Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Halting construction on the controversial Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) is not only legal, but it’s the quickest way to remove nuclear weapon-usable plutonium from South Carolina, the Department of Energy said Friday in a brief filed in federal court. The DOE reply brief in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals provides more pieces […]

Honeywell Vice President David “DJ” Johnson may be new to Department of Energy work, but he’s got national security chops from more than 20 years in the Air Force, from which he retired as a colonel. Honeywell put Johnson in charge of the company’s four major site management contracts with the National Nuclear Security Administration […]

After years of prolonged operations and little chance of a decreased tempo in years to come, the U.S. Air Force faces force structure shortfalls to varying degrees for each of its aircraft classes, a new study by the RAND Corp. has found. Analyzing four separate hypothetical operational situations, the nonpartisan research group found that whether […]

A dispute over irregularities in expense reimbursements for the former executive director of the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities (RCLC) has attracted the attention of the New Mexico attorney general. “We can confirm the Office of the Attorney General has received a public referral and this matter is under review,” David Carl, spokesman for New […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) on Thursday announced a new interagency agreement to continue providing the federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority with low-enriched uranium that makes it possible to produce tritium for U.S. nuclear weapons. Under the agreement, the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency will downblend highly enriched uranium into low-enriched uranium that […]

The August doldrums in Washington weren’t quite as quiet as in past years, and there was plenty of news during the ExchangeMonitor’s annual publication break. As chronicled in the Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, here are a few stories we’ve been following. NNSA Sticks With Plan to Increase Plutonium Limit in Los Alamos Rad Lab To support […]

An internal reorganization at Honeywell has placed the company’s work on four management and operations contracts with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) under the management of single retired Air Force colonel. Effective July 16, the company’s aerospace segment put David “DJ” Johnson — a Honeywell man since retiring from a 23-year Air Force career […]

Restructuring the independent federal agency charged with health and safety oversight at Department of Energy nuclear-weapon and cleanup sites will not involve layoffs, according to the head of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. “We are not going to have to involuntarily separate anyone,” acting DNFSB Chairman Bruce Hamilton said in an Aug. 16 telephone […]

The Defense Department must better train and empower its acquisition workforce if it hopes to buy and develop critical capabilities more rapidly, the candidate for a key Pentagon leadership position said this week. “Acquisition is not something that someone can walk in off the street and do well,” Alan Shaffer, nominated in June to become […]

Irene Qualters, most recently with the National Science Foundation (NSF), has been selected as associate laboratory director for simulation and computing at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, incoming lab manager Triad National Security said this week. In her new role, Qualters will be “responsible for high performance computing, theory, and simulation in support of the […]

Incoming Los Alamos National Laboratory manager Triad National Security will indeed have to pay a state gross receipts tax of just over 7 percent, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department said this week. Triad — a nonprofit organization encompassing nonprofit, tax-exempt senior partners Battelle Memorial Institute, the University of California, and […]

The Board of Regents of Texas A&M University, one of the senior partners on incoming Los Alamos National Laboratory Manager Triad National Security, last week appointed Katherine Banks vice chancellor for engineering and national laboratories. The move reflects Banks’ ascent to Triad’s governing board, an A&M spokesperson wrote in an email Monday. Banks was formerly […]

The White House has nominated longtime Lawrence Livermore hand William Bookless to fill the No. 2 slot at the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration — a post that has sat vacant throughout the Trump administration. President Donald Trump nominated Bookless, now a Livermore senior physicist, on Aug. 16. If recommended by the Senate […]

The Department of Energy this week released a draft solicitation for a Savannah River Site management and operations contract that could be worth nearly $15 billion over 10 years, including construction of new tritium facilities to power up U.S. nuclear weapons. Interested parties can meet DOE officials on site for two days of one-on-one meetings and […]

William Cooper, the Trump administration’s nominee to become Energy Department general counsel, was passed out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a voice vote Thursday afternoon. The vote came after the panel’s business meeting was postponed Thursday morning, a committee staffer said. The nominee will now await action by the full Senate, […]

LA VISTA, Neb. — The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) may not be able to produce 80 nuclear-warhead cores a year by 2030, unless it resolves issues this year that have prevented it from converting an unfinished plutonium disposal plant in South Carolina into a weapons facility, the commander of U.S. nuclear forces said here […]

The White House on Tuesday nominated a former Capitol Hill staffer as general counsel for the Department of Energy. William Cooper is currently senior counsel and director in the Washington, D.C. branch of McConnell Valdés, a corporate law firm based in Puerto Rico. His prior positions as a congressional staffer include staff director for the House […]

A federal judge on Monday stood by his earlier ruling that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) must return more than $20 million in fees it clawed back in 2016 from the prime contractor building the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Judge Thomas Wheeler of the U.S. […]

Boeing and Raytheon, key contractors on next-generation Air Force nuclear-missile programs, both posted higher quarterly earnings last week. Boeing, one of two contractors on the next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile system, reported a 26 percent spike in earnings in the second quarter, to $2.2 billion, or $3.73 a share. Raytheon, one of two tech-development contractors working on […]

LA VISTA, Neb. — The United States could be at a strategic disadvantage without a multilateral nuclear arms-reduction treaty, the Navy admiral in charge of setting targets for U.S. nuclear weapons said here Wednesday. “The INF [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty] is a great system between us and Russia to limit forces within a certain range,” […]

The Senate on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed the final version of the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, clearing the way for President Donald Trump to sign a bill that allows the Department of Energy to build a low-yield nuclear warhead. The $717 billion bill sailed through the Senate on an 87-10 vote, less than a […]

Tim Morrison, a staffer on the House Armed Services Committee who helped shape the ongoing nuclear modernization program started under the Barack Obama administration, left the Hill last month to become senior director for weapons of mass destruction and biodefense at the White House National Security Council. That is according to a farewell email Morrison […]

Lower taxes, the gift that just keeps giving this year for corporations, combined with a pension benefit, propelled Huntington Ingalls Industries to a hefty increase in earnings despite a dip in operating profit at the segment level. Net income soared 63 percent to $239 million, or $5.40 a share, from $147 million, or $3.21 a […]

The ExchangeMonitor is taking its August recess, and Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor will not be published during the second and third weeks of the month. We’ll still be in the office, so keep the news tips coming, and look for the next weekly newsletter in your inbox on Friday, Aug. 24.

With one day left to spare, the U.S. Energy Department announced Monday that it would extend by one year the contract for the Savannah River Site’s management and operations provider. The initial contract for Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), a 10-year deal worth $9.5 billion, was set to expire on July 31. In its press […]

Fluor Chairman and CEO David Seaton said Thursday the company remains in pursuit of a multibillion-dollar liquid waste management contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina that the Department of Enregy is due to award again in a few weeks. Seaton offered his comments, without elaboration, during Fluor’s quarterly earnings call with Wall Street […]

The U.S. Department of Energy will argue in September why a federal court in South Carolina should not have prevented the agency from shuttering the Savannah River Site’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). Designed to convert weapon-usable plutonium into commercial nuclear reactor fuel, construction at the unfinished MFFF was expected to halt around June 11, […]