Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Personnel at the Savannah River Site should wrap up commissioning of transuranic waste characterization equipment by March, in time to get a shipment of proliferation-resistant plutonium-oxide mixture shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant next summer, a site spokesperson said Wednesday. Testing and certification of the transuranic waste-characterization equipment at the site’s recently completed K-Area […]

As two more nuclear-weapon sites prepared to mandate COVID-19 vaccines, small groups of vaccine refusers at sites in New Mexico and South Carolina sued in state courts to prevent their expected firings on Friday. In emails, spokespersons for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico said vaccines […]

The story “NNSA Active COVID Cases Hit Summer High in September; Three Deaths This Week” [Vol. 25, No. 37] should have said that an employee at the Sandia National Laboratory’s California campus died of complications related to COVID-19.  

Department of Energy contractor officers should by Friday, and unilaterally, if necessary, modify the agency’s existing major site contracts to include a COVID-19 mandate, according to long-awaited guidance published Wednesday by DOE. The directive applies to “Management and Operating (M&O) contracts, major site/facility contracts and onsite support service contracts,” the agency wrote in the guidance. […]

There were 3,750 nuclear warheads in the U.S. stockpile as of Sept. 2020 the State Department and National Nuclear Security Administration said Tuesday, down more than 250 since the final year of the Barack Obama administration. State and the semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency disclosed the count after Bonnie Jenkins, under secretary for […]

Many Air Force acquisition programs are “solid,” and “prudent,” the Biden administration’s nominee to lead those programs at the Pentagon told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday — “especially those which are currently modernizing the nation’s nuclear deterrent.” The declaration was part of Andrew Hunter’s advanced policy questions, which the former Pentagon hand and Hill […]

Air Force pilots in F-35A aircraft recently wrapped up the final two of 10 guided release tests to certify the jet to carry the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb, the Air Force said Monday in a press release. Two F-35A Lightning II aircraft, piloted by the The 422nd and 59th Test and Evaluation Squadrons, took off […]

John Dorrian will retire from Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., on Dec. 31, after 27 years with the company, most recently as controller and chief accounting officer, the uranium fuel broker and enrichment technology developer announced in a recent regulatory filing. “It is anticipated that Mr. Dorrian will continue to provide transition services to the […]

A two-year extension on highly enriched uranium exports for production of the Molybdenum-99 medical isotope is set to come to an end in January, but the National Nuclear Security Administration on Tuesday started taking public comments about extending those exports. Federal law effectively allows the Secretary of Energy to unilaterally extend exports of highly enriched […]

In a hearing Thursday, no members of the Senate Armed Services Committee said they would oppose Corey Hinderstein’s nomination to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s top nonproliferation job. Biden on Aug. 9 nominated Hinderstein to be deputy administration for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). If confirmed, she’d run a portfolio […]

The head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and a State Department arms control official this week released a tally of stockpiled U.S. warheads at the United Nations in New York.  On its website, the NNSA subsequently posted Administrator Jill Hruby’s prepared remarks from the event. “We still believe in minimal credible deterrence as […]

The story “NNSA Active COVID Cases Hit Summer High in September; Three Deaths This Week” [Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, Vol. 25, No. 27] should have said that an employee died of complications related to COVID-19 at the Sandia National Laboratories’ California campus.

After both the House of Representatives and Senate passed a stopgap funding plan Thursday, President Joe Biden signed the continuing budget resolution to keep the federal government open through Dec. 3. The action prevented the Department of Energy and other federal agencies from largely shutting down at midnight. The short-term funding bill will hold spending at […]

The minority leader of the South Carolina Senate this week made an opening bid in the statewide tug-of-war over hundreds of millions of dollars worth of federal money up for grabs from last year’s plutonium settlement with Columbia: $100 million for the state, $425 million for seven counties near the Savannah River Site. “That would […]

The Department of Energy’s Environmental Assessments office is opening an investigation into the flooding of Los Alamos’ PF-4 plutonium facility earlier this year, an event precipitated by an untrained worker operating a wet vacuum. DOE’s internal watchdog notified lab director Thomas Mason of the impending investigation in a Sept. 23 letter posted online recently. In late […]

The ripple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and a June legal settlement between the state and the Department of Energy to prevent mislabeled radioactive waste shipments from again ending up at the Nevada National Security Site dominate the site’s just released 2020 environmental report. The settlement reached this summer calls upon DOE to increase the vetting and […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee has demanded that the National Nuclear Security Administration come up with a “comprehensive strategy” for disposing of nuclear waste created by the ongoing 30-year refresh of U.S. nuclear weapons. The provision is part of the committee’s fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the full text of which the […]

Todays’ computing, modeling and simulation tools, plus the National Ignition Facility that unlocks physics “not accessible in the laboratory,” have given nuclear-weapon stewards capabilities unimaginable almost 30 years ago, when the U.S. ceased explosive tests, the director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said this week. “On all of those fronts, the capabilities we have […]

Workers who secure a religious exemption to the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate will be barred from the lab and allowed only to go on vacation or take leave without pay until they quit their jobs or get vaccinated, according to an all-hands memo from lab Director Thomas Mason. “On October 15, staff […]

The Department of Energy missed its self-imposed target to issue a final request for proposals by Sept. 30 for the multibillion-dollar Savannah River Site Management and Operating Contract and now plans to put the deal on the street in October. The agency made the announcement in a procurement notice posted online Thursday. DOE’s Office of […]

The secretary of the Navy and Chief of Naval Operations announced four new flag officer assignments as part of a submarine acquisition restructuring as well as a new shipyard improvement position. Rear Adm. David Goggins is moving from program executive officer for submarines to program executive officer for attack submarines, which will consolidate and oversee […]

By Rich Abott Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday on Thursday said the effort to design, build, support and properly oversee Australia’s fleet of nuclear-powered attack submarines under a new deal may take decades. Last week, the U.S., U.K. and Australia announced the new AUKUS partnership to help Australia pursue procurement of its first nuclear-powered attack […]

The Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program to replace nuclear-tipped Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles should proceed as planned and the Joe Biden administration’s nuclear posture review will be “unlike any that went before it” because of China’s rise on the world stage, the chair of the Senate Armed Forces strategic forces subcommittee said this week. […]

A dispute about the magnitude of a former employee’s theft from Sandia National Laboratory prompted an assistant U.S. attorney to refuse a request from the defendant’s lawyers that the U.S. District court knock two months off the former lab hand’s potential jail sentence. Joshua Cordova’s lawyers were seeking a 10-month sentence, on the basis that […]

The full House this week passed a stopgap spending bill that would essentially freeze federal spending, including at the Department of Energy, at 2021 levels until Dec. 3. It was a party-line vote in the Democratic-majority chamber: 220-211, with one member not voting. The stopgap budget now heads to the Senate, where Republican leaders have […]

A service life extension would be authorized for the B83 megaton gravity bomb in 2022 and every new president would have to review U.S. nuclear force posture, if a Senate committee’s version of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act becomes law. The Senate Armed Services Committee approved its 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) behind […]

The USS Wyoming ballistic missile submarine launched a pair of Trident II D5LE missiles from the Eastern Test Range near Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Friday, Sept. 17, the Navy announced in a press release over the weekend.  The launch of the unarmed missiles were part of Demonstration and Shakedown Operation DASO-31, the Navy wrote in […]