Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Rich Abott Defense Daily The Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat (GDEB) a $481 million modification on last Thursday for more Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) program long-lead time work. The cost-plus-fixed-fee modification is in preparation for FY 2019 and 2020 lead-ship advance procurement, advance construction, and long-lead time material funding for the Columbia-class. […]

A judge recently spiked the Department of Energy’s motion to dismiss a complaint lodged by CB&I AREVA MOX Services in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, potentially allowing the government contractor to collect what it alleges are almost $6.5 million in improperly denied fees. The complaint is one of eight now consolidated under a $200-million-plus […]

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday unanimously confirmed Charles Verdon to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons portfolio as deputy administrator for defense programs. Verdon, most recently principal associate director at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Weapons and Complex Integration Directorate, got the thumbs-up nearly seven months after President Donald Trump nominated him for the top NNSA weapons post. […]

WASHINGTON ―  It would make sense for the Department of Energy to have more than one production facility for the fissile cores of nuclear warheads, a senior Pentagon official with broad responsibility for nuclear weapons procurement said here Friday. “To me, it doesn’t quite make sense to go down to a single point of failure […]

The Donald Trump administration still has not decided whether to extend beyond 2021 a pivotal arms control treaty that limits the number of nuclear weapons the United States and Russia may deploy, a senior official with the U.S. Department of State said Wednesday in a Senate hearing. “A decision has not been made at this […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said it will keep only essential safety and security staff on duty if Hurricane Florence threatens the nearby region inland. The essential staff number fluctuates depending on what is needed at the time, but in recent memory it has been roughly 340 members of the […]

Congress approved  the National Nuclear Security Administration’s final 2019 budget this week, including increased funding for maintenance and cleanup of buildings across the nuclear security enterprise, decreased funding for a controversial plutonium-disposal project, and $65 million to make a low-yield, submarine-launched, ballistic-missile warhead. The House approved the bill 377-20 on Thursday. The Senate approved the legislation 92-5 on […]

Former Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman died Sept. 7, news outlets reported. He was 79. Bodman led the Department of Energy from 2005 to 2009 during George W. Bush’x second term in office. During his tenure, Bodman fired Linton Brooks — the second full-time administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration — following security lapses at […]

The House and Senate this week sent a multiagency spending bill to President Donald Trump’s desk that boosts the Department of Energy’s budget for nuclear warhead modernization, and reached a compromise on separate appropriations legislation that would accelerate development of the missiles that will carry those weapons. Congress overwhelmingly approved the warhead funding as part of […]

Errors and poor policy have fueled the controversy over reimbursement of expenses at a regional group intended to promote communities around the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. That is the crux of an Aug. 28 analysis by Los Alamos County Manager Harry Burgess, addressing financial irregularities by the Regional Coalition of […]

A motor vehicle operator temporarily lost commercial driving privileges after transporting nuclear samples needed for counterterrorism training without completing the proper paperwork. The driver shipped the material Sept. 4 from the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Counter Terrorism Operations Support office in Nevada to a training facility in Hagerstown, Md., the Department of Energy  disclosed on […]

The minibus appropriations bill on its way to President Donald Trump’s desk would block the independent federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board from downsizing by about 20 percent, and require the Department of Energy to explain why it has restricted some communications with the federal nuclear safety watchdog. Bill language approved by Congress this week forbids […]

The budget for the Department of Energy’s controversial Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) under construction in South Carolina would be cut to the lowest level at least since the start of this decade, under the 2019 DOE budget Congress approved this week. The  plant, being built by CB&I AREVA MOX Services, would get a […]

Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) this week demanded the Department of Energy conduct additional environmental reviews before sending any defense plutonium to the Nevada National Security Site from the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. In December 2017, a federal judge ordered DOE to move not less than 1 metric ton of defense plutonium out of […]

Members of Congress this week voiced their displeasure about a planned downsizing of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, and with a Department of Energy order that some, including the board itself, fear will lock the federal agency out of much of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. “In light of the many concerns with the […]

By Rich Abott Defense Daily The Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine is currently in good shape but the program has little room for error and may require tighter oversight, the Chief of Naval Operations said on Wednesday. “I say [the program is] on track and that’s true, but it is right on track. And so we need […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) reaffirmed Tuesday that, despite public comments and even a federal lawsuit that say otherwise, it does not need to perform another environmental review of the Uranium Processing Facility being built at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency “has determined, at […]

Lynchburg, Va.-based BWX Technologies said Wednesday it has promoted Heatherly H. Dukes to the position of president of the company’s Technical Services Group. Dukes has most recently served as the group’s chief operating officer, overseeing BWXT operations at more than a dozen Energy Department and NASA facilities with an annual contract value of about $7 […]

The shape of the Capitol Hill defense establishment in the post-John McCain era formally gelled Wednesday, as Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) became chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and former Arizona senator Jon Kyl was sworn in to serve the remainder of the McCain’s term. McCain died on Aug. 25 after ceasing treatment for brain cancer. […]

The United States does not need as many intercontinental ballistic missiles as the Air Force plans to build, and Congress should take another look at a low-yield warhead lawmakers just approved, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee said Wednesday. “I think we have too many ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles], absolutely,” Rep. Adam […]

Fewer countries have nuclear weapon-usable nuclear materials, but the risk of nuclear terrorism and cyber attacks on nuclear facilities has increased, the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative said this week in its latest biennial report on global nuclear threats. The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) published its 2018 Nuclear Security Index on Wednesday. The organization crafted the 132-page […]

HENDERSON, Nev. — Department of Energy officials and industry executives expressed hope Wednesday that no last-minute snags hold up passage of a fiscal 2019 budget with healthy funding for the agency’s nuclear weapons programs. “Who wants to do layoffs in an election year?” Eric Knox, vice president of strategic development, nuclear and environment, for the […]

While two reports made public this month in New Mexico have illustrated poor accounting practices at the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities, Los Alamos County Manager Harry Burgess rejects the suggestion county employees, acting as the group’s fiscal agency, have engaged in wrongdoing. The New Mexico attorney general is investigating any potential fraud in reimbursements […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is carrying through with a pledge made earlier this year to provide $40 million more to support development of domestic commercial production of the medical isotope molybdenum-99. The aim of the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency is to promote means of manufacturing that do not require reactors powered […]

The Department of Energy will not be able to deliver 80 new nuclear-warhead cores per year in 2030 unless it starts building new plutonium processing facilities in South Carolina by the middle of 2019, the head of the Nuclear Weapons Council said Thursday. “From the Nuclear Weapons Council perspective, the Department of Energy (DOE) needs […]

The article “Draft RFP Issued for SRS Management Contract” (Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, Vol. 22, No. 32) should have said the Department of Energy expects to issue a final solicitation for the Savannah River Site management contract in January 2019.

Some time after they return to Washington next week, the House and Senate will come together for final negotiations on a fiscal 2019 defense spending bill that cleared the upper chamber last week. The Senate on Aug. 23 approved a multiagency appropriations measure with Pentagon funding that provided a small boost for development of a next-generation […]