Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

After President Biden’s national security adviser met with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman this weekend, the Saudi foreign ministry said Sunday the Kingdom was close to finalizing a security deal with the U.S. Official statements by the White House and the Kingdom did not say what the two sides discussed, but media, citing […]

Early Wednesday, lawmakers approved an amendment to study use of a Nunn-McCurdy-type oversight process for the National Nuclear Security Administration. In an uncontroversial en bloc amendment package to the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Rep. John Garamendi (R-Ca.) proposed that the Nunn-McCurdy Act requirement to keep Congress appraised of major spikes in project costs […]

On Friday, the Missouri House passed a bill offering tax breaks to expand the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear-weapons-parts plant in Kansas City. “This is a huge economic benefit for Kansas City,” Rep. Chris Brown (R-Kansas City), who sponsored the bill alongside then-state-Sen. Greg Razer (D-Jackson County), told the Kansas City Star on Friday. The […]

Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian on Sunday died in a helicopter crash in northwest Iran, Iranian state media reported. The fatal crash happened about a month after Iran’s drone-and-missile attack against Israel and only weeks after the head of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy visited Iran in an attempt […]

President Joe Biden said Thursday afternoon he plans to nominate William Isaac (Ike) White, acting head of Department of Energy nuclear cleanup since mid-2019, to become a member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. News of the planned nomination, in a White House press release, comes only three weeks prior to when White would […]

President Biden (D) on Monday signed into law a ban on importing Russian uranium beginning in 2028, the White House announced. Under the bill, companies may no longer import unirradiated low-enriched uranium produced in Russia or by a Russian entity unless the importer gets a waiver from the Department of Energy. Waivers are only good […]

WASHINGTON — The National Nuclear Security Administration still plans to announce the new manager of Pantex Plant in June, the head of the agency said here Wednesday. Jill Hruby, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), reiterated the timeline during an evening Capitol Hill panel discussion and reception hosted by Bechtel National, the nongovernmental […]

The Department of Energy said it is still reviewing the latest small business proposals it got to manage the National Training Center in New Mexico and planned an award no sooner than August. In 2023, three small businesses protested the Department of Energy’s (DOE) 2022 award to Eagle Harbor to manage the National Training Center […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons programs would be authorized for slightly more than requested and its nonproliferation programs for slightly less if a defense bill published Monday becomes law. The House Armed Services Committee released the bill and report language for the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Monday and planned its annual […]

The National Nuclear Security of Administration’s Office of Counterterrorism and Counterproliferation coordinated a multi-laboratory nuclear forensics capabilities exercise, the agency said recently. The Epic Shadow exercise is held twice a year by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to demonstrate the NNSA’s Nuclear Forensics Material Analysis Program (NF-MAP). With NF-MAP, NNSA says decision-makers will be […]

Senators in a hearing Wednesday pressed Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins about what the State Department is doing to deter Russia and China’s nuclear capabilities. Jenkins was the sole witness in the hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which met less than a year before the February 2026 expiration of the New START nuclear arms control […]

With a June 7 deadline looming, supporters of reauthorizing the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act gathered in the U.S. Capitol grounds Thursday to urge House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to hold a vote on the bill. As of the Thursday May 16 rally and press conference, the House of Representatives had nine working days left to […]

Nuclear power company Oklo, chaired by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, started trading on the New York Stock Exchange last week, dropped 54% directly after going public and rebounded to more than half of its initial offering price by market close on Thursday. Shares opened the day May 10 at $15.50 each and fell to $8.45 […]

A State Department spokesperson said in a press briefing this week that despite comments made by an Iranian official last week on Iran’s nuclear doctrine, the Joe Biden (D) administration assesses that the Islamic Republic is not building a nuclear weapon. The spokesperson was responding to a reporter’s question on Monday about a reported statement […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security planned to subcontract construction of a new vehicle fuel station at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the site prime said Monday. The project includes designing and building the new fuel station for Y-12, as well as equipping a building with a computer station and three 10,000-gallon fueling systems, […]

Earnings rose at BWX Technologies, Lynchburg, Va., in the first quarter, during which the company said Monday it cranked out more naval-nuclear components but made less money on government business overall as it bulked up its workforce. Work is beginning under subsidiary contracts with the Tennessee Valley Authority and the National Nuclear Security (NNSA) Administration, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration began planning Monday for a contract to annually produce 400 metric tons of high purity depleted uranium for future nuclear-weapon manufacturing. “Vendors should assume that a contract would be awarded by July 15, 2025,” the agency wrote in a request for information published Monday. Responses to the request for information […]

John Lucio, once a staff member of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, was appointed director of government relations by Lynchburg, Va.-based BWX Technologies, the company said last week. Most recently Lucio was a senior vice president at Ervin Graves Strategy Group in Washington, D.C., BWXT said in a May 1 press release. A retired commissioned […]

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency visited Iran this week during the country’s International Conference on Nuclear Science and Technology and met with Iranian officials. Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi met with Iran’s nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami this past Tuesday. While Eslami told Iran International that the […]

Corey Hinderstein became the acting principal deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration on Tuesday, the head of the agency told all hands Monday. In an email, Jill Hruby, the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said that “I have selected Corey Hinderstein to serve as Acting Principal Deputy Administrator (NA-2) for […]

After threatening for years, the University of Berkeley Law Environmental Law Clinic and Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice sued the Navy and Environmental Protection Agency in May over concerns of improper and fraudulent inspection of radioactive contamination at Hunter Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco, Calif. Greenaction, a Bay-area nonprofit, and Berkeley listed strontium-90, […]

The Department of Energy will not bring on a new small-business contractor to run its National Training Center in New Mexico before early August, a recent procurement document shows. On April 30, DOE extended through Aug. 5 the contract it awarded in 2018 to training center incumbent Kupono Government Services, meaning it will take almost […]

John Lucio, once a staff member of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, was appointed director of government relations by Lynchburg, Va.-based BWX Technologies, the company said last week. Most recently Lucio was a senior vice president at Ervin Graves Strategy Group in Washington, D.C., BWXT said in a May 1 press release. A retired commissioned […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security planned to subcontract construction of a new vehicle fuel station at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the site prime said Monday. The project includes designing and building the new fuel station for Y-12, as well as equipping a building with a computer station and three 10,000-gallon fueling systems, […]

Earnings rose at Fluor, Irving, Texas, in the first quarter, which the weapons complex contractor attributed to new awards in its Urban Solutions segment. Net earnings for the first quarter ended March 31 were $59 million, or $0.34 a share, up from a loss of $107 million or 0.82 a share, in the year-ago quarter, […]

Missouri state senators this week passed a bill to provide tax breaks for the expansion of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s factory for non-nuclear nuclear-weapon parts. The bill now heads to the state legislature’s House of Representatives, where it had not been scheduled for a vote at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor. […]