Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

In fulfillment of a long-circulating rumor, the Donald Trump administration announced it will nominate former National Security Council and Department of Energy staffer Lisa Gordon-Hagerty to run U.S. nuclear warhead programs as undersecretary for nuclear security and head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). If approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee and confirmed […]

One thing at least is now known about the Dec. 6 closed-door meeting of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB): it was the only one the five-member federal nuclear-site watchdog needed to mull a possible safety recommendation to the Department of Energy. The meeting was one of two planned so the DNFSB could “discuss […]

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Enterprise Assessments said it will investigate an incident in a Los Alamos National Lab facility that resulted in a “near miss to a fatality.” The DOE watchdog office decided to investigate lab prime contractor Los Alamos National Security (LANS) following a September incident in which “a LANS worker […]

The Department of Energy on Friday made official a long-rumored bureaucratic reorganization that puts the agency’s Cold War nuclear-cleanup programs under new management but leaves the quasi-independent National Nuclear Security Administration essentially unchanged. The Department of Energy’s (DOE) roughly $6.5-million-a-year Office of Environmental Management (EM), steward of environmental remediation of Cold War nuclear weapons sites […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (NNFSB) this week held the first of a pair of closed-door meetings during which the five-member watchdog group will discuss what could become its first recommendation to the Donald Trump administration’s Department of Energy. Jessie Hill Roberson, the board’s longest-serving member and a veteran of the George W. Bush […]

Boeing says its Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) effort completed its first major review with the Air Force in November. The system requirements review was designed to ensure that Boeing fully understands the system’s requirements. In August, Boeing and Northrop Grumman both received three-year contracts to conduct technology maturation and risk reduction for the new, […]

A recent drone sighting at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri underscores the need for the Air Force to continue developing systems to counter unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) that trespass on its installations, according to a four-star general. “That got real to us not too long ago with Whiteman,” said Gen. Robin Rand, commander of […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration believes manufacturing plutonium pits at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina might be cheaper than keeping the work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency settled on Savannah River after ruling out the Idaho National Laboratory as part of a congressionally […]

Bids on the next management and operations contract for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory are due in a matter of days. Texas A&M University is in the hunt, but even at the 11th hour, the university refuses to provide any details about the role it hopes to play at the storied nuclear […]

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has begun analyzing whether the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico would be a viable facility for storage of plutonium that would be downblended at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. In its fiscal 2017 budget, Congress mandated that the nongovernmental research organization conduct […]

The city of Oak Ridge, Tenn., this week asked the Department of Energy again not to despoil the natural landscape near the Y-12 National Nuclear Security Complex with power lines for a next-generation uranium-processing plant. The Department of Energy (DOE) contracted with the Tennessee Valley Authority to build the lines on a hilltop known locally […]

A former Sandia National Laboratories employee who allegedly swindled more than $2 million from the federal government pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering. It was part of a plea bargain that Carla Sena, a former contracting official at the Albuquerque, N.M.-based lab, agreed to with the […]

Department of Energy nuclear budgets will stay at fiscal 2017 levels through Dec. 22, under a short-term continuing resolution Congress approved on Thursday. President Donald Trump was expected to sign the stopgap budget bill after deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor. Without the new spending bill, federal funding would run out after midnight […]

The Uranium Processing Facility in Tennessee, a centrifuge in Texas, and the national heavy water inventory are among the management challenges the Department of Energy’s Inspector General’s Office foresees for the agency in fiscal 2018, according to a Nov. 27 special report. The Inspector General’s (IG) Office fretted that DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) […]

BWX Technologies has named Regina W. Carter as its senior vice president, government affairs and communications. Carters has been a vice president for the company since 2015. In addition to heading up government affairs and communications, Carter also serves as a member of BWXT’s executive staff and strategic planning team, BWXT President and CEO Rex […]

Terry Wallace will become director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory effective Jan. 1, replacing Charles McMillan, the lab announced Tuesday. Wallace is a stopgap director who will serve only about nine months at the helm Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) before a new management contractor — and a new director — steps in. That […]

The University of Texas’ (UT) Board of Regents on Monday narrowly approved a bid on a potentially decade-long contract to manage the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory. The board voted 4-3 in favor of the motion, which will pair the university with at least one corporate partner as part of a limited liability […]

A U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge said Tuesday she needs to determine if her court can decide if South Carolina should receive $100 million from the Department of Energy over missed plutonium disposal deadlines at the Savannah River Site. In the order, Judge Margaret Sweeney granted DOE’s request to defer a ruling on the […]

Funding for federal agencies runs out Dec. 8, but Congress is working on another short-term fix to keep the government running for a little while longer, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Thursday. The new budget year, fiscal 2018, began on Oct. 1, but the federal government for now remains funded at prior-year levels. “We’re […]

AECOM does not plan to be part of the next Los Alamos National Laboratory management team, a source said Thursday. The Los Angeles-based engineering services giant is one of the junior industry partners on Los Alamos National Security (LANS): the incumbent lab prime now managing the the roughly 70-year-old nuclear-weapons facility under a contract worth […]

Marc Selinger Defense Daily Faced with budget constraints that are unlikely to ease anytime soon, the U.S. military should build more relationships with foreign countries to counter threats in a more cost-effective way, according to the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC). The military could reduce its overseas presence by making greater […]

The state of California is participating in a National Nuclear Security Administration program to reduce the possibility of medical isotopes becoming ammunition for dirty bombs, the semi autonomous Department of Energy agency said Tuesday. The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Cesium Irradiator Replacement Program helps academic and medical institutions replace devices that use radiological materials, […]

More than 10 months into the Donald Trump administration, the White House has not nominated anyone to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) — something entirely consistent with the few organizational precedents the agency has established in its short history. Yet Trump prides himself on shattering Washington precedents and is, according to rumor, on […]

A new labor contract phased last week for about 900 Honeywell employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Kansas City National Security Campus, the union announced. Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 778 ratified a new tentative agreement with management Nov. 19, the local said on its website. Members never went […]

The Honeywell-led National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia (NTESS) was the lowest bidder and the most technically qualified of four teams that competed for a 10-year, $2.5-billion-plus contract to manage the Sandia National Laboratories last year, according to a newly released procurement document. The details come from a National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) source […]

WASHINGTON — The author of a congressional report that pondered ways to trim billions of dollars in U.S. nuclear-weapon spending over the next 30 years speculated recently that targeting the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons complex would not yield considerable savings. “You might find some more savings there, but I don’t think that changes the […]

Mission Support and Test Services officially took over management of the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site on Friday, the agency’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration said. The Nevada National Security Site is the former Nevada Test Site where the United States conducted explosive atmospheric and underground nuclear weapon tests. The site today conducts […]

Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily Orbital ATK’s [OA] stockholders on Wednesday voted in favor of their company’s being acquired by Northrop Grumman [NOC], keeping the pending deal on track for a close in the first half of 2018. The nearly $8 billion acquisition still must receive regulatory approvals. Orbital ATK said that holders of more than 99 percent […]