Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Following a five-month pause, plutonium downblending resumed in mid-March at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The mission involves dilution of 6 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable, non-pit plutonium, and not the 34 metric tons of material intended to be processed by Savannah River’s MOX program. Operations began in September 2016, […]

Honeywell Aerospace, the division of that diversified contractor with major contracts throughout the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons complex, saw sales and profits rise by about 10 percent in the first quarter of 2018. Excluding costs related mostly related to foreign currency transactions, quarterly revenue for the Aerospace segment — which include the company’s work […]

Diplomats from the United States and Russia wrapped up a 10-day meeting about the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in Switzerland on Friday, but did not announce any imminent plan to sign a successor arms-control agreement. That is according to a Thursday press release from the State Department on the 15th session of […]

The White House wants $65 million in fiscal 2019 for the Department of Energy to start work on the low-yield ballistic-missile warhead called for in the latest Nuclear Posture Review: a weapon Congress must authorize before the agency can start building it. The Donald Trump administration made the funding request official on April 13 in […]

South Carolina’s governor and attorney general have asked the U.S. Energy Department to find a neutral third party to determine whether it would cost more to complete a controversial plutonium-disposal project at the Savannah River Site or cancel it. According to a letter dated Feb. 23, which subsequently leaked to the press, Gov. Henry McMaster […]

Over 400 days into the Donald Trump administration, two of the four National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) leadership slots requiring Senate confirmation remain empty, and there is no nominee for one of them. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty was confirmed as NNSA administrator in February, and Brent Park followed her into NNSA headquarters in March as deputy administrator […]

John Sarrao will replace Alan Bishop as principal assistant director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Science, Technology, and Engineering branch, a lab spokesperson said Monday. In his new role, Sarrao will run the lab’s fundamental science programs, which include research applicable to nuclear weapons, among other things. The directorate’s four sub-branches are: chemistry, life, […]

The Department of Energy and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration are seeking bids on a new series of exascale supercomputers, including one at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that would cost up to $600 million and switch on early next decade, according to a request for proposals released Monday. Funding for the proposed Livermore […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions will stay on the job for another year as the management and operations contractor of the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Department of Energy wrote in a procurement note earlier this month. The agency announced the extension April 4, ahead of the July 31 expiration of the contract held […]

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) took over as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, but the leadership of the subcommittee in charge of the Department of Energy’s annual budget bills has not changed. Shelby replaces Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), who retired April 1 due to ailing health. In a press announcement, the senior senator […]

By Marc Selinger Defense Daily The U.S. Navy, which has said for years that it wants to buy 12 Columbia-class, nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines to replace its aging Ohio-class fleet, is leaving open the possibility that it will end up acquiring more than that, a service official said April 11. “That’s a decision that will be made […]

Purdue University on April 6 confirmed it teamed with Bechtel National, of Reston, Va., on a bid to run the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico — a teaming arrangement first reported by Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor in February. The confirmation came Friday from Mitch Daniels, president of the Indiana-based university. Daniels spoke to the […]

By Marc Selinger Defense Daily Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, whose duties include overseeing big-ticket acquisition programs, attended a recent “deep dive” briefing on the Air Force’s B-21 Raider to better familiarize himself with the bomber development effort, a service official said April 9. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Stephen Wilson said that he and prime contractor Northrop Grumman [NOC] […]

The Environmental Protection Agency told an official South Carolina nuclear-advisory body there is nothing the federal agency can do, for now, to prevent the Department of Energy from proceeding with its plan to cancel a multibillion-dollar nonproliferation project at the Savannah River Site in the state. That is according to a letter dated April 2 […]

The ranking Democrat on the Senate panel that writes the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) annual funding bill said this week she would not vote for a budget that keeps the B83 nuclear gravity bomb in service. Meanwhile, New Mexico’s senior senator laid into the Energy Department subagency’s top official about plans to move production […]

Laying out the annual weapons budget for some of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) major sites over the last decade yields little in the way of surprise: generally, the weapons budget is going up. Source: DOE Congressional Budget Requests (Laboratory Tables). Link: Interactive Version of Chart. Figuratively speaking, these trends were written on […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration on Thursday formally opened a new building to house a host of administrative and support functions at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas. NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty and Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) attended a ribbon-cutting for the John C. Drummond Center, named for the longest-serving manager for the nuclear-weapon […]

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims (CFC) should require the Department of Energy to pay South Carolina $200 million in their dispute over plutonium disposal at the federal Savannah River Site, rather than allowing the lawsuit to go to trial, the state said in a March 30 motion. Specifically, the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office […]

The Department of Energy says it should get to keep around $20 million in fees it clawed back from a contractor that failed to build a major nuclear-nonproliferation project in South Carolina on time. The federal agency’s filing in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims last week was the latest turn in one of the two slow-simmering […]

More than a week after the Senate confirmed him for the job, Brent Park was sworn in Tuesday as the National Nuclear Security Administration’s top nonproliferation official. Park will be deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation: the roughly $2 billion-a-year stovepipe charged with controlling the spread of weaponizable nuclear material while encourage peaceful atomic programs. […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory contracted out just shy of 60 percent of its total procurement dollars to small businesses in fiscal 2017, handily exceeding the Department of Energy’s goal for the nation’s oldest nuclear-weapon lab. In the penultimate year of Los Alamos National Security’s (LANS) management and operations contract, the northern New Mexico weapons […]

The former head of an advocacy group for communities around the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico said Tuesday she has repaid $800 in questioned expenses in an effort to resolve a public dispute that marred the end of her tenure. The contract between Andrea Romero Consulting and the Regional Coalition of […]

Days after the Department of Energy (DOE) gave the go-ahead to start building key parts of a $6.5 billion facility to process uranium for U.S. defense programs, a federal judge ordered a venue change in a lawsuit aimed at stopping the plant’s construction. Three environmental groups and four individuals filed suit in July 2017 in […]

The Y-12 National Security Complex had not cast any enriched uranium for national defense programs for about a week as of Friday, after an unspecified quantity of the fissile material leaked into casting machinery at the National Nuclear Security Administration plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Casting furnaces at Y-12’s 9212 building — operated by the […]

Scores of Democratic congresspeople wrote to President Donald Trump this week to complain that the White House’s plans to add new low-yield nuclear warheads to the U.S. arsenal is dangerous and fiscally irresponsible. That was the takeaway of a letter dated March 26 and signed by 43 Democrats, including Rep. Adam Smith (R-Wash.): ranking member of […]

The House Armed Services Committee plans to start marking up the fiscal 2019 defense authorization bill, which will include policies for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), in late April. All six of the Armed Services subcommittees are scheduled to conduct their markups on April 26, the committee said. That includes the strategic forces subcommittee […]

It was all over but the waiting at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, at which time Brent Park had still not been sworn in as deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). But barring personal or political catastrophe, Park will soon take the reins of the […]