Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

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 […]

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) said this week she will block the Senate from quickly confirming nominees for senior Department of Energy jobs until the agency sets a date to remove half-ton a ton of plutonium from Nevada. “Until I get commitment from [Secretary of Energy Rick Perry] that [DOE] will set a date for […]

WASHINGTON — To give the Pentagon more money to spend in the future, the United States could buy fewer new intercontinental ballistic missiles and again extend its aging fleet of nuclear-tipped Minuteman III missiles, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said at a conference here Wednesday. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) has said nuclear […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is seeking a replacement for the recently retired chief of staff for the Defense Nuclear Security office: the part of the agency responsible for guarding nuclear-weapon sites and materials. The window to interview replacements for Mark Roman, who retired earlier this year after 22 years of federal service, was […]

WASHINGTON — The United States does not need intercontinental ballistic missiles to prevent a nuclear attack on its territory, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said in a hearing here Wednesday — but a couple rank-and-file Democrats disagreed. “The problem with them is that they’re identifiable targets,” Smith said of ICBMs from the […]

Congress should consider raising the legal limit of full-time employees allowed to work at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the Government Accountability Office said in a report this week. The NNSA may employ no more than the equivalent of 1,690 full-time employees, according to the federal law that created the Department of Energy’s semiautonomous […]

The Energy Department on Wednesday issued a final request for proposals for a potential $1 billion, 10-year paramilitary security services contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The current $990 million contract, held by Centerra-SRS, started in October 2009 and runs through Oct. 7. The latest DOE procurement schedule says the department could […]

By Richard Abott Defense Daily The Navy announced the establishment of Program Executive Office Columbia (PEO CLB) on Wednesday to better focus on the Navy’s “number one acquisition priority,” the new nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines. James Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, said PEO CLB will provide oversight of construction […]

The state of South Carolina has no better idea than anyone else outside the National Nuclear Security Administration  (NNSA) about whether the agency has yet shipped 500 kilograms of weapon-usable plutonium to the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, according to a recent court filing. In December 2017, a federal judge in South Carolina ordered the […]

The Department of Energy said this week it has not yet decided whether to accept highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Germany at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. There is no schedule for a decision to be made. While Germany would pay for the mission, the total cost and potential technology concerns are being […]

An increased risk of radioactive contamination combined with the flouting of federal environmental laws should have persuaded a federal judge to block the Department of Energy from sending weapon-usable plutonium to Nevada, the Silver State told an appeals court this week. Nevada wants the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California to overturn U.S. District […]

The Senate Arms Services Committee on Thursday approved William Bookless, for the second time, to be second-in-command at the National Nuclear Security Administration. The committee approved Bookless, along with three nominees for non-DOE senior administration jobs, by voice vote at the top of a hearing.  Bookless is a former senior physicist at the Lawrence Livermore […]

The relationship between the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Department of Defense “has never been stronger,” the head of the semiautonomous Department of Energy stockpile steward this week. U.S. Strategic Command “is our customer. But they don’t think of themselves as our customer, they think of themselves as their partner,” NNSA Administrator Lisa […]

The leader of U.S. Strategic Command is seeking collaboration with industry to ensure the U.S. military’s next nuclear command, control and communications (NC3) enterprise is properly hardened against cyber attacks. Air Force Gen. John Hyten has spent the last six months investigating the issue and visiting industry partners and federally funded research development corporations to […]

The U.S. Department of Energy could do a better job of monitoring how its contractors spend billions of dollars in federal money, the Government Accountability Office said Tuesday. A new GAO report recommends DOE entities, including the Office of Environmental Management and the semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, put more emphasis on how management and […]

The head of U.S. Strategic Command this week again praised the advantages of a key treaty limiting the U.S. and Russia to 1,500 deployed strategic warheads, but said any follow-on accord should apply limits all other types of nuclear weapons. “We would like to have all nuclear weapons as part of a future strategic arms […]

A federal judge this week refused Nevada’s second request to legally block the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) from shipping weapon-usable plutonium to the state from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. U.S. District Judge Miranda Du, in an order published late Monday, refused to grant an injunction, writing that the request was […]

WASHINGTON — A Navy admiral and the head of U.S. Strategic Command sent conflicting signals in Washington on Tuesday about whether a botched welding job on long-lead parts of the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine could spell delay for the Navy’s top procurement. BWX Technologies, which reported record earnings this week on early work as a […]