Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

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 […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is considering a radical restructuring of its nuclear weapons mission at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, including moving some work to another location. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator of the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency, said she must at least consider winding down certain operations at the Aiken, S.C., […]

As House and Senate lawmakers this week debate whether to tighten congressional scrutiny of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) weapons production contract, the agency is pressing ahead on all cylinders with the deal, which was extended for two years just this spring. The Senate’s 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, passed in June, mandates that […]

All Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) operations resumed at the end of June, following a two-month pause on all missions considered not essential to maintaining safety.  Lab management initiated the pause due to growing concerns over the facility’s safety culture. The Department of Energy lab in South Carolina has been in management-controlled operations since June […]

In what should be the final chapter of a federal discrimination lawsuit, a former employee of the Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor has been ordered to pay the company $908.45 for the cost of printed documents over the course of the two-year case. U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs issued her decision on […]

WASHINGTON — The leaders of the Senate and House Armed Services committees expect by July 27 to finish final negotiations on the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, which would enable the Department of Energy to design a new low-yield nuclear warhead. That is about two weeks from the day the conferees — members of the […]

Thomas Mason, former director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will become director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory on Nov. 1, after Triad National Security takes over management of the storied nuclear-weapon facility in New Mexico. Mason is Triad’s president and CEO, making him ultimately responsible for Los Alamos’ nuclear stockpile stewardship and weapons modernization […]

Fluor Marine Propulsion, of Arlington, Va., on Thursday won major nuclear-warship support contracts, worth up to a combined total of  roughly $30 billion over 10 years, from the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Navy. Fluor Marine Propulsion will take over Oct. 1 from incumbent Nuclear Naval Laboratory contractor Bechtel Marine Propulsion Corp., the NNSA […]

Gen. John Hyten, commander of U.S. Strategic Command and effectively customer-in-chief for the nuclear weapons maintained by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), toured the Savannah River Site in South Carolina this week. Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor sister publication Weapons Complex Morning Briefing was first to confirm Hyten’s visit this week. Hyten on Thursday […]

Among the jurists who President Donald Trump could tap to fill an impending Supreme Court vacancy are two who were involved with the case of an octogenarian nun who broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and , and defaced a uranium storehouse. Judge Amul Thapar, presently of the U.S. Court of Appeals for […]