Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily With efficiencies in mind, Boeing on Tuesday said it will consolidate its defense operations over the next four years and create a new international group to put more emphasis on its growing worldwide military sales. A spokesman for Boeing’s Defense, Space & Security segment told Defense Daily that any cost savings and potential charges associated […]

Dan Parsons Defense Daily Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), whose name has been run through the rumor mill this week as a possible candidate for Secretary of Defense under President-elect Donald Trump, on Thursday emphasized the importance of nuclear modernization and the NATO alliance. Since his election, only Trump surrogates have reversed his campaign rhetoric that […]

The 30th session of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty’s Special Verification Commission took place this week in Geneva, Switzerland, according to the U.S. State Department. The meeting, which had not been held since 2003, involved delegations from the United States, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine discussing “questions relating to compliance with the obligations assumed […]

Advocates for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina hope President-elect Donald Trump’s upcoming term will put to rest attempts to shut down the troubled project. The MFFF would be used to honor a 2000 bilateral agreement that requires the U.S. and Russia to each dispose of 34 […]

NS&D Monitor will not be published next week in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday. Look for the next edition in your inbox on Friday, Dec. 2.

Pat Host Defense Daily The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) wants the Air Force to spend less on its new ICBM effort than the service has proposed. HASC Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said Thursday if Congress and the Pentagon have a realistic view of what the United States can accomplish, […]

A group of experts and policy makers on Wednesday urged the incoming Donald Trump administration to make cuts to the U.S. nuclear arsenal and modernization program, along with adopting several nuclear policy changes. All the proposals are outlined in a new Ploughshares Fund report, 10 Big Nuclear Ideas for the Next President. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Adam Smith […]

Donald Trump’s victory Tuesday in the U.S. presidential election stunned political pundits and prompted speculation about a number of policy areas likely to change once President Barack Obama leaves office – not least among them the future of the nation’s nuclear arsenal. During their campaigns the Republican and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton offered two […]

Lassina Zerbo has been appointed to a second four-year term as executive secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) Organization. Zerbo assumed his current role in August 2013, having previously served as the director of the organization’s International Data Center. In announcing the news, the Vienna, Austria-based organization highlighted […]

Plutonium metal operations at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site resumed last month, following a yearlong suspension that started with a safety pause induced in September 2015 by facility management and operations contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS). Plutonium metal operations, in which plutonium is repackaged from its original storage container in K Area to […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) assured Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) it is working to boost the security and tracking of radioactive materials, in a Nov. 2 letter made public Wednesday in response to Schumer’s October request that the agency suspend approval of Category 3 radioactive material licenses. Schumer made his request early last month in […]

Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily Leidos last week posted higher earnings and sales in the third quarter driven largely by the acquisition of an information and technology services business from Lockheed Martin in August combined with a lower tax rate and modest organic growth. Net income soared 86 percent to $91 million, 80 cents earnings per […]

After agreeing last month to delay shipments of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Canada to the Savannah River Site at least until Feb. 17, 2017, the Department of Energy is now asking a federal judge for summary judgment in a lawsuit in which antinuclear organizations are requesting more information on the transfers. The DOE facility, […]

Several projects at National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) laboratories were among the winners last week of R&D Magazine 2016 R&D 100 Awards. The awards honor 100 innovative technologies from the past year. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California won an award for its GLO Transparent Ceramic Scintillator, which involves the nondestructive imaging of the 3D […]

In a third quarter during which it announced a major acquisition in its commercial nuclear power business, BWX Technologies of Lynchburg, Va., essentially held steady, registering small gains in revenue amid a slight dip in profit. Overall, BWXT on Monday reported quarterly operating income of just over $62 million, down sharply from about $130 million […]

Nuclear deterrence has regularly emerged as a topic of discussion during the 2016 presidential campaign, primarily as a means of illustrating the merits of the candidates’ capacity for leadership. Democrat Hillary Clinton recently highlighted a joint statement by 10 former Air Force nuclear launch officers that said Trump is “easily baited” and unfit to hold […]

After winning the multibillion-dollar management and operations contract for the Nevada National Security Site, only to have the award pulled in a matter of days, Nevada Site Science Support and Technologies Corp. (NVS3T) remains in the running in the rebidding process. The Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration announced on Aug. 31 that it […]

The U.S. Defense Department is intent on fixing decades of underinvestment in the nation’s nuclear deterrent, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Thursday. The insufficient funding dates to the close of the Cold War, “when the United States believed it would be safe to allow funding for the nuclear enterprise to drop, and drop it did, […]

A federal judge on Monday would not dismiss a South Carolina lawsuit seeking redress for the Energy Department’s failure to remove plutonium from the state, but she did ask the sides whether the dispute should be moved to a different court. In declining to rule on DOE’s claim that South Carolina has no standing to sue […]

Two nuclear watchdog organizations are urging Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to order a new site-wide environmental impact statement for the Y-12 National Security Complex due to changes in a major construction project at the Tennessee nuclear weapons facility. The updated EIS is necessary after the department amended its 2011 record of decision for the new […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed legislation that suspends the bilateral agreement under which his nation and the United States were each to dispose of 34 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium. Putin early last month signed a decree suspending the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA), citing hostile U.S. behavior and Washington’s failure to […]

Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) on Thursday reported lower revenue and operating income in the third quarter of 2016, decreases it attributed in part to lower revenues in shipbuilding programs and lower sales volumes in some contracts. Company revenue fell 6.5 percent, to $1.68 billion, from $1.8 billion during the same quarter last year. Quarterly diluted […]

Savannah River Site Watch got the green light from Grammy Award winner Bonnie Raitt to lobby outside of her Oct. 28 concert in North Charleston, where the group collected signatures in opposition to bringing more nuclear materials to South Carolina. “Bonnie follows these nuclear waste issues and she’s very supportive of our work,” said SRS […]

A small cadre of Energy Department Environmental Management personnel based at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Nevada Field Office may soon get their own private office space to insulate them from NNSA personnel at the former nuclear weapons-testing site, according to an internal DOE document. Weapons Complex Monitor obtained a copy of the undated, unsigned draft […]

The United Nations First Committee voted Thursday to begin negotiations next year on a nuclear weapons ban treaty, a major global push toward nuclear disarmament strongly opposed by the five nations that are simultaneously the permanent U.N. Security Council members and the recognized nuclear-weapon states. A total of 123 countries voted in favor of the […]

Russia’s Federal Assembly this week completed its approval of legislation suspending the bilateral agreement with the United States under which each country had committed to disposing of 34 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium. The upper house of the country’s legislature, the Council of the Federation, signed off on the bill Wednesday. Russian President Vladimir […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said it this week hosted international diplomats at the Nevada National Security Site and the National Atomic Testing Museum to offer demonstrations of nuclear security technologies. The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency showcased its Stockpile Stewardship Program, which maintains the U.S. nuclear stockpile without nuclear explosive testing, as well […]