Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The Department of Energy (DOE) is preparing new guidance, reporting documents, working groups, and long-term plans in response to the recommendations of the Commission to Review the Effectiveness of the National Energy Laboratories (CRENEL), a congressionally mandated group of experts that identified a broken relationship between the federal government and its national labs. In a […]

South Carolina’s senior senator exploded at Energy Department officials on Tuesday, demanding to know why nobody has been fired for the White House’s apparent flip-flop on turning 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-usable plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear plants. “This is what’s wrong with the government!” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) shouted at National Nuclear Security […]

Members of Congress and the chairmen of a congressional advisory panel on governance of the nuclear security enterprise on Wednesday mulled reintegrating the operations of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) fully into the Department of Energy (DOE). Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, said at […]

Valerie Insinna Defense Daily  2/26/2016 Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Thursday he would not authorize funding for the Long Range Strike Bomber as long as the program remains under a cost-plus contracting structure. McCain has not yet been briefed by the Air Force on the contract award to Northrop Grumman […]

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, said the design of the multibillion-dollar Uranium Processing Facility should be 90 percent completed by the end of 2017. That 90 percent design has been established as a critical milestone before the National Nuclear Security Administration can begin construction of […]

Pat Host Defense Daily 2/26/2016 Russian sanctions are not impacting the Defense Department’s ability to acquire Russian-developed rocket engines it uses in launch, the Pentagon’s acquisition czar said Tuesday. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) Frank Kendall said DoD is waiting for the Treasury Department’s final decision on whether acquiring RD-180s […]

Ineffective hazardous chemical management and chemical safety training processes precipitated a chemical waste drum fire at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) a year after an explosion at the site, according to a Feb. 22 enforcement letter from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Enterprise Assessments to NNSS managing contractor National Security Technologies (NSTec). […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security, management and operations contractor at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., confirmed that a dozen firms have submitted “expressions of interest” in providing architecture/engineering services for a new emergency operations center. “An evaluation of the responders are in progress to determine which of the 12 meet qualifications,” CNS spokeswoman Ellen […]

National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Frank Klotz on Tuesday highlighted the Laboratory-Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program, staffing incentives, and changes in contractor procedures as factors that will increase the NNSA’s design laboratories’ ability to recruit and retain top talent. Asked at a Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee hearing how the Sandia and […]

A team of Department of Energy officials under the scope of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is recovering heavy curium and plutonium-244 from irradiated fuel targets stored at the Savannah River Site. The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) near Aiken, S.C. is heading up the effort, with collaborative help from the Oak Ridge and […]

Pat Host Defense Daily 2/19/2016 The Air Force is on track for a Milestone A decision this year in its Ground Based Strategic Deterrence (GBSD) program, according to a key officer. Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration Lt. Gen. Jack Weinstein said Thursday the Defense Department fiscal year 2017 […]

U.S. and Russian officials on Wednesday renewed claims that their governments had violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and sparred over the consequences of aggressive rhetoric toward one another. Jon Wolfsthal, senior director for arms control and nonproliferation at the National Security Council, said at the ExchangeMonitor Nuclear Deterrence Summit that the U.S. seeks a resolution […]

Pat Host Defense Daily 2/19/2016 The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Tuesday denied Boeing’s protest of the Air Force’s Long Range Strike Bomber (LRSB) award to Northrop Grumman. Ralph White, managing associate general counsel for procurement law at GAO, said in a statement that GAO found no basis to sustain or uphold the protest after reviewing Boeing’s […]

Three Republican presidential candidates advocated for construction funding for the Savannah River Site’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) during campaign stops this week in Aiken, S.C. – a town less than 20 miles from the site. President Barack Obama’s 2017 budget request calls for shuttering the MFFF and the entire MOX project, the nation’s […]

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, […]