Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Triad National Security appears set to take over the Los Alamos National Laboratory this fall, after no one protested the National Nuclear Security Administration’s June 8 award of its potentially 10-year management contract. Triad’s three main partners are Battelle Memorial Institute, the University of California, and Texas A&M University. The University of California managed Los Alamos […]

The Department of Energy’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) will enjoy judicial protection from the federal ax for essentially the rest of the government’s 2018 fiscal year after an appeals court last week decided not to immediately lift a lower court’s ban on closing the plant. South Carolina sued in May to prevent DOE […]

The Department of Energy is inviting potential bidders on a yet-to-be-solicited management and operations contract for the Savannah River Site to Augusta, Ga., on August 1 for what the agency calls a “technical workshop.” At the all-day workshop, DOE “will be presenting information on technical challenges associated with Management and Operation of the Savannah River […]

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) visited Los Alamos, but not at the Energy Department laboratory, on Thursday as part of his first U.S. Senate re-election campaign. Heinrich, who is seeking a second term, appeared for a one-and-a-half hour meet and greet at a wine bar not 2 miles from the storied nuclear weapons lab. Heinrich ran […]

A search committee for the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities (RCLC) in New Mexico last week interviewed candidates to become the organization’s new executive director, and could fill the post this summer. The RCLC board panel expects “to negotiate a contract with the preferred applicant over the next few weeks and plan for the entire […]

Two major Department of Energy contractors, Dallas-based Jacobs Engineering and Virginia-based BWX Technologies, recently announced new executive appointments in their nuclear business units. Colin Jones, most recently with AECOM, is the new vice president and deputy general manager of Jacobs’ North American Nuclear business unit, the company said June 29. He has more than 20 […]

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 defaced a uranium storehouse. Judge Amul Thapar, presently of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration announced last week it completed a pair of flight tests on non-nuclear components of the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb near the Nevada National Test Site. “The tests involved releasing a B61-12 non-nuclear test assembly, which includes the NNSA designed bomb assembly and U.S. Air Force acquired tail-kit, from a B-2A […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security, the prime contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Y-12 and Pantex nuclear weapons sites, reached a new collective bargaining agreement with a union representing Y-12 security personnel in Tennessee. The five-year contract with International Guards Union of America will go into effect in August and run through Aug. 15, 2023, according […]

A Centerra Group subsidiary contracted to protect the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina took home almost $3 million of an available award fee of $3.16 million, roughly 95 percent, for the six-month period from October 2017 through March 2018. The Energy Department praised Centerra-Savannah River Site for its work providing physical protection […]

Texas A&M University will manage a low-energy nuclear science center for the National Nuclear Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)  using a five-year, $10-million grant announced Thursday. With the grant, the College State-based university will operate the Center for Excellence in Nuclear Training and University-based Research (CENTAUR): a project that combines experimental and theoretical physics initiatives to “measure […]

One of the two men who pleaded guilty to $4.58 million worth of fraud while working at the Savannah River Site’s MOX project was sentenced Monday to 23 months in prison, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs also sentenced 66-year-old Phillip Thompson to three years of supervised release after prison […]

Safety procedures that would prevent radiological injuries and fatalities must be implemented at the Savannah River Site’s tritium facilities, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said in a recent letter addressing unfinished revisions to SRS safety documents. The safety watchdog laid out its concerns in a June 4 letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry, […]

Sharon Brady is the the new chief operating officer for Huntington Ingalls Industries subsidiary Stoller Newport News Nuclear (SN3), a significant player in the Energy Department complex. The company announced the move, which has been official since June 4, on Tuesday. Brady has worked in a variety of corporate and government contract posts at SN3 predecessor […]

Congress inched a little closer to finalizing a 2019 budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration this week after the Senate passed a “minibus” appropriations package, but the two chambers still have about half a billion dollars’ worth of differences over nuclear weapon and nonproliferation spending to hash out in a bicameral conference committee. The […]

By Marc Selinger Defense Daily The U.S. Air Force, which has been developing the B-21 Raider for almost three years, is on track to conduct a critical design review by year’s end, a service official said June 25. “We are on our way to critical design review,” said Randy Walden, director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities […]

Teri Donaldson, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Department of Energy inspector general, drew hardly any attention in her initial confirmation hearing Tuesday before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Donaldson, a former corporate environmental lawyer and federal prosecutor now working as general counsel for Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), has “impressive credentials,” committee Chairwoman Lisa […]

Energy Department Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader said Tuesday it could take an additional year to secure New Mexico approval to change the way the volume of transuranic waste is counted for underground disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The New Mexico Environment Department said June 1 it plans a more extensive […]

A federal judge this week refused to lift a preliminary injunction preventing the Department of Energy from canceling the unfinished Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. The Tuesday ruling means project prime contractor CB&I AREVA MOX Services will continue building the plutonium-conversion plant — which is by […]

The House of Representatives approved a defense spending bill this week that would phase out development of a nuclear warhead usable on both Navy and Air Force missiles, while the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a companion bill that could delay deployment of a planned low-yield nuclear warhead. The House approved its version of the 2019 […]

For four years and through two presidential administrations, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) failed to supply Congress with an adequate plan to verify and monitor global proliferation of nuclear weapons, weapon components, and fissile materials, the Government Accountability Office reported this week. Congress set the agency up for this public slap on the wrist […]

The Senate this week approved a fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act that would clear the way for the National Nuclear Security Administration to build one, and possibly more, low-yield nuclear warheads. The bill also would prohibit the semi-autonomous Department of Energy agency from dismantling the unfinished Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina […]

The Regional Coalition of LANL Communities (RCLC) could hire a new executive director by the end of the month. The deadline for the RCLC’s request for proposals was June 6, and the executive committee of the group’s Board of Directors’ could make a recommendation at a board meeting tentatively set for June 29, Los Alamos […]

At least 1 metric ton of plutonium stored at the Savannah River Site may be suitable for use in the nation’s defense program and could be shipped out of South Carolina in time to meet a Jan. 1, 2020, deadline set late last year by a federal judge, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. […]

U.S. and Russian arms reductions under the New START treaty led an overall trickling down of deployed nuclear forces in 2017, and North Korea might have anywhere from 10 to 20 nuclear weapons, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s latest annual yearbook on nuclear weapons and arms control. Including deployed and nondeployed forces, […]

The Department of Energy wants a federal judge to let the agency resume closing an over-budget plutonium disposal plant in South Carolina, court papers filed on June 15 show. On June 7, in a lawsuit brought by South Carolina, U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs ordered DOE to halt its planned closure of the unfinished […]

Invoking the threat of countermeasures he did not specifically explain, the head of security at the Los Alamos National Laboratory has warned drone pilots they might lose their aircraft if they fly too close to the storied New Mexico nuclear weapons lab. “The laboratory is authorized by federal law to track, intercept, disrupt, control, and […]

The Senate adjourned Friday without passing an appropriations package that includes a little under $15 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), though a key Democratic senator signaled she would not oppose the bill over the low-yield nuclear warhead the measure funds. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), one of the longest-tenured senators still serving, said […]