Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The Senate Armed Services Committee wants the Government Accountability Office to examine the culture and workings of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, according to a bill report the committee published this week. “Recent assessments from the National Academy of Public Administration and from the Office of the Inspector General for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission […]

The full Senate Tuesday voted 54-to-41, mostly upon party lines, to confirm the nomination of Patricia Lee, a manager at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina, to be a member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. The final vote was tallied shortly after 3:00 p.m. Eastern time. The Senate […]

Integrating “only” government-wide practices will not help keep nuclear weapons infrastructure projects on time and on budget, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration said in a letter published Tuesday. “We strongly believe that the incorporation of government best practices alone will not fundamentally change our ability to integrate the program and project cost […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee wants to require the Department of Energy to pick two to four possible sites for a new domestic uranium enrichment facility for defense programs, according to a bill report published Monday. The report was appended to the panel’s version of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which the Senate […]

The Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that shelling and fire destroyed an external radiation monitoring system last week, the head of the agency said in a press release. ZNPP supposedly lost connection to the monitoring station June 24, a few days after losing power for 16 hours, and could not […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration will host diplomats at Sandia National Laboratories and Nevada National Security Sites in July with aims to be transparent about its activities and its moratorium on nuclear testing. The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) labs will host diplomats from the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban-Treaty Organization, as well as the United Arab […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s largest ever carbon-pollution-free procurement would be a partnership with Los Alamos that aims to provide two Department of Energy labs in New Mexico with electricity from solar energy, the agency said Thursday. The project — called the Los Alamos County Foxtail Flats Solar and Storage Project — will notionally be […]

Meeting IAEA’s 2023 nuclear projections of doubling the world’s nuclear power capacity by 2050 will require doubling investments in nuclear power to $100 billion U.S. dollars annually, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday.  Countries seeking to add nuclear energy to their arsenal need technical and financial expertise through deployment of nuclear energy and low […]

The Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico and the prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant will hold the next town-hall-style public meeting at the end of July. The hybrid meeting will provide an update on disposal of defense-related transuranic waste and related issues at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), […]

The Department of Energy Knolls Laboratory Site will take part in a project to remove and replace several underground utility sections, some of which are over 70 years old, to include construction of a monument to the Navy and the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, according to a summary from the Office of NEPA Policy and […]

Immigration reform is needed to expand the defense and shipbuilding industrial bases and workforces build submarines faster, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services seapower committee said Friday. “The U.S. birth rate is not growing, and even if it started growing tomorrow, we wouldn’t see it for 20 years,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said during […]

Editor’s note: the story first appeared in Exchange Monitor affiliate publication Defense Daily. On June 24, U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. John Newberry, the head of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Kirtland AFB, N.M., dismissed Air Force Col. Charles Clegg, the head of the Sentinel Systems Directorate at Hill AFB, Utah since the […]

Keeping close to, but not crossing, the threshold of building nuclear weapons gives Iran another way of threatening adversaries, including Israel, a Middle East scholar said Monday at an anti-nuclear event. Iran “is getting advantages from having this program that everyone is very afraid of,” Barbara Slavin, distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center think tank […]

Former Chinese officials reportedly told U.S. counterparts recently that Beijing would not resort to nuclear weapons or threats in a conflict over Taiwan, Reuters reported. That was one of the takeaways from track two talks — meaning unofficial talks without government representatives — involving half a dozen delegates, mainly former officials and scholars, over the […]

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Trade and Development Agency planned to host a technical workshop with delegations from “Europe and Eurasia” at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the second week of October, an official said here Wednesday. At the workshop, the delegations would meet with U.S. companies, Carl Kress, a regional director from the U.S. Trade […]

WASHINGTON — The National Nuclear Security Administration would get a year-over-year raise and roughly 2% more than requested under a 2025 budget bill approved here Friday by a House subcommittee. Among the beneficiaries would be the delayed, budget-busting Uranium Processing Facility (UPF)  at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., for which the […]

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration should update its racial diversity guides for prime contractors to ensure leading practices are being used, the Government Accountability Office said in a report out Friday. Also, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) May 2023 diversity report for management contractors generally […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration would get about $25.5 billion, 2% more than requested for fiscal year 2025 and a roughly 5.5% raise year-over-year, if a bill released Thursday becomes law. Most of the increase proposed by the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee in the first congressional budget recommendation of the year for […]

The Exchange Monitor planned to hold its second annual Nuclear Energy Security Summit next week in Washington on June 26-27. Among the scheduled speakers were Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), chair of the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee, who was due to deliver an 8:15 a.m. Eastern keynote speech at the Ronald Reagan Building […]

Former President Donald Trump’s (R) national security advisor Robert O’brien argued the U.S. must test nuclear weapons again outside of a computer model in an article he published in Foreign Affairs. O’brien said that if China and Russia continue to refuse to engage in peace talks, and continue to upgrade their nuclear arsenal, the U.S. […]

The story “House passes NDAA sans RECA, restores B-52 nuke capabilities” (Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, Vol. 28, No. 24) should have said the House of Representatives passed its version of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act. The story “House committee passes NDAA; legally binding pit dates, ICBM minimum, stand” (Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, […]

The U.S. Senate made some parliamentary moves that could pave the way for a Department of Energy manager from the Savannah River National Laboratory, Patricia Lee, to receive a voice vote on her nomination to the Defense Nuclear Facilities. A cloture motion was presented in the Senate Thursday on Lee’s nomination to become a member […]

Scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California developed an algorithm to simulate nuclear reaction rates, which are tough to make in a lab, to collect data to maintain the nuclear weapons stockpile, according to a press release. The hybrid computing scheme “successfully” simulated the scattering of two neutrons, which can […]

Lawmakers’ $923.3 billion defense authorization bill will wait for a floor vote until after the July 4 recess, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee said this week. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told reporters after the body’s weekly policy lunches that she and other Democrats will not agree to a defense increase while other domestic […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee overwhelmingly approved a National Defense Authorization Act that would authorize more than requested for the National Nuclear Security Administration, but a floor vote on the bill will wait until after July 4. Senate Democrats on Tuesday said they are mostly opposed to increasing defense spending beyond existing budget caps unless […]

The National Academies of Sciences recommended in a report that the National Nuclear Security Administration enhance the security of radiological materials by prioritizing research funding and engaging in cooperation with low- and middle-income countries already using radiological sources. “By investing in this… it’s a deterrent in and of itself,” Jeffrey Chamberlin, acting principal assistant deputy […]

Global spending on nuclear weapons increased by 13% in 2023, according to the latest annual report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons group, reaching $91.4 billion that year with a world-leading $51.5 billion spent in the U.S.  This 2023 total is $10.7 billion higher than the previous year, with all nine nuclear-armed states […]