Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

With half a metric ton of plutonium already shipped there over the state’s objections, Nevada on Thursday asked a federal judge to block the Department of Energy from sending any more of the fissile material. In a request for a preliminary injunction filed Thursday, the state asked U.S. District Judge Miranda Du to stop DOE […]

House Democrats on Thursday introduced a bill to ban the low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead the National Nuclear Security Administration recently acknowledged it started producing. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) leads the cadre of Democrats, which includes House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.). The text of the bill, “H.R.1086 – To prohibit the research and […]

Los Angeles-based AECOM is eyeing work in the nuclear security complex, Randall Wotring, the company’s chief operating officer, said this week. On a Tuesday quarterly earnings conference call with investors, Wotring suggested AECOM will be an active bidder not just on Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear cleanup contracts, but also on “defense-type projects” at the […]

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) on Wednesday became the latest outraged politician to demand answers about the Department of Energy’s secretive shipment of plutonium to the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) in November. In a heated letter dated Feb. 6, Sisolak told Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Lisa […]

The United States would adopt an official policy not to start a war using nuclear weapons, under legislation announced Wednesday by the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a Democrat member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who is mulling a presidential run. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the chamber’s Armed Services chair after […]

Roofing repairs at the Savannah River Site’s (SRS) H Canyon processing facility will begin this summer after rainwater dripped through a crack in the roof to the ground floor of the facility. The water became contaminated as it passed through the nuclear materials processing area on its way to the first level of the canyon, Monte […]

With the partial shutdown of the federal government resolved, at least until mid-February, a lawsuit between the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the prime contractor for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) has resumed, according to a court filing this week. The $200-million lawsuit ground to a halt during the 35-day shutdown, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) “before November 2018” moved roughly half a ton of weapon-usable plutonium to the Nevada National Security Site from the Savannah River Site, in Aiken, S.C., the agency said Wednesday in a bombshell court filing. The announcement caught Nevada's governor and congressional delegation by surprise, prompting an outpouring of online […]

The United States will suspend its obligations under the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on Saturday, meaning it will be free to deploy missiles with a range of 310 miles to 3,100 miles anywhere in the world by Aug. 2. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the news early Friday morning. The U.S. […]

By Cal Biesecker Defense Daily General Dynamics, the Pentagon’s contractor for the next-generation ballistic-missile submarine, on Wednesday posted a strong finish to its fiscal year, delivering big gains in earnings and sales in the fourth quarter, aided in part by lower taxes and an acquisition last year. Net income in the quarter soared 43 percent to […]

Boeing, a central player on the Pentagon side of the current U.S. nuclear arsenal modernization, broke its own sales and earnings records for the year and quarter ended Dec. 31, the Chicago-based defense prime said Wednesday. Among other things, Boeing is working on designs for next-generation nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles and production of a tail […]

By Richard Abott Defense Daily Lockheed Martin on Jan. 30 won a $560 million modification to produce Trident II (D5) missiles for the U.S. and U.K. The Navy’s Strategic Systems Programs awarded this as a cost-plus-incentive-fee modification for Trident II missile production and deployed system support. The missile work will mostly be split among Magna, Utah […]

In an annual pregame tradition as sure as the coin toss, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will again police this year’s Super Bowl for signs of radiological dangers. The NNSA Remote Sensing Laboratory Aerial Measuring System swept the area around Atlanta on Monday and Tuesday to measure background radiation, and is scheduled to do so again Sunday […]

More work on nuclear-tipped missiles contributed to yearly and quarterly earnings gains in 2018 at Lockheed Martin, the Bethesda, Md.-based defense giant announced this week. Lockheed’s 2018 net earnings from continuing operations were more than $5 billion, or $17.59 a share in 2018: up more than two-and-a-half times from just under $2 billion in 2017. […]

Nekiylo Dawayne Graves, 27, of Iowa, died Monday after contract security forces and a local sheriff’s deputy shot at him following an 8-mile car chase into the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), in Mercury, Nev. In a Wednesday Facebook video, Nye County Sheriff Sharon Wehrly identified Graves as the deceased. She also identified Nye County […]

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Thursday kept its metaphorical Doomsday Clock at two minutes to midnight, citing continuing aggressive posturing by nuclear-armed nations. “The risks associated with nuclear weapons, over the long term, are increasing for three reasons: expensive programs to modernize nuclear arsenals, expansive nuclear doctrines, and a decisive turn away from […]

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), whose Nashville, Tenn.-centered congressional district is more than 100 miles from the nearest nuclear security site, will lead the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee that sets policy for Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs. Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) will be the ranking member on the subcommittee, which writes the parts of […]

WASHINGTON — The United States still intends to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty next week, unless Russia destroys weapons the Trump administration says violate the Cold War accord, a senior State Department official told reporters here Thursday. The administration says Russia can only verify its compliance with the INF Treaty by destroying weapon […]

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) thinks the Department of Energy may not have the authority to fund a new uranium enrichment cascade under a $115 million sole-source contract announced with Centrus Energy earlier this month. “Congress did not authorize or fund this project in the 2019 annual budget appropriations process,” Barrasso wrote in a Wednesday letter […]

More planned nuclear weapons programs will roll into production phases in the decade ending in 2028, increasing the total annual cost of these efforts by some $10 billion to $50 billion a year, the Congressional Budget Office said Thursday. The spending estimate for 2019 through 2028 includes: the Department of Energy’s (DOE) bill for maintaining and […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration said Jan. 18 it finished building the secondary stage for the first war-ready B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb on Dec. 6. The canned subassembly is the uranium-fueled stage of the future gravity bomb, which as part of a 20-year life-extension program will homogenize four previous versions of the venerable weapon. The […]

A senior official at the University of California has been picked to lead nuclear weapons programs at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory effective Feb. 4, the Department of Energy facility said Tuesday. Kimberly Budil will be principal associate director for weapons and complex integration: the top nuclear weapons job at the Livermore, Calif., laboratory that […]

Two coalitions of universities will develop materials-detection technology and help improve U.S.-led monitoring of global nuclear fuel cycles over the next five years, under separate grants from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) worth $25 million each. The grants are worth $5 million per year over half a decade, the NNSA said in a press […]

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said this week she will run for president in 2020, becoming the fourth female lawmaker to seek the Democratic nomination. Harris, 54, made her official announcement Monday in an interview with ABC. She has served in the upper chamber since 2017, and previously served as California’s attorney general from 2011 to […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Friday it has started building the first low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead ordered by the Donald Trump administration last year. “The Pantex Plant has initiated assembly of the W76-2 First Production Unit,” an agency spokesperson wrote Friday in an email response to a query from Nuclear Security & […]

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) this week announced her campaign for president in 2020, becoming the second Senate Armed Services Committee member and the third female lawmaker currently on Capitol Hill to announce a bid. Gillibrand, who joined the Senate in 2009, has long been considered a potential Democratic candidate for president. On Tuesday she revealed she […]

A lawsuit between the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the prime contractor for a canceled plutonium-disposal plant in South Carolina is on hold for the duration of the partial government shutdown, according to a filing with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Judge Thomas Wheeler last week granted the unopposed motion to stay the lawsuit […]