Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

A federal court could soon decide whether to hear the case of several Consolidated Nuclear Security employees who sued the Y-12 National Security Complex prime contractor in 2020 alleging lost wages. Last week, the three employees, who seek to create a class-action lawsuit, filed a second amended complaint with the U.S. District Court for Eastern […]

President Joe Biden’s plans to cease development of a nuclear-tipped, sea-launched cruise missile and to cancel a refresh for the B83 megaton-capable gravity bomb won’t make it through Congress, a key Republican House member predicted this week. “The president’s budget’s talking about getting rid of the sea-launched cruise missile and some of the B83 gravity […]

Effective mid-July, the National Nuclear Security Administration plans to split its two main procurement offices in Washington into three and, in the process, eliminate the Office of Acquisition and Project Management and the Office of Infrastructure and Operations, agency Administrator Jill Hruby said Monday in an email to all hands. After the split, the duties […]

Certain people sickened after exposure to radiation from either atmospheric nuclear-weapon tests or uranium mining would get two more years to file for government compensation if a bill passed unanimously by the Senate last week becomes law. The Senate unanimously passed the bipartisan Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) Extension Act of 2022 on Thursday, giving sickened atmospheric […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration won’t be able to make 80 pits annually by 2030 even if Congress throws more money at the problem this year, the agency’s top official and the Pentagon’s acquisition chief both told Senators Wednesday in a hearing “The nuclear weapons council stands by the assessment that was provided, that I […]

A facility the National Nuclear Security Administration is building to remove plutonium from the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., could arrive a little later and cost a little more than thought only a year ago, the agency wrote in its fiscal year 2023 budget request. Unspecified design changes recommended by site prime Savannah River […]

Even after excluding teleworkers from its accounting of COVID-19 cases around the enterprise, the National Nuclear Security Administration counted 132 active, confirmed cases of the disease among its workforce at the end of April, more than double the tally from the end of March. At the same time, a spokesperson at agency headquarters in Washington […]

The Pentagon and the National Nuclear Security Administration are still “sorting out” exactly how many nuclear-weapon triggers the military needs and by when, the head of the civilian agency said in congressional testimony this week. Law requires the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency to make 80 pits a year by 2030 — a goal […]

The round up in last week’s Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor [Vol. 26, No. 16] should have said that the Savannah River Site took delivery of HEPA equipment for the Surplus Plutonium Disposition program. The story “Nuclear Fuel Services to start weapons-uranium work under sole-source NNSA contract” [Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, Vol. 26, No. […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory appointed Evelyn Mullen executive officer for weapons, the New Mexico nuclear-weapons design laboratory announced Monday. In her new role, Mullen will be an “executive leader in the organization, with a focus on both tactical and strategic operational needs,” according to Los Alamos’ press release. She will report to Robert Webster, the lab’s […]

The Department of Defense wants to hire a new director for strategic deterrence and capability to oversee “efforts to modernize and sustain the nuclear deterrent,” according to a recent want-ad on the official federal jobs board. The director would be responsible for a swath of nuclear-weapons tasks that were once organized under the now-defunct post […]

Honeywell’s wholly owned subsidiary National Engineering and Technology Solutions of Sandia will be the prime contractor for the Sandia National Laboratories for another five years, the National Nuclear Security Administration announced this week. The semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency said in a press release that it exercised five options on National Engineering and […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) cut the ribbon on the recently completed John A. Gordon Albuquerque Complex: a replacement for the 1950s era facilities that house around 1,200 employees and contractors and is sometimes called NNSA Headquarters West. NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) attended the ceremony, the agency wrote in […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration aims to continue shoring up its workforce by adding the equivalent of 38 full-time employees in fiscal year 2023, according to newly released details of its 2023 budget request. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency seeks about $496 million, a roughly a 7% year-over-year increase, for its federal salaries […]

The Navy is killing its nuclear-tipped sea-launched cruise missile program because it would cost too much money to build the weapon, which the service says cannot be built in time anyway. “The program was cost prohibitive and the acquisition schedule would have delivered capability late to need,” the Navy wrote recently in a 181-page highlight book […]

The U.S. Air Force in fiscal 2023 is requesting almost $981 million for the Long Range Standoff Missile that Raytheon is developing for the service — nearly $382 million more than appropriated by Congress in fiscal 2022 and more than $615 million more than the fiscal 2021 budget. Of the $980.8 million the Air Force […]

With an eye toward exposing national security blindspots in nations considering nuclear power, the National Nuclear Security Administration is talking to people in Turkey, Africa and southeast Asia, an agency official told a National Academies panel this week. “There are some countries in Africa, Turkey is one of the countries that’s currently looking at developing […]

New Mexico’s governor blasted the Secretary of Energy this month for failing to provide “meaningful and transparent public engagement” about the agency’s plans to ship immobilized, surplus plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant from South Carolina. “Because the issues raised in the petition can only be addressed by DOE, I am passing this petition […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is looking for a new remote office site in Las Vegas for personnel who don’t need to regularly commute to the Nevada Nuclear Security Site some 60 miles to the northwest of the city, according to a recent procurement note. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency “plans to […]

DOE cans proposed extension for incumbent Savannah River prime; issued in error, DOE says The Department of Energy has withdrawn the federal procurement notice from Monday announcing a planned multi-year extension for the prime at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, saying it was “done in error.” The DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February invasion of Ukraine led to the takeover of both active nuclear power plants and the shuttered Chernobyl plant, adding an unsettling radiological dimension to the war, the head of a Ukrainian research laboratory said Tuesday in a virtual presentation to a National Academies of Science panel. While Russian troops have […]

Centerra, which already provides security at multiple Department of Energy sites, recently won a five-year, $195-million award for protective services at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., and nearby offices in Germantown, Md. Centerra’s parent company, Herndon, Va.,-based Constellis, announced the award in a March 31 press release. Centerra will provide protective forces including K-9 teams […]

Marvin Adams on Monday officially became the deputy administrator for defense programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration, sworn in by Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm over video conference five days after the Senate unanimously confirmed him for the job. The semiautonomous DOE nuclear-weapons agency announced the swearing-in in a press release. This marks Adams’ first […]

A scientist who claims his questioning of key safety data related to underground disposal of transuranic waste in New Mexico cost him a permanent job with a Sandia National Laboratories contractor will have his case heard by a federal magistrate. Plaintiff Charles Oakes agreed in an April 7 filing in U.S. District Court in New […]

The W93 submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead, the first in decades that is not a refurbishment of a weapon already sailing the seas, will be in line for a big budget increase if Congress goes along with the Joe Biden administration’s fiscal year 2023 budget request. W93, led by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, would see […]

An internal panel of National Nuclear Security Administration personnel have started their headquarters-led review of the agency’s Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Office and expects to wrap up the work sometime in 2022, an agency spokesperson said Monday. “The independent strategic review of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation’s (DNN) mission space is beginning its work and conversations with DNN […]

A turkey flew into an overhead powerline and tripped a circuit breaker at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., last month, blacking out buildings on the west side of the site and very briefly affected critical safety systems in facilities that produce key nuclear-weapon components, federal officials said this week. “The outage […]