratified with […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration has officially picked up the tab to keep the JASON group of independent scientists alive, awarding MITRE Corp. on Thursday an eight-month, $5-million contract to perform three nuclear-security studies, an agency spokesperson said. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) “has awarded a short-term, sole-source contract to the MITRE Corp. for […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions is laying the groundwork to acquire the three custom-built gloveboxes needed for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Surplus Plutonium Disposition program: the proposed replacement for the cancelled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. Under the currently unfunded and unauthorized program, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would install the gloveboxes at Savannah […]

The Department of Energy on Friday swore in William Bookless as second-in-command at the National Nuclear Security Administration. Upon being sworn in by Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette, Bookless officially joined the senior ranks of the semiautonomous DOE nuclear-weapon steward, just over a week after the Senate confirmed him following nine months of logjams and political […]

By Rich Abott Defense Daily Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding held a ceremony on May 23 for its first cut-of-steel event to mark the start of advance construction for the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) program. HII noted this will be the first class of submarines that will be built using fully digital blueprints. The first […]

A former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he lied about contacts with the Chinese government-sponsored group Thousand Talents, which the Donald Trump administration says seeks to steal U.S. intellectual property. Some time between  2007 and 2018, Turab Lookman “had been recruited by, applied for, and been accepted to […]

MOX Services will not receive any interest payments on $20 million in clawed-back fees the shrinking company won from the Department of Energy in a lawsuit over the agency’s cancellation of a controversial plutonium disposal plant at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Thomas Wheeler handed down the […]

South Carolina and the Department of Energy need at least another month to decide whether it is “feasible” to settle the state’s $200-million 2018 lawsuit over several metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium stranded at the Savannah River Site. “The parties continue to engage in discussions to determine whether it is feasible to resolve this matter […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) program to keep nuclear and radiological materials out of the hands of bad actors would be funded at or above the requested level for the fifth year in a row, if a fiscal 2020 spending bill the House Appropriations Committee passed last week becomes law. The spike in funding, […]

A pair of contractors have started cleaning up a University of Washington building contaminated weeks ago by cesium-137, but there is no timetable for finishing the job or reoccupying the Seattle facility. The contractors are International Isotopes, of Idaho Falls, Idaho, and Chase Environmental, of Louisville, Ky. They are assisting the Washington state Department of Health, […]

After three years of wrestling with Congress, the Department of Energy has finally convinced at least one chamber that it is time to move on fully from the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). In a bullet point so brief as to belie the drama that has beset the failed plutonium disposal plant, the House […]

By Rich Abott Defense Daily The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assesses Russia “probably is not adhering” fully to a multilateral prohibition on nuclear testing, the agency’s director said Wednesday. Speaking at a Hudson Institute event, Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley Jr. argued Russia’s development of new nuclear warhead designs and overall stockpile management is enhanced by […]

WASHINGTON — The House Appropriations Committee this week approved legislation that would slow development of next-generation, nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, along with Department of Energy infrastructure that supports them. The next stop for the two bills — which passed essentially along party lines, and without any amendments directly affecting nuclear arms spending — is the […]

President Donald Trump announced May 21 that he is nominating Barbara Barrett to become the next Air Force secretary, as current Secretary Heather Wilson completes her final weeks on the job. “I am pleased to announce my nomination of Barbara Barrett of Arizona, and former Chairman of the Aerospace Corporation, to be the next Secretary of […]

The Navy on Monday awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat a $497 million modification for a submarine industrial base development and expansion to support the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. According to the contract announcement, the award also covers the overall nuclear shipbuilding enterprise, which includes Virginia-class attack submarines and Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers. This is part of the “integrated […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration this week appealed a court decision in a lawsuit to let some 20 employees of contractor MOX Services retain access to vital project information about on the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina. The federal government filed its appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the […]

WASHINGTON — In an event that was part photo-op, part celebration, and part power networking, senior Department of Energy officials mixed with Capitol Hill staffers, think-tankers, and the press on Tuesday to mark the 20th anniversary of the Nuclear Smuggling Detection and Deterrence (NSDD) program. Born from a need to prevent proliferation of the Soviet stockpile […]