Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Bill Tindal retired as chief executive officer of Consolidated Nuclear Security, the Bechtel National-led management contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s two main nuclear-weapons production sites, a company spokesperson confirmed Wednesday. “We shared with employees yesterday that Bill has retired,” the spokesperson said. Gene Sievers, site manager for Y-12 National Security Complex, is now […]

Joel Duling will resign as president of BWT Technology’s mainstay Nuclear Operations Group effective July 29, the company wrote in a regulatory filing dated Monday. Duling informed the company of his decision on July 12, according to the 8-K filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. “Joel Duling is retiring from BWXT to pursue other […]

The full House this week passed a bundle of six appropriations bills that would provide roughly the request funding for Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs and, contrary to the will of House authorizers and President Joe Biden, keep the B83 nuclear gravity bomb in play. The bill also provides the requested funding for the […]

In a few years, the Department of Energy could make its practices for categorizing hazards found in nuclear facilities a formal federal rule, the agency wrote in a recent letter to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. DOE would not begin the rulemaking until 2025 at the earliest, according to the June 27 letter to […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee this week released all the unclassified details of its fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, showing lawmakers in that chamber disagree with their House counterparts on little except by how much to exceed the White House’s request for construction of a new plutonium pit factory in South Carolina. The […]

A Consolidated Nuclear Security employee who in June hung a noose at a construction site at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., was fired from their job, according to a statement a building trades union posted online Friday. The North America’s Building Trades Unions had offered a $200,000 reward for information leading […]

The House this week passed a National Defense Authorization Act that authorized more funding for Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs than requested and allows continued work on a nuclear-tipped, sea-launched cruise missile. Democrats narrowly control the House, but more than enough of them crossed the aisle during floor debates this week to fend of […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has selected a manager from the semi autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, Cathy Tullis, to be its next chief of staff effective July 17. Tullis, currently chief of staff for the associate administrator for management and budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), will fill the […]

Less than a month remains for anyone interested in selling domestic uranium to the government for a congressionally directed to submit their bids to the National Nuclear Security Administration. In a 2021 spending bill, Congress appropriated $75 million to the semiautonomous Department of Energy Nuclear Weapons agency to set up a 1-million-pound natural uranium reserve […]

The Congressionally-created safety watchdog for nuclear defense facilities was not denied access to any Department of Energy records or personnel during the first six months of 2022. In a regular update to Congress, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said July 1 that the Secretary of Energy did not deny any written requests for […]

Repeated changes in the the National Nuclear Security Administration’s strategy for producing new plutonium pits, plus the agency’s admission in 2021 that it cannot make a legal production deadline, is grounds for forcing the government to conduct an extensive environmental review of its two planned pit factories and other sites, a coalition of environmental groups […]

Confirmed active COVID-19 cases at National Nuclear Security Administration sites rose 40% during June and the first week of July and the rising case rates prompted at least one site to reinstate some pandemic rules for personnel that it had previously stopped observing.  The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency had 764 confirmed cases, up […]

Maryland-based Amentum, a leading government contractor for the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense, announced the addition of two new senior managers June 30. Amentum, which leads multibillion-dollar joint ventures across the DOE weapons complex, announced the personnel additions in a June 30 press release. Sean Mullen was appointed executive vice president for business […]

The Honeywell-owned prime contractor for Sandia National Laboratories said in a Tuesday filing a wrongful firing suit brought against it by a scientist who worked on data for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant should remain in federal court. National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia said the wrongful termination suit brought by […]

The Department of Defense has created an Atomic Veterans Commemorative Service Medal, the Pentagon announced Tuesday. Those eligible include military veterans who participated in atomic tests and cleanups, and those exposed to ionizing radiation from the bombs that destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, the department wrote in a […]

The Department of Energy could start a federal readiness assessment sometime this month at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory facilities in California that prepare transuranic waste for shipment to the agency’s underground disposal site in New Mexico, according to a government safety board. On May 31, 2022, the lab began the contractor readiness assessment for restarting […]

Several nuclear weapons issues, touching on life extension programs, research prohibitions and more, could come up for debate on the House floor next week when lawmakers return to Washington. After a week at home for Independence Day, lawmakers were set to resume floor votes on July 12, according to the majority leader’s calendar. Looming large is […]

New Mexico agencies are receiving more than $12 million in grant money from the Department of Energy to help ensure safe transport of defense-related transuranic waste to the federal underground disposal site near Carlsbad and more broadly to help fund state oversight of nuclear waste. The federal agency announced the award in a Thursday press […]

The Department of Energy this week solicited bids for a potentially 10-year contract to produce high assay low-enriched uranium fuel using a centrifuge cascade Centrus Energy Corp. built at the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio. Bids for the The High Assay Low Enriched Uranium (HALEU) Demonstration Cascade Completion contract are due Aug. 8. The contract […]

House appropriators want to provide the National Nuclear Security Administration with all the funding it requested in 2023 to build plutonium pit factories in New Mexico and South Carolina and fund a megaton-capable bomb the White House wanted to kill. The 2023 energy and water development appropriations act approved this week on a party line […]

The House Appropriations Committee this week recommended funding the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board at $41.4 million in fiscal 2023, the amount sought by the Joe Biden administration and over $5 million more than the federal nuclear watchdog received for fiscal 2022. The funding plan, approved Tuesday by the committee in a party-line vote, was […]

Jamie Shimek, lead staffer on the appropriations panel that writes the first draft of the Department of Energy’s budget every year, will leave Congress and return to the national labs network, lawmakers said during recent budget debates. “She will be my newest constituent,” Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) said Tuesday during the House Appropriations committee’s markup […]

After a three-judge panel earlier this year ruled in favor of the Joe Biden administration’s executive order requiring virtually all federal employees be vaccinated against COVID-19, the entire Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to rehear the case. In a two-page order published Monday, the 5th Circuit said it has agreed to grant the petition from […]

The House Appropriations this week approved a 2023 spending bill that included roughly the requested funding for Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs, one of which should get almost double the funding it will receive under the bill, a Republican Congressman said. The 2023 energy and water development appropriations act should be “[r]aising the amount […]

An amendment approved in committee this week to the House’s 2023 National Defense Authorization Act would let Australian submarine officers attend naval nuclear reactors school in the U.S. and be stationed aboard U.S. submarines. The full House must still pass the bill. The amendment is similar to the bipartisan Australia-U.S. Submarine Officer Pipeline Act legislation […]

The Department of Energy says it is conceivable that one company or joint venture could win both multibillion-dollar contracts being sought at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky. In an online filing last week, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management said such an outcome is not out of the question, provided […]