National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

After nine months of stop-and-start progress, the Senate on Thursday confirmed former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory physicist William Bookless to be the principal deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. The Senate confirmed Bookless by voice vote. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) had not set a date for his swearing-in at deadline Friday […]

A 2020 spending proposal passed Tuesday by the House Appropriations Committee directs the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to tap the independent group of JASON scientists for at least one, and perhaps two, new studies. After the Pentagon ditched the JASON contract in April following more than 50 years, the NNSA picked up the deal […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has given the go-ahead for the roughly $145 million High Explosives Pressing Facility at the Pantex Plant in Texas to begin full-scale operations. The facility can press some 2,500 pounds of conventional high explosives a year, and shape up to 500 explosive hemispheres, the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) does not anticipate initiating oversight of a planned plutonium warhead core plant in South Carolina until the National Nuclear Security Administration approves an official cost and schedule estimate for the expected multibillion-dollar nuclear facility — a milestone that could be years away. “I predict that oversight will begin […]

The Donald Trump administration this week lashed out at House appropriators for proposing to spend money the White House wanted for active Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs on cleanup of legacy nuclear-weapon sites. The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday approved an energy and water funding bill that would provide $7.2 billion for remediation of shuttered […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) does not anticipate initiating oversight of a planned plutonium nuclear-warhead core production plant in South Carolina until the National Nuclear Security Administration approves an official cost and schedule estimate for the expected multibillion-dollar facility — a milestone that could be years away. “I predict that oversight will begin […]

WASHINGTON — The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday approved legislation that would slow development of next-generation, nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, along with Department of Energy infrastructure that supports them. The next stop for the two bills — which passed essentially along party lines, and without any amendments directly affecting nuclear arms spending — is the House floor. […]

WASHINGTON — In an event that was part photo-op, part celebration, and part power networking, senior Department of Energy officials mixed with Capitol Hill staffers, think-tankers, and the press on Tuesday to mark the 20th anniversary of the Nuclear Smuggling Detection and Deterrence (NSDD) program. Born from a need to prevent proliferation of the Soviet stockpile […]

A 2020 spending proposal from the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee directs the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to tap the independent group of JASON scientists for at least one, and perhaps two, new studies. After the Pentagon ditched the JASON contract in April following more than 50 years, the NNSA picked up […]

A proposed nuclear weapons budget due for a committee vote in the House of Representatives today would tap the brakes forcefully on the next intercontinental ballistic missile warhead and sharply curtail another pair of nuclear weapons programs. That is according to a detailed bill report released Monday by the House Appropriations energy and water development […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration gave the go-ahead for the roughly $145 million High Explosive Pressing Facility at the Pantex Plant to begin full-scale operations, according to a Thursday press release from the semi-autonomous DOE nuclear weapons agency. The facility can press some 2,500 pounds of conventional high explosives a year, and up to 500 […]

On Friday, a U.S. attorney representing the National Nuclear Security Administration in a contractor lawsuit appealed a court decision to let some 20 MOX Services employees retain access to vital project information about cancelled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina. The federal government had not filed its appeal with the U.S. Court of […]

The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., has taken custody of some 700 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from the United Kingdom, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said. The material, shipped to the U.S. from the U.K.’s Dounreay fast-reactor decommissioning site beginning in 2016, was at Oak Ridge awaiting downblending in “commercial […]

Oral arguments are set for Thursday between the contractor for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) and its customer, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), over some $800,000 in interest the contractor says it is owed. CB&I AREVA MOX Services sued the NNSA in 2016, and repeatedly afterward in cases that have been […]

WASHINGTON — The House Appropriations Committee is set to vote early next week on a 2020 budget bill that would increase the National Nuclear Security Administration’s 2020 budget overall, but provide fewer dollars than requested for active nuclear weapons programs. The House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee approved the unamended, $46.4 billion Energy and […]

Deployed nuclear weapons do not contain the underperforming commercial capacitors blamed for delaying delivery of the first B61-12 and W88 Alt 370 nuclear weapons, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Friday. The semiautonomous Department of Energy weapons agency “has verified that these components are not in use in other deployed weapons, nor will they […]

International Isotopes on Wednesday confirmed its role in an accident two weeks ago that contaminated more than a dozen people with cesium-137 during the Department of Energy-funded removal of a blood-irradiation machine from a research facility at the University of Washington in Seattle. “[O]ur radiological services team was involved in a contamination event at an […]

As expected, major Energy Department contractor Fluor has formally selected longtime executive Carlos Hernandez as its permanent CEO, about two weeks after he took the job on an interim basis. Fluor’s Board of Directors also announced Thursday in a press release that Hernandez, previously the company executive vice president and chief legal officer, would serve […]

The Department of Homeland Security should pay closer attention to how cities are spending federal dollars earmarked for an anti-nuclear-terrorism program, the Government Accountability Office said Monday. The DHS Securing the Cities program began in 2006 and helps municipalities develop plans to prevent and respond to acts of radiological terror, including deployment of the radiological […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management could issue a half-dozen major contract nuclear cleanup awards, collectively worth up to $35 billion, by the end of 2019. The office’s ’s latest procurement schedule, dated May 10, outlines an ambitious schedule of contract deals this year. Environmental Management updates its timelines every few months and the […]

WASHINGTON — The House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee on Wednesday sent the first draft of the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2020 budget bill to the full Appropriations Committee for consideration next week. The subcommittee will reveal its preferred spending levels for key programs in a detailed bill report to be published Monday, a […]

The company that manages the Savannah River Site in South Carolina approved $8.5 million worth of improper invoices from one of its subcontractors from October 2014 to June 2016, according to a new Department of Energy audit. That amount, which includes filings for information technology goods and services, represented 95 percent of the $9 million in […]

The House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee sliced $600 million from the Donald Trump administration’s 2020 budget request for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), in a spending bill unveiled Tuesday. If signed into law, the energy and water appropriations legislation would give the semiautonomous Department of Energy branch around $15.9 billion for the fiscal year […]

The Department of Homeland Security should pay closer attention to how cities are spending federal dollars earmarked for an anti-nuclear-terrorism program, the Government Accountability Office said Monday. The DHS Securing the Cities program began in 2006 and helps municipalities develop plans to prevent and respond to acts of radiological terror, including deployment of the radiological […]

Oral arguments are set for May 23 between the contractor for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) and its customer, the National Nuclear Security Administration, over some $800,000 in interest the contractor says it is owed. CB&I Areva MOX Services sued the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in 2016, and repeatedly afterward in […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) indicated Monday it will not start disposal of 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-usable plutonium in South Carolina until 2028 — a date by which the agency could accrue more than $1 billion in financial penalties for failing to remove the material from the South Carolina facility. The semiautonomous […]

Lawmakers over the past week filed a pair of bills to prop up the U.S.-Russian New START arms-control treaty, one of which aims to unite Congress in support of the bilateral pact, the other aiming to bind the U.S. to the treaty’s nuclear weapons limits even if Washington and Moscow do not extend the deal […]

The House of Representatives’ fiscal 2020 Energy and Water appropriations bill that contains the National Nuclear Security Administration’s budget will include about 4% more funding than the enacted 2019 bill did, according to spending limits published this week by the House Appropriations Committee. The total allocation for the 2020 Energy and Water Development appropriations bill, […]

WASHINGTON — The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will be late in making initial deliveries to the Pentagon of two refurbished nuclear weapons, the head of the Energy Department’s semiautonomous nuclear-weapon agency said this week. The Air Force was supposed to get its refurbished B61, to be called B61-12, in 2020. The Navy was supposed […]

There are no problems with the data from a recent subcritical plutonium experiment in Nevada, despite the unprecedented breach of the protective steel container in which the explosive test took place, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said. The breach also has not set back the schedule for other planned subcritical tests, despite personnel at […]