Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Frank Klotz on Wednesday lauded the Obama administration’s progress in modernizing the nation’s nuclear warheads and conducting nonproliferation activities worldwide. Speaking at the ExchangeMonitor Nuclear Deterrence Summit about the NNSA’s $12.9 billion budget request for fiscal 2017, Klotz noted that the proposal includes $222.9 million to complete production of the W76-1 warhead by fiscal 2019; $616.1 million to […]

Defense contractor Huntington Ingalls on Thursday reported a slight drop in year-over-year net earnings for its latest quarter but a significant spike in full-year income. Fourth-quarter net income dropped from $52 million in fourth-quarter 2014 to $50 million in the three-month period ending 2015. Conversely, net income rose from $338 million for all of 2014 […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in January established a uranium lease and take-back (ULTB) program for the commercial production of medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) using low-enriched uranium (LEU). The goal, the NNSA said this week, is to give commercial producers of the isotope access to Department of Energy (DOE) LEU from its excess uranium inventory for Mo-99 production in the […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) Inspector General’s Office (IG) is questioning the allowability of over $167,000 in costs incurred by Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Pantex (B&W Pantex), the contractor that managed and operated the Pantex Plant from 2001 to 2014. Of the $966 million in costs the contractor incurred in fiscal 2013 through the […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) has been reimbursing its contractors for settlement and law firm costs without consistently verifying that the payments are allowable, according to an Inspector General’s Office (IG) audit report released earlier this month. The report found that from fiscal 2009 through fiscal 2013, DOE reimbursed contractors over $84 million in legal costs. In […]

At least three executive positions – including the top two – are up for grabs at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office in an unusually unsteady management situation. The situation was created by losses at the top of the organization, including the death a year ago of Manager Larry Kelly and then the departure […]

An article in the Feb. 5 NS&D Monitor incorrectly reported that the Radiation Laboratory Utility Office Building at the Los Alamos National Laboratory had been upgraded from a radiological laboratory. In the same edition, NS&D Monitor incorrectly characterized the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site. NS&D Monitor regrets the errors.

IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT Secretary of State John Kerry highlighted U.S.-Russian arms control cooperation under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in a statement Friday on the fifth anniversary of the accord’s entry into force. “New START is more important now than when it went into effect. It gives us the confidence and level of […]

LANL Executive Director Resigns Richard Marquez, executive director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), resigned this week from his position at the lab, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported. The article was based on an internal memo from LANL Director Charles McMillan to employees obtained by the newspaper. The circumstances under which Marquez resigned […]

DOE Seeking Sources for Pantex Demolition and Construction Project The Department of Energy said Tuesday it is seeking sources for a demolition and construction project at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas. The project is for demolition and new work construction “to accommodate the installation of new workstations,” the solicitation said. Work at the nuclear […]

Researchers at Texas A&M University’s Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute (NSSPI), along with its Department of Nuclear Engineering and a Cyclotron Institute professor, have developed a new method to determine the origins of weapon-usable plutonium, the NSSPI announced last week. The nuclear forensics methodology helps “track the production source of black market nuclear materials, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration said it has identified some “other sources” of purified lithium-6 needed for nuclear warhead refurbishment, perhaps easing concerns raised in recent months by the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General. In a budget briefing with reporters on Wednesday, Brig. Gen. Stephen Davis, the NNSA’s […]

The Obama administration is requesting $575 million in fiscal 2017 to continue design work and bolster other activities on the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee. The funding request is a significant bump-up from the current appropriation of $430 million. Based on Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz’s budget presentation, the […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) is planning a significantly greater investment in the maintenance and repair of National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) facilities, with a fiscal 2017 budget request for the agency’s deferred maintenance that exceeds the currently enacted amount by $17 million. Overall, DOE’s $32.5 billion budget request includes $12.9 billion for the NNSA, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is requesting $1.8 billion for defense nuclear nonproliferation (DNN) programs in fiscal 2017. The funding request is down from the $1.9 billion it currently receives due to prior year carryover balances and planned termination of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. The NNSA’s DNN program partners with the State, […]

Five years after entry into force of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, it is clear that what was hoped to be the beginning of a new set of major U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control treaties will instead be the first and last under the Obama administration. President Barack Obama early in his tenure laid out […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) $12.9 billion budget request for fiscal 2017 maintains relatively flat funding levels for the agency’s weapons research, production, and testing sites. The Lawrence Livermore (LLNL) and Sandia National laboratories (SNL) would see the smallest change from the fiscal 2016 appropriation – a 1 percent proposed decrease to $1.2 billion […]

If Congress follow through on President Barack Obama’s plans to terminate the MOX project, employment at the Savannah River Site’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) would likely take a hit near the top of 2017. For now, MFFF construction will continue as the nation’s current pathway to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus […]

Members of Congress on Thursday challenged the Department of Energy’s (DOE) decision to terminate the Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility project in favor of a different plutonium dilution and disposal approach. The facility is being constructed to convert 34 metric tons of weapon-grade plutonium into commercial nuclear fuel under a U.S.-Russian nonproliferation agreement. Rep. […]

Staff Reports NS&D Monitor 2/9/2016 The future of the Savannah River Site’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) is uncertain again as President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2017 budget proposal calls for shutting down the facility in lieu of another method of disposing of surplus nuclear weapon-usable plutonium. After more than a year of speculation, the proposal confirms that Obama and the Department […]

Alissa Tabirian NS&D Monitor 2/9/2016 The White House’s fiscal 2017 budget request released today increases proposed funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to $12.9 billion. The $4.15 trillion budget boosts NNSA funding from the currently appropriated $12.5 billion and projects a total request of $131.9 billion for fiscal years 2017-2026. The agency’s increased […]

Pat Host Defense Daily 2/9/2016 The Air Force requested 2.4 percent more funding for fiscal year 2017 than the $163.1 billion it was appropriated for last fiscal year. As part of the $166.9 billion it requested for FY ’17, the Air Force wants $12.3 billion in overseas contingency operations (OCO) wartime spending, 22 percent more […]

Dan Leone NS&D Monitor 2/5/2016 As part of a policy blitz aimed at paving the way to send some 40 tons of diluted plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, the White House’s fiscal 2017 budget request will slash funding for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in Aiken, S.C., according to […]

Alissa Tabirian NS&D Monitor 2/5/2016 The U.S. State Department last Wednesday hosted a Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) meeting in which midlevel officials from the United States and 70 partner states gathered to discuss collective nonproliferation efforts. More than 100 PSI member states have committed to taking actions to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass […]

Alissa Tabirian NS&D Monitor 2/5/2016 As the United Nations’ Conference on Disarmament (CD) begins its 2016 session, one nonproliferation expert doubts the likelihood of significant progress in the body’s long-stalled arms control negotiations. The multilateral forum, which held its first public plenary meeting of the year last week, faces a stalemate of almost two decades […]

Staff Reports NS&D Monitor 2/5/2016 No timetable has been set for the Department of Energy to decide if 1 million graphite spheres – each containing highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Germany – will be transported to the Savannah River Site for processing and disposal. The department must first go through several courses of action, including […]

Staff Reports NS&D Monitor 2/5/2016 The National Nuclear Security Administration this week finally spelled out some of the details of a 2014 “security event” involving the mishandling of classified information at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Most of the blame went to former site contractor B&W Y-12, but the NNSA waived […]