Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

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The ExchangeMonitor is taking its August recess, and Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor will not be published during the second and third weeks of the month.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, […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) is scheduled to meet Aug. 28 to discuss a Department of Energy order that could limit the independent nuclear health-and-safety watchdog’s ability to police the U.S. nuclear-weapons complex. The board has suggested that senior DOE officials, including Energy Secretary Rick Perry, National Nuclear Security Administration Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, […]

Lockheed Martin, one of two Pentagon contractors developing a new cruise missile intended to carry the W80 nuclear warhead, this week reported better than 25-percent year-over-year earnings growth for the second quarter of 2018. Net income for the quarter ended June 24 rose 26 percent to $1.2 billion, or $4.05 a share, from $955 million, or […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) is sending two of its technical staffers on new assignments to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Matthew Duncan will become Oak Ridge resident inspector on Aug. 20, while Brandon Weathers will become an Oak Ridge resident inspector in December, the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) decision to study transferring some $300 million in annual defense nuclear materials operations to Tennessee from South Carolina is “routine,” according to the head of the Department of Energy’s cleanup mission at the Savannah River Site. “This is just a routine kind of process we always go through, especially […]

In what could amount to some housekeeping against the day the Department of Energy has a part to play in North Korean nuclear disarmament, Congress plans to extend the agency’s authority to accept weapon-grade fissile materials for sites around the world through 2023. The extension is part of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), […]

The House of Representatives on Thursday approved a compromise defense authorization bill that would allow the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to build a new low-yield nuclear warhead in fiscal 2019, and the Senate could follow suit as soon as next week. Shortly after the House approved the conference report for the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act […]

The Department of Energy is just days from sealing a one-year extension for the management and operations contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, a senior official said Monday. “As you know the M&O contract expires on 31 July and any day now we’ll have an extension signed,” Michael Budney, manager of DOE’s […]

Earnings at Northrop Grumman, one of two defense contractors on the next-generation U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile, rose nearly 25 percent in the second quarter, the company reported this week. Quarterly net income increased 24 percent to $689 million, or $3.93 a share, from $555 million, or $3.16 a share, beating the Street by $0.09 per […]

Come fall, Canadian-born, transplant-Tennessean Thomas Mason will be the latest in a line of Los Alamos National Laboratory directors stretching back to J. Robert Oppenheimer. But as of this week, when he took time after a Capitol Hill visit to speak with Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, he stressed he was only president and chief […]

Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily Northrop Grumman made a surprise announcement last week that Chairman and CEO Wes Bush will step down from the CEO role next year and be succeeded by Kathy Warden, the company’s current president and chief operating officer, who has been groomed to take over leadership of the company. Prior to becoming […]

WASHINGTON — The Congressman who represents the Y-12 National Security Complex is confident the weapons facility could handle the National Nuclear Security Administration’s tritium mission, should the agency eventually move the mission to Oak Ridge, Tenn. “I want NNSA [the National Nuclear Security Administration] to make the final decision, but the Oak Ridge Reservation can […]

Excising the profit-seeking mindset from the Los Alamos National Laboratory was key to keeping the University of California on the storied nuclear-weapons lab’s management team, an executive with the massive public university system said Wednesday. After about a dozen years under the for-profit Los Alamos National Security, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in June […]

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the importance of nuclear arms control in a joint press conference following their one-on-one meeting in Helsinki Monday, though neither committed to an extension of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Of the two heads of state, Putin came the closest to actually addressing the state […]

A federal judge has placed a South Carolina lawsuit against the Department of Energy on hold until an appeals court decides if she was right to block the agency from stopping work at the Savannah River Site’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). It would not make sense to address other issues in the high stakes […]

More than a week after they stalled out, Congress still has not rescheduled final negotiations on the National Nuclear Security Administration’s 2019 budget, which would include funding for a new low-yield nuclear warhead. The negotiations, a bicameral conference committee of lawmakers from the House and Senate, were supposed to start July 12. They were abruptly […]

Triad National Security, incoming management and operations contractor for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, filled out some of the lower levels of its organization chart this week, identifying 11 more employees in its science, operations, and weapons stovepipes. The recently identified Triad execs are: Weapons Mission: Michael Bernardin, associate laboratory director, weapons design. Bernardin is […]

The House of Representatives could vote on a compromise version of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act next week, a spokesperson for the chamber’s Armed Services Committee said Thursday. The annual NDAA — one of the few bills Congress reliably passes every year — sets funding ceilings and policy for federal defense programs, including the […]

WASHINGTON — The House and Senate delayed the start of final negotiations on the National Nuclear Security Administration’s fiscal 2019 budget until at least next week, a spokesperson for the House Appropriations Committee said.  The House and Senate were supposed to meet Thursday to begin resolving their differences on a three-bill appropriations package that includes […]