Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

President Joe Biden will nominate Jill Hruby, former director of the Sandia National Laboratories, to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration, the White House said this week. Hruby led Sandia for about two years during the Barack Obama administration, from mid-2015 to mid-2017. Since then, she has worked as an independent consultant, logging time on […]

President Biden’s nominees to lead the Nuclear Weapons Council and the Department of Energy’s intergovernmental affairs programs are headed to the Senate, the White House announced this week. The Senate had not scheduled hearings on either nominee at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, nor for Jill Hruby to be administrator of the […]

Like so many other federal workplaces during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board continues to have most of its staff working from home, according to the agency’s Annual Report to Congress. “The Board has proven its effectiveness while in maximum telework posture, despite the unexpected challenges of adapting work practices to remote work […]

There are three new federal field office managers and one new deputy field office manager across the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear security enterprise, according to a recent dear-colleagues letter from acting agency administrator Charles Verdon. Also, Verdon said, two longtime civil servants will retire from National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) headquarters in Washington at […]

Russia has over 100 more strategic nuclear warheads deployed than it had at this time last year, according to the latest data shared by the State Department from the recently renewed New START Nuclear Arms Control Treaty. On Feb. 3, the U.S. and Russia officially extended New START until Feb. 5, 2026. The Joe Biden […]

The prime contractor for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrence wrapped up a key review for the program and set a cost and schedule baseline for the Air Force’s next-generation, nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile. Northrop Grumman, which holds a $13 billion Air Force engineering and manufacturing development contract to build the first tranche of Ground Based […]

Last decade’s bipartisan consensus, that arms-control diplomacy and the refurbishment of the nuclear arsenal should walk hand-in-hand, does not exist anymore, according to a former Republican Senator who helped forge the consensus. “Right now, we do not have the consensus that ostensibly existed back in 2010,” former Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.) said this week during […]

National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) headquarters is reviewing critical decision one packages for the planned pit production facilities at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Savannah River Site, an agency spokesperson wrote in an email this week to Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor. Both sites turned in the critical decision 1 packages “on schedule,” […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration reported just over 40 new confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 this week, a rate of growth that’s on the low end of the weekly average for the past eight weeks. It was around that time, in late February, when new confirmed cases among civil servants and contractors across the nuclear […]

The Joe Biden administration said Friday its 2022 federal budget will support ongoing nuclear modernization programs, including infrastructure at the National Nuclear Security Administration, while the White House continues its nuclear posture review. The Biden administration did not include a top-line figure for the semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons steward in its so-called skinny […]

Russia has over 100 more strategic nuclear warheads deployed than it had at this time last year, according to the latest data shared by the State Department from the recently renewed New START Nuclear Arms Control Treaty. On Feb. 3, the U.S. and Russia officially extended New START until Feb. 5, 2026. The Joe Biden […]

A lawsuit filed by the disgruntled ex-chief financial officer of the Nevada National Security Site’s prime contractor remained in mediation this week, with both the company and its chief executive again denying that the former finance chief was fired for protected whistleblowing. In the latest filings in the case, Mark Martinez, chief executive officer of […]

In an online forum this week, Sen. John Tester (D-Mont.) vowed to use his appropriations gavel to keep the Air Force’s next-generation nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile “on track,” while a former senior pentagon official said congressional support for the program was broad but not deep. Tester delivered recorded remarks to an audience of just under […]

A special congressional election is set for June 1 in New Mexico to fill the vacancy in the district that includes the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories facilities in Albuquerque. The open seat was created March 16 when then-Rep. Debra Haaland (D) resigned to become President Joe Biden’s secretary of interior after being confirmed in a […]

Katherine Banks is officially in as the president of the Texas A&M University System, the university’s board of regents said this week. The regents formally confirmed Banks for the job Wednesday. The current vice chancellor of engineering and national laboratories, Banks’s rise to the top was foreordained earlier this year when the regents announced her […]

The Department of Energy plans to retain a Atkins-led joint venture that runs depleted uranium conversion at former gaseous diffusion plants in Ohio and Kentucky for 14 more months, until March 31, 2023, in part to help a defense project stay on track. The DOE announced its intention to extend the contract for Mid-America Conversion […]

Lack of communications between the Sandia National Laboratories and the Kansas City National Security Campus resulted in some improperly manufactured flex cables, and separately in the Missouri manufacturing facility accepting other flex cables that failed  post-manufacturing tests, the Department of Energy’s inspector general reported recently. Someone who tipped off the IG in 2019 about the […]

As vaccine rollouts continue, confirmed, active cases of COVID-19 across the National Nuclear Security Administration complex dropped to their lowest reported level since mid-October. In December, The semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency was reporting around 1,000 active cases a week.  As of Friday, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) had 56 new confirmed […]

The Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico has halted transuranic waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant from the National Nuclear Security Administration’s contractor for the Los Alamos National Laboratory after sparks from a waste drum prompted evacuations at both the lab and the disposal site. That is according to a […]

David Turk was sworn in this week as the deputy secretary of energy after clearing the Senate with only two Republicans in opposition. Turk took the oath, administered by his boss, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, on Thursday. The full Senate approved his nomination Wednesday 98-2, with only Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rand Paul […]

Weeks after Republican nuke hawks panned his performance at a nomination hearing, the Senate Armed Services Committee this week voted 13-13, along party lines, to advance Colin Kahl’s nomination for the Pentagon’s top policy job. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will now have to make a motion to discharge Kahl’s nomination to bring a […]

A former director of the Sandia National Laboratories has floated toward the top of the Joe Biden administration’s list of candidates to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration and its roughly $20-billion-a-year civilian nuclear weapons program, according to a source familiar with the administration’s thinking. Jill Hruby led Sandia for about two years in the […]

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken this week said that the U.S. and its allies must strengthen their militaries, improve readiness and maintain an effective nuclear deterrent as part of efforts to modernize alliances and respond to changing threats, China and Russia. U.S. nuclear forces, Blinken told an audience at NATO headquarters in Belgium, must be […]

Nuclear weapons are one of a trilogy of high-spend programs likely to affect defense budgeting decisions for years, the chair of a House Appropriations panel said this week in an online hearing. “Cyber security, nuclear modernization and overseas contingency operations funding sound like they’re three unrelated topics,” Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), chair of the House […]

A COVID-19 fatality at the Sandia National Laboratories brought the confirmed count of fatal cases across the National Nuclear Security Administration complex to 16 during the ongoing pandemic, as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at last got a delivery of vaccines. This was the second confirmed fatal case at Sandia, a spokesperson at the National […]

Centrus Energy Corp. this month finished building all 16 of the AC100M gas centrifuges it plans to use to produce high-energy reactor fuel for the Department of Energy at the Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio, under a $115 million DOE contract from 2019. That’s according to a press release from the Bethesda, Md.-based company, which […]