Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The House and Senate will soon hash out their differences on a fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would sustain a major nonproliferation construction project in South Carolina and call for development of a new intermediate-range missile. The House and Senate each passed differing versions of the bill this summer, and the Senate […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) and the U.S. Justice Department are seeking opinions from a federal board on whether the contractor and one of its parent companies overcharged the federal government to the tune of $5 million, according to a recently filed status report in U.S. District Court. The document, filed on Oct. 10, arrived after six […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) upheld the Department of Energy’s decision to oust the incumbent security services contractor at the Nevada National Security Site after it was underbid by a competitor. The GAO handed down the ruling on Sept. 21, but only posted a redacted copy of its decision Thursday. In May, DOE awarded SOC LLC […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is working with New York City and the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative on a new program intended to prevent terrorists from acquiring material for “a radiological dispersal device,” or dirty bomb. The partnership helps academic and medical institutions in the city replace devices that use radiological materials with X-ray technology, […]

About 200 workers were recently laid off from the MOX project at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, construction prime CB&I AREVA MOX Services said this week. Gentry Brann, a spokeswoman for contractor parent CB&I, said the project employed about 2,200 workers at SRS before the recent layoffs. She did not say when the layoffs […]

President Donald Trump called it “fake” news and arms control wonks called it impossible: a radical increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal the commander in chief demanded during a private meeting at the Pentagon in July, according to an NBC News report Wednesday. During the meeting with Cabinet officials and military brass, Trump reportedly said he […]

A Texas congressman gave Energy Secretary Rick Perry an opportunity to come clean Thursday about his use of charter aircraft for official government business — something Perry maintained, in line with previous reports, that he has done only once. Rep. Joe Barton (R), in a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce energy subcommittee, told […]

Iran committed multiple violations of a 2015 nuclear nonproliferation agreement intended to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring a nuclear weapon, President Donald Trump said Friday. Breaches of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) included Iran twice exceeding the amount of heavy water it is allowed to possess under the deal, according to Trump. Heavy […]

  The state of South Carolina has asked for summary judgment in its recent $100 million lawsuit against the Department of Energy over plutonium disposition at the Savannah River Site. The request was filed Oct. 6 – the same day the federal agency asked that the suit be thrown out. South Carolina filed the complaint […]

The hundreds of security personnel still on strike at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina are expected to return soon as their union and employer wrap up negotiations for a contract that won’t expire until October 2022. It was not immediately clear when the deal will be signed. Among its provisions, the new labor agreement […]

Days before President Donald Trump was expected to decertify Iran’s compliance with a 2015 nuclear nonproliferation agreement, the White House tapped longtime House Foreign Affairs Committee staffer Yleem D. S. Poblete to be assistant secretary of state, verification and compliance. The White House announced the nomination online. Poblete spent almost 20 years on the House […]

More than 400 unionized workers at the Energy Department’s Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico ratified a new three-year labor pact Monday, the Atomic Projects and Production Workers, Metal Trades Council, said Tuesday. “The Collective Bargaining Agreement was accepted by a majority of the membership employed at Sandia National Labs who came out to vote […]

The House of Representatives on Thursday voted to go to conference with the Senate on their respective versions of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2018, and selected its slate of conferees. The House panel primarily features 31 members of the lower chamber’s Armed Services Committee: 18 Republicans and 13 Democrats. Members of other […]

Honeywell’s decision to spin off three of its business units should not affect the company’s work with the Energy Department, a corporate spokesperson said Tuesday. Honeywell announced Tuesday it will spin off its Homes portfolio and ADI Global Distribution business into a separate home ventilation, security, and fire-protection company, and spin its Transportation Systems segment […]

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a vocal advocate for the Energy Department’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility and a sometimes-vocal critic of President Donald Trump, spent the U.S. Columbus Day holiday golfing with the commander in chief, multiple news outlets reported. CNN captured video of the senator on the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va. A […]

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster is urging the state’s congressional delegation to continue advocating for the MOX project at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site, which is again in danger of being defunded. In a Sept. 14 letter, McMaster provided all lawmakers from the state with a recent report from the governor’s South Carolina Nuclear […]

The Russian Federation sharply cut its number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads over the past six months, putting the nuclear power within 11 warheads of meeting its disarmament obligations under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the U.S. State Department said Monday. The bilateral treaty, known as New START, requires the U.S. and Russia to […]

The leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee wants the Government Accountability Office to examine whether the Energy Department’s contractor oversight practices are preventing company’s carrying out projects for the agency’s National Nuclear Security Administration from getting work done. The committee is worried that some of the agency’s “burdensome practices” might “limit the efficiency […]

Marc Selinger Defense Daily The U.S. Air Force has picked Lockheed Martin and Rockwell Collins to begin designing a replacement for the aging Airborne Launch Control System (ALCS), which allows command-and-control aircraft to launch land-based, nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Rockwell Collins have been awarded three-year contracts valued at $80.8 million and $76.3 million, […]

The Government Accountability Office said the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) should draft tighter life-cycle cost and schedule estimates for its nonproliferation programs: something the Energy Department’s semiautonomous nuclear-weapon agency said is difficult to do, given the nature of the work. The NNSA should “require DNN [Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation] programs and subprograms to follow life-cycle […]

The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site downblended 16 kilograms of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium in fiscal 2017, and is expected to nearly double amount in the current budget year. Officials from the South Carolina facility reported the figure last week during a bimonthly meeting of the SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB). Downblending began in September 2016, […]

Several hundred unionized workers at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., remained on the job this week after contract negotiations with the lab broke down, and are scheduled to vote on a new labor deal Monday. Sandia and the Atomic Projects and Productions Workers, Metal Trades Council (MTC), “met this week to address remaining issues […]

The Trump administration threw signal after signal this week that it could walk away from an international agreement aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons — a deal the president’s own secretary of defense said is good for U.S. national security. The Washington Post reported Thursday that President Donald Trump plans to decertify Iran’s compliance […]

The Energy Department wants to move a lawsuit filed by environmental and anti-nuclear groups that aim to halt construction of new uranium enrichment facilities to a federal court in Tennessee, according to court papers filed last week. DOE wants the lawsuit over the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee moved […]

A Swiss anti-nuclear group that advocated for a United Nations ban on nuclear weapons this summer received the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) “is receiving the award for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for […]

The Energy Department as of this week had yet to release a solicitation for the next 10-year contract to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico. DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) released a draft solicitation in July, which said the final solicitation for the next management and operations pact for […]

Marc Selinger Defense Daily A key House member expressed confidence Sept. 26 that Congress will finish its work on the fiscal year 2018 defense authorization bill despite Capitol Hill gridlock on many issues. The optimism from Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s (HASC’s) strategic forces panel, came eight days after […]