Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday voted for more scrutiny of Department of Energy nuclear-weapon-site contracting and against a proposal to condition funding for the Secretary of Defense’s office on an intercontinental ballistic missile test. The votes were part of the committee’s debate of the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons budget would increase year-over-year for 2023 but come up short against the Joe Biden administration’s request, under legislation a House subcommittee approved Tuesday. For the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the semiautonomous nuclear-weapons agency, the subcommittee proposed about $21.2 billion, short of the request by almost $180 million, or […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration would be authorized to spend $375 million more than requested on a plutonium pit factory at the Savannah River Site in fiscal year 2023, if a bill passed early Thursday morning by the House Armed Services Committee becomes law. The agency would also be allowed, along with the Navy, to […]

A Savannah River Nuclear Solutions employee got an award from the company for pulling a small child out of a busy road in November, the company wrote in a press release. Sarah Prosser found the toddler wandering down “a busy four-lane highway) on Nov. 30, 2021, according to the release from the Department of Energy’s […]

State lawmakers in South Carolina this week to approved distribution of $525 million from a federal settlement the state won in 2020 after the Department of Energy failed to meet deadlines for removing plutonium from the Savannah River Site. The bicameral state legislature’s House and Senate ratified a budget bill apportioning the money from the […]

Three uranium processing systems for nuclear weapons at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., will be delayed for six months or more, a federal nuclear safety agency reported last week. Y-12’s electrorefining and direct chip melt front-loading furnace projects each will be delayed six months, according to a recent report by the […]

Oak Ridge Laboratory workers settle vaccination case in federal court Six employees at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have settled their lawsuit contesting the COVID-19 vaccination policy implemented by prime contractor UT-Battelle, according to documents filed in federal court this week. U.S. District Judge Charles Atchley Jr. officially closed the […]

The House Appropriations defense subcommittee was set to mark up the first draft of the Pentagon’s fiscal 2023 budget on Wednesday, and the bill contains no funding for the nuclear-tipped Sea Launched Cruise Missile, according to a summary the subcommittee released Tuesday morning. The legislation, telegraphed in March by the recommendation in President Joe Biden’s […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory will end on-site COVID-19 testing in July and shift most of the responsibility for preventing the spread of the disease on site to employees, according to a memo from lab director Thomas Mason. “Although regional case rates are expected to decrease over the next several weeks, public health experts predict COVID-19 […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration has not won Rep. Adam Smith’s (D-Wash.) unconditional trust, but it has convinced him to authorize the agency’s plan to produce plutonium pits in two states, the House Armed Services chair told reporters Wednesday. “Yes, I believe we are going to move forward with what the NNSA [National Nuclear Security […]

Triad National Security has made the Los Alamos National Laboratory a little safer since taking over as the prime contractor in 2018, but the National Nuclear Security Administration believes there is more work to do, according to a new Government Accountability Office report. Since taking the reins from Los Alamos National Security — removed eight […]

House authorizers want to kill a megaton-capable gravity bomb and a nuclear-tipped, sea-launched cruise missile, but their counterparts in the Senate do not. The split on the Hill over the two weapons, which the Joe Biden administration wants to kill, was revealed Thursday in dueling National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAA) for fiscal year 2023.  Democrats […]

Continuing its investigation of a fatal fire nearly two years ago at BWX Technologies’ Lynchburg, Va., plant, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is planning a public, predecisional enforcement conference at its Rockville, Md., headquarters with the company. “We will contact you promptly to determine a mutually agreeable date and time” for the conference, the NRC wrote […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV. — With the National Nuclear Security Administration hoping to see the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico producing 30 plutonium pits by 2026, the organization is working closely with the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant on plans for the increased transuranic waste levels, speakers told the RadWaste Summit Wednesday. With […]

President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed a two-year extension of a law providing financial compensation to certain people sickened by radioactivity from atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) Extension Act of 2022 is a clean, two-year extension for the federal program, which is open to atmospheric test participants, certain uranium miners […]

A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine committee is neutral on whether the Department of Energy should lead any revived federal research effort on potential health impacts of low-dose radiation, the head of the panel, said Friday. Tribal communities and atomic workers “generally do not support” a DOE-run low-dose radiation program, Joe Gray, professor […]

Amentum, a major contractor for the Department of Energy and other government agencies, last week outlined management roles for a new National Security business group that the Maryland-based company is putting together under a corporate reshuffling by the new CEO. “Today, I am announcing the leaders of each of these three businesses [within National Security], […]

The House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee approved its contributions to the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act Wednesday, kicking up to the full committee a package of reforms for the Nuclear Weapons Council and an order to study modernization of the Pantex Plant, among other things. The subcommittee completed its markup without debate […]

Confirmed, active cases of COVID-19 among contractors and civil servants working on site at National Nuclear Security Administration facilities more than quadrupled over the month of May, according to data provided Friday by a spokesperson at agency headquarters in Washington. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency had 547 confirmed cases, up from 132 confirmed […]

The Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services will get six more months tacked onto its contract to process depleted uranium hexafluoride in Ohio and Kentucky while the Department of Energy solicits bids for a follow-on contract that will include new work for active nuclear weapons programs. The incumbent, which also includes Westinghouse and Fluor, will now be […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s airborne, radiation-sniffing Nuclear Emergency Support Team was to wrap up four days of background sampling over Los Angeles on Saturday ahead of the ninth annual Summit of the Americas, the agency said. Ahead of the scheduled meeting June 6 of government, industry and community representatives from each American continent, a […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory’s new high-performance computing system, called Venado, assembled by Hewlett Packard and to be delivered in 2023, will be the first in the U.S. powered by the Grace central processing unit designed by Nvidia, the lab said. The lab announced the impending delivery of its next high-performance computer system at this […]

The Department of Energy and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board this week wrapped up key details of a memorandum of understanding they inked in February pledging full cooperation on safety at federal nuclear-weapons installations. The 19-page supplement announced by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) in a Wednesday press release fleshes out specifics […]

A senior U.S. arms control negotiator on Thursday would not endorse limiting the U.S. nuclear arsenal to the 1,550 strategic warheads prescribed by the New START treaty with Russia if the treaty expires in 2026 without a new accord in place.  “I don’t think we should sort of right now figure out what is the […]

In a virtual address to a gathering of nuclear weapons professionals on Thursday, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration touted the White House’s Nuclear Posture Review for its support of civilian nuclear weapon programs, advocated for more exports of peaceful nuclear-energy technology and said that Russia’s war in Ukraine has resurrected old nonproliferation […]

A Georgia congressman released a written request that House appropriators accept the White House’s funding request for the Savannah River Site’s proposed plutonium pit factory and reject a proposed cut for the site’s H-Canyon chemical separations plant. Rep. Rick Allen (R-Ga.) made the requests ahead of Wednesday’s scheduled Member’s Day hearing, an annual exercise in […]