Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The Los Alamos National Laboratory has finished technical preparations to vent the headspace of some tritium-bearing waste drums that cannot be disposed of until they’re depressurized, but the operation is on hold until after the winter, pending the approval of the state of New Mexico. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and lab contractor Triad […]

Like other federal agencies, the Department of Energy may continue to reimburse contractors for paid leave related to COVID-19 through March 31, under the combination omnibus budget bill and coronavirus relief package signed into law last week. The paid-leave reimbursement became law this summer in section 3610 of the CARES act, an early COVID-19 stimulus […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration had about 1,000 active, confirmed COVID-19 cases across its national network for most of December and closed out 2020 with about 3,500 cumulative cases, of which seven were fatal. That is according to data provided Friday by a spokesperson for the semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency. Including the first […]

The former finance chief of Mission Support and Test Services LLC, who alleges he was fired last year for exposing financial misconduct at the Nevada National Security Site by company president Mark Martinez, has less than two weeks to revise his lawsuit before a federal judge throws it out for good. Ex-Chief Financial Officer Stephen […]

House Armed Services chair Adam Smith (D-Wash.) again railed against the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plan to turn Savannah River into a plutonium pit factory, saying the “idiotic” and “dangerous,” plan might leave the U.S. without the means to modernize its nuclear weapons on time and on budget. “I am highly skeptical of the level […]

There will not be a new director at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for another few months at least, a spokesperson for the younger of the two U.S. nuclear-weapon design labs said Tuesday. “We are not expecting a new director to be named until February at the earliest,” the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) spokesperson […]

President-elect Joe Biden will nominate former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) to be Secretary of Energy, media reported this week. Granholm, who is deeply familiar with U.S. auto-making, will be a key ambassador to industry when Biden enlists the DOE’s help bolstering his agenda to fight climate change, outlets reported, citing people familiar with the […]

The Department of Energy should designate someone as a sort of crisis-response czar in case of another national emergency such as COVID-19, according to an agency report on the pandemic published this week. DOE should revise existing crisis response plans to, among other things, “[p]rovide the Secretary with latitude to designate a director or ‘person […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is preparing a final environmental review for its new plutonium disposal program at the Savannah River Site, but not the thorough review a National Academies panel recommended earlier this year, the agency announced Wednesday. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency published its notice of intent to do an environmental […]

New COVID-19 cases continued to rise week-to-week in some National Nuclear Security Administration host regions this week, but growth flattened in a few locales and the agency itself saw recoveries outpace new infections for the first time in more than a month. Even so, the semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapon steward tracked a record 350 […]

Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor will not publish next week in observance of the Christmas holiday, nor the week after, in observance of New Year’s Day. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Jan. 8. Happy holidays!

If, with a herculean effort, you put the COVID-19 pandemic to one side, the biggest story of 2020 at the National Nuclear Security Administration was how semi-autonomous it really is from the Department of Energy, and how much control the Department of Defense should have over it. The debate is in a sense older than […]

At deadline for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, Congress was still debating an extension of federal budgets beyond midnight on Friday, when a continuing resolution that extended 2020 budgets through today was set to expire.

House Armed Services chair Adam Smith (D-Wash.) again railed against the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plan to turn Savannah River into a plutonium pit factory, saying the “idiotic” and “dangerous,” plan might leave the U.S. without the means to modernize its nuclear weapons on time and on budget. “I am highly skeptical of the level […]

The story “Compromise NDAA Also a Compromise on DOE, Pentagon Control Over Civilian Nuke Budget” (Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor Vol. 24. No. 46) should have said that, under the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, if the Nuclear Weapons Council determines the secretary of energy’s proposed budget for the NNSA is inadequate, the White House […]

Even in a government where Democrats will control the White House and at least one chamber of Congress, political consensus appears to favor continuing the nuclear modernization program the Barack Obama administration started in 2016, the head of the House Armed Services Committee said Monday. “Any effort to change that is running into very strong […]

The coronavirus pandemic pushed a choice between two competing defense-uranium enrichment technologies to January from December, the National Nuclear Security Administration said Wednesday. It’s the second time this year the agency has delayed the day of reckoning between the AC100 technology that Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., started developing around 2012, and a smaller-scale enrichment […]

A little over a month after the secretary of energy demanded her resignation as head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Donald Trump administration welcomed Lisa Gordon-Hagerty back into the fold, appointing her to a Pentagon advisory board. The Department of Defense announced Wednesday that Gordon-Hagerty will join its Defense Policy Board, potentially giving […]

Fluor, Irving, Texas, reported a dip in total revenue for the 2020 third quarter, even as its government sector enjoyed higher profits in the three months ended Sept. 30. Perhaps most significantly about the earnings press release issued Thursday morning is that it marks a sort of return to normalcy for the company, which has been scrutinized […]

Among the 106 Republican members of the House of Representatives filing an amicus brief with a Texas lawsuit challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election — which President Donald Trump has claimed without evidence was compromised by widespread fraud — were five lawmakers whose districts include Department of Energy nuclear weapon sites. “This brief […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration had more than 300 new confirmed COVID-19 cases last week, including two more fatal cases, a spokesperson said Friday. The semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency tracked 311 new confirmed cases among contractors and civil servants of the viral disease caused by the novel coronavirus that broke out in China […]

The House and Senate both passed the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act with veto proof margins this week, sending the bill to President Trump’s desk where it remained at deadline Friday. The president had threatened to veto the measure, and its nuclear-weapons policies, for reasons unrelated to defense spending. Also this week, Congress approved a […]

The personnel churn in the Donald Trump administration’s nuclear-weapons enterprise and Joe Biden’s election as President of the United States highlight the urgency of giving the administrator of the National nuclear Security Administration a fixed term, members of a National Academies panel said Wednesday. “At the moment we not only have secretary and deputy secretary […]

On Tuesday, another Democratic lawmaker called for President-elect Joe Biden to publish what would be the third U.S. nuclear posture review in as many administrations — a potential step toward altering the course of the nuclear modernization regimen that started in 2016. “They’ll have to do a top-to-bottom review of these programs and think about […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration on Monday moved to reassure the city of Oak Ridge that moving some uranium purification outside the fence at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge Tenn., will not cost the site any jobs. The city raised the alarm in a statement issued before the Thanksgiving holiday last week, […]

Russia would still do a deal with the Donald Trump Administration to extend the New START nuclear arms-control treaty, but a five year extension would be best, because negotiating a follow-on treaty will be very difficult, the Russian ambassador said this week in a webcast hosted by a D.C. think tank. “If anybody can call […]

A version of the fiery interagency and inter-branch tug of war that produced this year’s controversial civilian nuclear weapons budget would be essentially legalized, if a compromise 2021 defense authorization bill unveiled Thursday becomes law. The unified 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which lameduck President Donald Trump has threatened to veto over matters unrelated […]