Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

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 […]

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 […]