National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

More than a week after the Senate confirmed him for the job, Brent Park was sworn in Tuesday as the National Nuclear Security Administration’s top nonproliferation official. Park will be deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation: the roughly $2 billion-a-year stovepipe charged with controlling the spread of weaponizable nuclear material while encourage peaceful atomic programs. […]

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims (CFC) should require the Department of Energy to pay South Carolina $200 million in their dispute over plutonium disposal at the federal Savannah River Site, rather than allowing the lawsuit to go to trial, the state said in a March 30 motion. Specifically, the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office […]

The Department of Energy says it should get to keep around $20 million in fees it clawed back from a contractor that failed to build a major nuclear-nonproliferation project in South Carolina on time. The federal agency’s filing in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims last week was the latest turn in one of the two slow-simmering […]

Days after the Department of Energy (DOE) gave the go-ahead to start building key parts of a $6.5 billion facility to process uranium for U.S. defense programs, a federal judge ordered a venue change in a lawsuit aimed at stopping the plant’s construction. Three environmental groups and four individuals filed suit in July 2017 in […]

Scores of Democratic congresspeople wrote to President Donald Trump this week to complain that the White House’s plans to add new low-yield nuclear warheads to the U.S. arsenal is dangerous and fiscally irresponsible. That was the takeaway of a letter dated March 26 and signed by 43 Democrats, including Rep. Adam Smith (R-Wash.): ranking member of […]

It was all over but the waiting at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, at which time Brent Park had still not been sworn in as deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). But barring personal or political catastrophe, Park will soon take the reins of the […]

Organizations bidding to run the Los Alamos National Laboratory met with National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) officials last week, marking one of the final steps in the competition for a 10-year, $20-billion-plus management and operations contract. The meetings in Washington, D.C., between government officials and an undisclosed number of bid teams keep the Department of […]

Friday marked the official start of the 30-day window during which the Department of Energy has said it will release a draft solicitation for the Savannah River Site management and operations contract that includes oversight of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s tritium-refining operations. The window is open through April 29, a Sunday, according to the presolicitation […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration gave Bechtel National the go-ahead to begin about $4 billion worth of construction on the Uranium Processing Facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., marking the official start of the busiest, costliest years of the project to date. However, the agency still has not divulged the official cost and schedule estimate for […]

Organizations bidding to run the Los Alamos National Laboratory met with National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) officials last week, marking one of the final steps in the competition for a 10-year, $20-billion-plus management and operations contract. The meetings in Washington, D.C., between government officials and an undisclosed number of bid teams keep the Department of […]

A couple working days after the Senate confirmed his nomination, the Department of Energy still had not sworn in Brent Park as deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration. Park, a nuclear physicist, will lead a roughly $2-billion-a-year nuclear nonproliferation program that aims to prevent the spread of weaponizable nuclear […]

Scores of Democratic congresspeople wrote to President Donald Trump on Monday to complain that the White House’s plans to add new low-yield nuclear warheads to the U.S. arsenal is dangerous and fiscally irresponsible. That was the takeaway of a letter dated March 26 and signed by 43 Democrats, including Rep. Adam Smith (R-Wash.): ranking member […]

The Department of Energy has authorized the start of construction on key parts of the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.: a crucial cog in the government’s 30-year nuclear deterrent-modernization effort. In a Friday press release, DOE said it cleared its semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to […]

WASHINGTON — Replacing an under-construction plutonium disposal plant in South Carolina will be billions of dollars cheaper than finishing it, even after accounting for transportation and storage costs associated with a proposed alternative, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) told lawmakers here Tuesday. The Department of Energy wants to cancel the the […]

The Senate on Thursday unanimously approved Brent Park to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s roughly $2-billion-a-year nuclear nonproliferation branch. It took the Senate a little over a month to confirm Park, a physicist and associate director at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, as deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation. President Donald Trump […]

The fiscal 2018 omnibus spending bill President Donald Trump signed this week would give the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) warhead refurbishment programs the 30-percent boost the White House requested, but it would also sustain a major nonproliferation construction project the agency has tried to cancel for three years. Overall, the permanent, government-wide spending bill […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry and the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) both assured Congress this week that the two new low-yield warheads called for in the Donald Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review can fit in projected agency budgets. Perry and NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty faced the same question Thursday on separate sides […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management on Thursday issued its request for proposals for the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and scheduled a pre-proposal site tour for April 10. The announcement had been expected after DOE issued the draft RFP in November and said last month it was preparing to […]

Sen, Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) publicly went on the offensive this week against the National Nuclear Security Administration’s slowly gelling plan to shift production of some nuclear-weapon cores to South Carolina from New Mexico. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is in the final stages of deciding whether to start manufacturing a select number of plutonium […]

With budget caps lifted, all major Department of Energy nuclear programs would see substantial year-over-year funding increases for fiscal 2018, if an omnibus spending package unveiled late last night is signed into law. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would take home the biggest increase for the current budget year, which began on Oct. 1. […]

WASHINGTON — Replacing an under-construction plutonium disposal plant in South Carolina will be billions of dollars cheaper than finishing it, even after accounting for transportation and storage costs associated with a proposed alternative, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) told lawmakers here Tuesday. The Department of Energy (DOE) wants to cancel the […]

WASHINGTON — In separate congressional hearings here Tuesday, senior Energy and Defense officials declined to pin down the date at which the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) might start modifying an existing warhead to create the low-yield, submarine-launched weapon sought by the Trump administration. The Pentagon has already requested 2019 funding to start upgrading the Trident […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), are due to testify in Congress this week in separate budget hearings. It will be the second public trip to Capitol Hill in as many weeks for both officials. Gordon-Hagerty will be first to face lawmakers this week. The new NNSA […]

WASHINGTON — The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will decide in early May whether it wants to build nuclear-warhead cores known as plutonium pits at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., the agency’s new administrator said here Wednesday in congressional testimony. The Pentagon needs the NNSA by 2030 to produce 80 plutonium pits a […]

WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy’s final budget for the 2018 fiscal year that began last October might be published Monday, the agency’s top House appropriator told reporters Thursday. After a hearing on the 2019 budget with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said congressional leaders “hope to put it [the bill] online” […]

Vahid Majidi, a former Pentagon and national-lab hand who most recently worked in industry, is scheduled today to replace the departing Terry Michalske as director of the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina. Majidi will be executive vice president at Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), which runs the lab and the Savannah River Site’s non-liquid-waste-cleanup mission for […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry ducked and dodged in the first congressional hearing of the year about the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2019 budget, evading questions from the dais about when the agency would provide a congressionally mandated cost estimate that could allow it to cancel a massive plutonium disposal plant under construction at the Savannah […]

Local and state leaders in South Carolina told the new head of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) that the Savannah River Site would be the best place for plutonium pit production just before her visit to the Energy Department facility last week. NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, who has been on the job since […]

The new head of the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, in office less than a month, should direct the agency to produce an overarching plan for the future of “the entire nuclear security enterprise,” a National Academies panel said in a report published Tuesday. “In response to the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review and […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to host the teams bidding to run the Los Alamos National Laboratory for the next 10 years for face-to-face meetings next week, an official with one bidder said late Wednesday. “[B]idders will be receiving feedback on their proposals this week,” Kim Budil, vice president for national laboratories for the University […]