Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Organizations bidding to run the Los Alamos National Laboratory met with National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) officials last week, marking one of the final steps in the competition for a 10-year, $20-billion-plus management and operations contract. The meetings in Washington, D.C., between government officials and an undisclosed number of bid teams keep the Department of […]

Friday marked the official start of the 30-day window during which the Department of Energy has said it will release a draft solicitation for the Savannah River Site management and operations contract that includes oversight of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s tritium-refining operations. The window is open through April 29, a Sunday, according to the presolicitation […]

A joint U.S. Navy and a Lockheed Martin industry team successfully launched two Trident II D5 Life Extension missiles from the Ohio-class USS Nebraska (SSBN-739) ballistic missile submarine. This test certified the submarine’s strategic weapon system and crew are ready for patrol and provided more information on the D5 Life Extension missile configuration. The test was called Demonstration and Shakedown […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration gave Bechtel National the go-ahead to begin about $4 billion worth of construction on the Uranium Processing Facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., marking the official start of the busiest, costliest years of the project to date. However, the agency still has not divulged the official cost and schedule estimate for […]

WASHINGTON — Replacing an under-construction plutonium disposal plant in South Carolina will be billions of dollars cheaper than finishing it, even after accounting for transportation and storage costs associated with a proposed alternative, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) told lawmakers here Tuesday. The Department of Energy wants to cancel the the […]

The Senate on Thursday unanimously approved Brent Park to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s roughly $2-billion-a-year nuclear nonproliferation branch. It took the Senate a little over a month to confirm Park, a physicist and associate director at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, as deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation. President Donald Trump […]

The fiscal 2018 omnibus spending bill President Donald Trump signed this week would give the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) warhead refurbishment programs the 30-percent boost the White House requested, but it would also sustain a major nonproliferation construction project the agency has tried to cancel for three years. Overall, the permanent, government-wide spending bill […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry and the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) both assured Congress this week that the two new low-yield warheads called for in the Donald Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review can fit in projected agency budgets. Perry and NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty faced the same question Thursday on separate sides […]

Sen, Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) publicly went on the offensive this week against the National Nuclear Security Administration’s slowly gelling plan to shift production of some nuclear-weapon cores to South Carolina from New Mexico. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is in the final stages of deciding whether to start manufacturing a select number of plutonium […]

The U.S. Air Force is reviewing options for re-engining the B-52 bomber and intends to formally launch the acquisition effort later this year, a service official said Wednesday. William Roper, the Air Force’s new acquisition chief, said he conducted his first review with the re-engining team a few weeks ago and he expects to receive […]

A small group of unpaid advisers that helps the Department of Labor process medical reimbursement claims from workers sickened at Department of Energy nuclear sites remained idle Monday, about a month after the terms of most of its members expired. The terms of all but one member of the agency’s Advisory Board on Toxic Substances […]

WASHINGTON — The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will decide in early May whether it wants to build nuclear-warhead cores known as plutonium pits at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., the agency’s new administrator said here Wednesday in congressional testimony. The Pentagon needs the NNSA by 2030 to produce 80 plutonium pits a […]

WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy’s final budget for the 2018 fiscal year that began last October might be published Monday, the agency’s top House appropriator told reporters Thursday. After a hearing on the 2019 budget with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said congressional leaders “hope to put it [the bill] online” […]

Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces, said there have been some early production “hiccups” with the B-21, notably with its engines. Wittman told reporters following a speech at the McAleese/Credit Suisse defense conference that there have been challenges with airflow through the B-21 engines. “This […]

Vahid Majidi, a former Pentagon and national-lab hand who most recently worked in industry, is scheduled today to replace the departing Terry Michalske as director of the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina. Majidi will be executive vice president at Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), which runs the lab and the Savannah River Site’s non-liquid-waste-cleanup mission for […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry ducked and dodged in the first congressional hearing of the year about the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2019 budget, evading questions from the dais about when the agency would provide a congressionally mandated cost estimate that could allow it to cancel a massive plutonium disposal plant under construction at the Savannah […]

Local and state leaders in South Carolina told the new head of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) that the Savannah River Site would be the best place for plutonium pit production just before her visit to the Energy Department facility last week. NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, who has been on the job since […]

The new head of the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, in office less than a month, should direct the agency to produce an overarching plan for the future of “the entire nuclear security enterprise,” a National Academies panel said in a report published Tuesday. “In response to the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review and […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to host the teams bidding to run the Los Alamos National Laboratory for the next 10 years for face-to-face meetings next week, an official with one bidder said late Wednesday. “[B]idders will be receiving feedback on their proposals this week,” Kim Budil, vice president for national laboratories for the University […]

Next year, the Department of Energy wants to start extracting desirable national-security and nonproliferation isotopes from material stored at the Savannah River Site since the early 1970s, according to an environmental filing published Thursday. The agency wants to take 65 Mark-18A targets out of storage at the Aiken, S.C., site’s L-Basin and chemically process them […]

A story in the March 2 issue of Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor should have said CB&I AREVA MOX Services filed suit against the National Nuclear Security Administration in 2016.  

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and Bechtel National have finished the Site Infrastructure and Services subproject for the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The UPF will eventually replace the World War II-era 9212 complex, reshaping uranium enriched elsewhere into forms suitable for use in nuclear […]

Following the advice of a U.S. Court of Federal Claims (CFC) judge, the state of South Carolina this week dismissed one of its two $100 million lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Energy, and amended the other to reflect a $200 million total demand. Both suits, and a third case in the U.S. District Court […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday approved the White House’s nominee to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s roughly $2-billion-a-year nuclear nonproliferation branch. The Donald Trump administration nominated Brent Park, an associate director and physicist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, on Feb. 13. It took the committee 21 days and one […]

As of March 2, Rick Perry had been U.S. secretary of energy for one year. Like his predecessor, Ernest Moniz, Perry has been on Twitter since the first day of his tenure at the top floor of the Forrestal Building in Washington, D.C. In that span of time, Perry tweeted exactly — yes, exactly — twice […]

President Donald Trump has nominated Lt. Gen. Timothy Ray to be the next commander of the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command. If confirmed by the Senate, Ray will replace Gen. Robin Rand, who is retiring. Ray is currently deputy commander of U.S. European Command. Trump has also nominated Maj. Gen. David Thompson to be […]

The new administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration was set to visit the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., on Friday, sources said this week. A spokesperson for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in Washington declined to provide Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty’s agenda for the trip, citing agency policy against sharing travel plans. Savannah […]