Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

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 […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) acknowledged the third test of 2017 for components of the updated B61-12 gravity bomb the agency is developing as part of the $1-trillion-plus U.S. nuclear modernization program. The two qualification flights took place Nov. 7 and Nov. 8 at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, the NNSA said in a […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board plans to consider at least one nuclear safety recommendation to the Department of Energy during closed-door meetings in early December, according to notices published Monday. The specific topics to be discussed by the five-member Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) on Dec. 6 and Dec. 18 are unknown. In notices posted online, the […]

Centrus Energy said this week it anticipates completing cleanup of its retired advanced centrifuge technology demonstration site in Piketon, Ohio, by the end of the year. Decontamination and decommissioning of the American Centrifuge facility began in the second quarter of 2016 after the Department of Energy cut off funding for the project the year before […]

A former contracting official at the Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico swindled the government out of more than $2 million by steering a lab contract to a moving company she founded, according to an indictment filed this week with the U.S. District Court in Albuquerque. In 2010, while employed at the Department of Energy […]

A day after an influential Senate committee mulled whether to change the president’s unilateral authority to launch a nuclear strike, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee introduced a bill to ban the U.S. from launching a nuclear first strike. U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) on Wednesday introduced exceptionally short legislation that would […]

The company that has run the Los Alamos National Laboratory for a decade will split up, with members of the incumbent manager set to pursue separate bids to run the nuclear weapons lab for the next 10 years, a University of California official said Wednesday. The University of California (UC) managed the Los Alamos National […]

Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor will not be published on Friday, Nov. 24, in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Dec. 1.

Changing the structure of the contract for the Department of Energy’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility would not necessarily help restrain the rising costs for building the plant that will eliminate stocks of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report Wednesday. The report does not include any recommended action, but rather reveals […]

UT Still in Hunt for Next LANL Management Contract The University of Texas has not suspended work on its bid to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), a spokesperson for the Austin-based institution said. “Bid preparation is in progress and will be reviewed by the Board of Regents later this month,” a University of […]

Congress this week sent a defense authorization bill to President Donald Trump’s desk that would authorize research into a new nuclear-capable cruise missile, allow construction of a controversial plutonium processing facility the administration wants to cancel, and let the Department of Energy build a new office building for nuclear-weapons support personnel in Albuquerque. The House […]