Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) was not moved by a Department of Energy statement this week that plutonium stored in the Nevada National Security Site’s Device Assembly Facility is safe from earthquakes that might cause high explosives to detonate in the facility and spew plutonium into the air beyond the site’s borders. “The […]

The contractor for the now-terminated MOX project at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina tallied more than $54 million in cost overruns through “inadequate” management of its subcontract with North Carolina-based Intermech, according to a June 2017 assessment from the Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The report further states that, […]

As lawmakers on Capitol Hill sound alarms about the possibility of entering fiscal 2020 with a continuing resolution – or worse, sequestration – Air Force leadership said Thursday that $29 billion is at stake should the 2011 Budget Control Act spending cap levels return. A return to sequestration levels would cause four times the amount […]

The specter of burdensome data calls between the Department of Energy and its site contractors might still haunt the nuclear security enterprise, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) uses the calls — which may be written requests rather than telephone or voice calls — to glean […]

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) this week grilled Energy Secretary Rick Perry about the Department of Energy’s plans to award Centrus Corp. a sole-source contract for domestic uranium enrichment. On Jan. 7, DOE issued a notice of intent to award Centrus a contract potentially worth $115 million over three years to deploy a cascade of 16 […]

WASHINGTON  — The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) can only wait five to seven more years before beginning a potentially costly life-extension program on the megaton-class B83 gravity bomb, a senior agency official said here Wednesday in a budget hearing. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) coaxed the estimate out of Charles Verdon, deputy administrator for NNSA […]

Centrus Energy on Thursday reported a decline in revenue for both the fourth quarter of 2018 and the year in whole. The Bethesda, Md.-based nuclear fuel provider reported revenue of about $84 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31, and $193 million for 2018, down respectively from $117 million and $218 million for the corresponding […]

After the Department of Energy released some 650 pages of details on its $16.5-billion nuclear-weapon budget request for 2020, the chair of the House Appropriations panel that funds the agency demanded more information on proposed weapons spending. “With respect to nuclear weapons, this is not a budget that establishes clear priorities with a responsible plan […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Thursday defended the Donald Trump administration’s decision to pursue sales of U.S.-made nuclear power technology to Saudi Arabia, including by granting seven unidentified companies approval to transfer some technology and expertise to the nation. On Wednesday, the Daily Beast reported, and Reuters confirmed, that the Department of Energy had granted […]

The Pentagon continues to assess the costs and benefits of directing the two contractors building the forthcoming Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) to partner with the two remaining rocket builders in the country, the Air Force’s military acquisition chief said March 28. Testifying before the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee Thursday on Capitol Hill, Lt. […]

Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), a friend of the Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories who has spent the last two decades on Capitol Hill, announced this week that he will not run for re-election in 2020. Rather than seeking a third term, New Mexico’s senior senator said Monday he will leave the Senate in January 2021. […]

South Carolina has named its terms for settling a $200-million plutonium lawsuit against the Department of Energy, according to a late Tuesday court filing. South Carolina on Jan. 30 gave attorneys at the Justice Department “a list of potential terms for negotiation” in the ongoing settlement talks that began in October, according to a status […]

Proportionally or by raw dollars, the W80-4 life-extension program would get the biggest increase of any active Department of Energy nuclear warhead refurbishment in fiscal 2020, if the Trump administration’s budget request becomes law. The program led by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California already received an enormous budget increase in 2019 to pace […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry will testify before the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee next week on his agency’s fiscal 2020 budget request. Perry is the only witness scheduled to appear before the panel at 10 a.m. Eastern time Tuesday at Rayburn House Office Building Room 2362-B in Washington, D.C. The subcommittee is led […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) tapped John Benner, who in early March returned to the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, to aid the agency with future warhead core production at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The lab subsequently detailed Benner to Washington, where the longtime Los Alamos staffer will work […]

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that he doesn’t believe that cyber capabilities can be a substitute for the nation’s nuclear deterrence forces. “[W]e need to be very careful to maintain a safe, effective, and credible nuclear deterrent on its own,” […]

As the state’s elected officials in Washington maintain a measured approach, local officials in Aiken County, S.C., are going all-in on the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plan to bring plutonium pit production to the nearby Savannah River Site. In a resolution passed March 5, the Aiken County Council said it “officially supports” the NNSA “decision […]

Daniel Santos last week resigned from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) after a little more than four years on the job, the independent nuclear health-and-safety watchdog confirmed Monday. A spokesperson for the DNFSB said Santos’ last day will be March 29. The board had previously announced on its website, without naming names, that one […]

A federal appeals court should throw out Nevada’s request to block further shipments of weapon-usable plutonium to the Nevada National Security Site, since the Department of Energy has already shipped the material there, according to court filings from the agency and the state of South Carolina. Nevada is trying to get the U.S. Ninth Circuit […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) on Monday broke down how much of its requested $16.5 billion budget for fiscal 2020 would go to each of its nuclear-weapon labs. However, the Department of Energy branch had not still published its detailed 2020 budget request at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor. The Energy Department did not reply […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in April will ask a federal judge in South Carolina to dismiss one of the two pending lawsuits the state brought against the agency for the government’s move to close the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, according to a court filing. The agency will ask District Judge J. Michelle […]

Boeing Co. has received a $250 million sole-source Air Force contract to prepare the planned nuclear-tipped Long-Range Standoff cruise missile to fly aboard the B-52H bomber, the Air Force announced Wednesday. The Boeing work will mostly be done in Oklahoma City and is scheduled for completion by Dec. 31, 2024,  according to the Air Force. Work covered […]

A former security guard at the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) sued former site security contractor Centerra Group this week for repeated incidents of alleged sexual harassment culminating with a violent sexual assault in 2017 by five male colleagues. Jennifer Glover, who first told her story to The New York Times in January, sued Centerra […]

The White House is seeking $16.5 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for fiscal 2020: a roughly 8-percent increase from just over $15 billion in 2019 that, a senior Department of Energy official said this week, includes more funding for a controversial low-yield nuclear warhead. The NNSA completed the first of these modified, […]

The U.S. Department of Energy said last week it is ahead of schedule in removing 1 metric ton of plutonium from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and should finish the court-mandated process by the end of the year. The Energy Department update was seemingly prompted by a March 1 letter that South Carolina […]

New political leaders at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have tamped down on internal discord and improved the agency’s relationship with the Pentagon, but the Department of Energy nuclear weapons steward should appoint a senior executive to ensure progress does not end when those political leaders depart, the National Academies said in a new report. […]

The Department of Energy pushed back against a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendation that local agency field offices investigate the ownership of subcontractors on nuclear sites for potential conflicts of interest. Local DOE officials should “independently review subcontractor ownership information as part of DOE consent reviews and assess potential conflicts of interest to ensure […]