Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

WASHINGTON — Brent Park, the White House’s choice to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) nonproliferation office, promised he would if confirmed weigh in on a big nonproliferation construction project Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wants to protect in South Carolina. In a confirmation hearing that ended without anyone outright opposing the Oak Ridge physicist’s […]

One of the two men who pleaded guilty to stealing from the federal government while working for the MOX project at the U.S. Energy Department’s Savannah River Site is scheduled for sentencing on April 5. Phillip Thompson will be sentenced at 10 a.m. by U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs in Columbia, S.C. He plead guilty […]

President Donald Trump this week nominated current Lawrence Livermore hand Charles Verdon to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) roughly $9-billion-a-year nuclear weapons portfolio. The White House sent Verdon’s nomination to the Hill Tuesday. If recommended by the Senate Armed Services Committee and confirmed by the full Senate, Verdon would be put in charge […]

Thursday was the first day of SOC’s security contract at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Nevada National Security Site, where the Chantilly, Va.-based company will work for up to five years under a deal worth about $200 million, including options. SOC won the contract in 2017 but did not start work until recently after competitor […]

The Department of Energy in the fourth quarter of 2017 exercised an option worth more than $490 million on BWX Technologies’ (BWXT) naval nuclear propulsion parts production contract, the Lynchburg, Va.-based company announced nearly four months into 2018. “A variety of manufacturing and material procurement activities will be performed under these contracts that will primarily […]

BWX Technologies President and CEO Rex Geveden said Wednesday the company’s  Nuclear Services Group, which includes its business with the U.S. Energy Department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, is experiencing “a resurgence.” Much of that is due new cleanup business at DOE’s shuttered Cold War nuclear-weapon sites, but a large — if not unexpected — […]

None of the 21 drone sightings in 2016 at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina resulted in any significant findings, according to Department of Energy documents recently released via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In some cases, what employees saw might not have even been a drone, the records indicate. In November 2016, […]

South Carolina should withdraw one of its two plutonium removal lawsuits – each seeking $100 million from the federal government – in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (CFC) and amend the other suit to seek the full $200 million, a judge recommended late last week. Doing so would resolve the Energy Department’s complaint that […]

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has the technical and safety chops both to manufacture plutonium pits and to lead new research on the nuclear-weapon cores, the head of the lab’s weapons program said Wednesday amid an intensifying turf war over the Department of Energy’s plutonium mission. “Something that I’ve heard a […]

ARLINGTON, Va. — The director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory said Tuesday he is “confident” the Northern New Mexico nuclear weapons site could help create the low-yield nuclear warheads the Donald Trump administration requested in the Nuclear Posture Review released in early February. “Again, I go out on a branch, but I know from […]

ARLINGTON, Va. — To help hash out military requirements for two new low-yield nuclear warheads called for in the Trump administration’s new Nuclear Posture Review, the bi-agency Nuclear Weapons Council is planning a series of road trips to key Department of Energy nuclear weapons labs and production facilities this spring, a senior Pentagon official said here […]

The White House requested roughly $31 million for the independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in 2019, roughly even with the appropriation that now funds the independent health-and-safety watchdog of the Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapon sites. The requested budget of $30.6 million is less than one percent lower than the $30.9 million the Defense Nuclear […]

Rich Abott Defense Daily By the end of 2019, the National Nuclear Security Administration plans to identify the best ways to secure low-enriched uranium for U.S. nuclear-weapon programs over the next 20 years, the semi-autonomous Department of Energy agency wrote in response to a Government Accountability Office report published Friday. The National Nuclear Security Administration […]

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) could turn the existing W76 warhead into the low-yield submarine-launched weapon requested by the Donald Trump administration by dialing back its explosive yield, a senior agency official said here Wednesday. “A low-yield submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead capability, deemed the W76 Mod 2, will be fielded […]

Accelerating upgrades for the nuclear warhead slated to fly in the next decade on a new air-launched cruise missile would consume the single largest portion of the budget increase proposed for National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) nuclear weapons programs in 2019, according to a detailed budget document released Friday. For fiscal 2019, the semiautonomous Department […]

By the end of 2019, the National Nuclear Security Administration plans to identify the best ways to secure low-enriched uranium for U.S. nuclear-weapon programs over the next 20 years, the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency wrote in response to a Government Accountability Office report published last week. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will complete […]

Lisa Gordon-Hagerty was sworn in as administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) on Thursday, officially putting the former National Security Council and Energy Department staffer in charge of a roughly $13-billion nuclear-weapons budget that is only set to grow. The NNSA announced the swearing-in Thursday in a press release. The Senate confirmed Gordon-Hagerty […]

The White House has officially nominated Brent Park, a physicist from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s $2-billion-a-year nonproliferation portfolio, but the Senate Armed Services Committee had not scheduled a nomination hearing as of Friday. Park, whose nomination was sent to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, is now an associate laboratory […]

South Carolina stakeholders for the Savannah River Site denounced Monday a potential plan to process 34 metric tons of plutonium and ship it to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., for permanent storage. That “dilute and dispose” option is the Department of Energy’s preferred approach for eliminating the plutonium, rather than continuing forward with construction and […]

The U.S. Senate on Thursday unanimously confirmed Lisa Gordon-Hagerty to be administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), making her the first woman to lead the semiautonomous Department of Energy branch in its nearly 20-year history. A former staffer at the Department of Energy and National Security Council, Gordon-Hagerty was nominated by President Donald […]

Michael Budney will replace the retiring Jack Craig as manager of the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Department of Energy announced Monday. Budney, a retired Navy captain, will be the top Department of Energy official at a site that employs about 11,000 civil servants and contractors and includes personnel from the agency’s National […]

The New Mexico Legislature has approved a bill that would, if signed into law, force nonprofit operators of U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories in the state to pay a gross receipts tax. Senate Bill 17 cruised through the legislature with little opposition this session, culminating with a 48-19 vote in the state’s House of […]

The Donald Trump administration this week proposed what would amount to a $2-billion-a-year raise for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) — a roughly $15-billion fiscal 2019 budget request that would accelerate existing nuclear-warhead refurbishment programs and consider making warhead cores somewhere other than New Mexico. The Department of Energy’s (DOE) fiscal 2019 budget request […]

A brief not-in-my-backyard bout between the city of Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) appears to have ended, with the agency announcing Thursday it plans by late 2019 to erect power lines and a substation for the future Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex. The semiautonomous Department […]

The U.S. Department of Energy’s record of policing itself is “mixed at best,” and the agency might benefit from independent oversight by an entity such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said Tuesday. Pallone made his remarks during a House Energy and Commerce energy subcommittee hearing on U.S. nuclear infrastructure. The lawmaker […]

President Donald Trump plans to nominate a nuclear physicist from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s roughly $2-billion-a-year nonproliferation division, the White House said Thursday. In a notice posted online, the administration said it intends to nominate Brent Park, who also serves as an ORNL associate laboratory […]

A federal judge has ordered a former Department of Energy subcontractor to pay back $4.4 million stolen from the federal government while conducting work for the Savannah River Site MOX project in South Carolina. Aaron Vennefron must pay the money via cash, forfeiture, and any other means needed, according to the order. Former project subcontractors […]