National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

Groups led by BWX Technologies and Bechtel National have protested the National Nuclear Security Administration’s decision to award management and operations of the agency’s two main nuclear-weapons production sites to the Fluor-led Nuclear Production One. The Government Accountability Office filed notices online Monday that Strategic Nuclear Operators — which web searches show shares an address in Lynchburg, Va., with […]

Editor’s note: the following was adapted from remarks delivered Wednesday by retired Air Force Gen. Frank Klotz, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) from 2014 to 2018, in a virtual forum organized by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and the Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance Deterrence Center. The Exchange Monitor has abridged Klotz’s remarks and edited […]

The Joe Biden administration will nominate Texas A&M nuclear engineering professor Marvin Adams to be deputy administrator for defense programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration, the White House announced Wednesday. Adams, if approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee and confirmed by the full Senate, will replace Charlie Verdon, the last senior appointee left from […]

The Joe Biden administration will nominate Texas A&M nuclear engineering professor Marvin Adams to be deputy administrator for defense programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration, the White House announced Wednesday.  Adams, if approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee and confirmed by the full Senate, will replace Charlie Verdon, the last senior appointee left […]

With about a month to go before the Department of Energy planned return-to-work, about 60% of a 10,000-strong workforce at the Hanford Site in Washington state was on premises each day, site manager Brian Vance told the Hanford Advisory Board Wednesday. While the DOE on Dec. 3 rolled out a plan to get most federal […]

Editor’s note: the following was adapted from remarks delivered Wednesday by retired Air Force Gen. Frank Klotz, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) from 2014 to 2018, in a virtual forum organized by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and the Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance Deterrence Center. The Exchange Monitor has abridged Klotz’s […]

Groups led by BWX Technologies and Bechtel National have protested the National Nuclear Security Administration’s decision to award management and operations of the agency’s two main nuclear-weapons production sites to the Fluor-led Nuclear Production One.  The Government Accountability Office filed notices online Monday that Strategic Nuclear Operators — which web searches show shares an address […]

An Aug. 8 experiment at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility that dazzled scientists, weapons-focused and otherwise, has the National Nuclear Security Administration rethinking plans to focus the facility more strictly on nuclear-weapons work. The experiment did not create a sustained nuclear fusion reaction, but it did set a new record for energy […]

Ignoring the ex-Sandia National Laboratories employee’s plea for probation, a federal judge in New Mexico sentenced Joshua Cordova to nearly two years in prison for the four counts of fraud to which he admitted earlier this year. Cordova worked at the Albuquerque-based labs network from 2011 to 2019, instructing military and law enforcement personnel how […]

Sources said the management and operations contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s two big nuclear-weapons production sites suspended its employee COVID-19 vaccine mandate this week after a federal judge in Georgia blocked the Joe Biden administration’s mandate for all federal contractors. A pair of other nuclear-weapon sites, however, said they would keep mandates in […]

The National Nuclear Safety Administration announced this week Corey Hinderstein was sworn in as deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration. The Senate unanimously confirmed Hinderstein Nov. 30. With her swearing in, the NNSA returns to its full complement of three Senate-confirmed senior managers. The swearing in was announced by National […]

With virtually all federal employees mandated to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board envisions a staff return-to-workplace date of Jan. 24, a spokesperson for the board said this week. “[P]lans may change, but this is our current plan,” Tara Tadlock, the associate director for board operations at the Defense Nuclear Facilities […]

The Air Force’s F-35A variant should still be certified to carry a pair of B61-12 bombs by fiscal year 2026 and the first flight test of a non-nuclear W87-0 warhead mockup should still fly on a Ground Based Strategic Deterrent missile in December 2023, the head of Air Force Global Strike Command said Thursday. And […]

A compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act, passed Tuesday by the House and awaiting a vote in the Senate, would authorize funding for Department of Energy nuclear waste and weapons programs at or above the requested level for fiscal year 2022. In the bill, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management would get the requested […]

The National Nuclear Safety Administration announced Monday Corey Hinderstein was sworn in as deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration.      The Senate unanimously confirmed Hinderstein Nov. 30. The swearing in was announced by National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) administrator Jill Hruby in a press release. “I would also like to […]

Niowave, Lansing, Mich., will get $13 million from the National Nuclear Security Administration, under a cooperative agreement, to support  domestic production of the Molybdenum-99 medical isotope, the agency announced Friday. This is the fourth and final round of congressionally mandated funding established by law in 2012 as part of the federal government’s efforts to establish […]

A compromise stopgap budget bill signed Friday averted a government shutdown and kept Department of Energy nuclear weapons and waste budgets at 2021 levels past Valentine’s Day. President Joe Biden signed the measure Friday after the House and Senate swiftly passed it on Thursday. In the Senate 19 Republicans crossed party lines to approve the […]

Confirmed, active cases of COVID-19 across the National Nuclear Security Administration enterprise jumped after the Thanksgiving holiday but remained about 70% lower than they were at this time last year, according to the latest agency data. There were 277 confirmed active cases across the agency’s labs, plants and sites, a spokesperson at National Nuclear Security […]

Plutonium pits, tank waste and contractor oversight again topped the Department of Energy inspector general’s list of the agency’s biggest management challenge, according to the latest edition, released before Thanksgiving. The most recent in the rolling series of special reports, “Management Challenges at the Department of Energy,” also assigned the same top priority to DOE’s […]

An ex-Sandia National Laboratories employee who racked up fraudulent charges of thousands of dollars or more on his company credit card is trying to stay out of prison, according to a sentencing memo filed before Thanksgiving. “If sentenced to pay a fine and be placed on probation for a period of five years, Mr. [Joshua] […]

The Senate this week unanimously confirmed Corey Hinderstein to be deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Security Administration. A think-tanker with a previous detail to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) under her belt, Hinderstein was on the Senate’s executive calendar for 40 days after clearing the Senate Armed Services […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration said Thursday it put together the first war-ready B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb on Nov. 23, paving the way to create an estimated 480 of the weapons, which will homogenize four existing variants of the bomb.  The agency “anticipates starting full-scale production in May 2022 and completing all needed production in […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration was scheduled to brief losing bidders next week about the agency’s decision to entrust a team led by Fluor, Irving, Texas, with management of the country’s two main nuclear-weapon production sites, sources said this week. The winning team, Nuclear Production One (NPOne) — which also includes junior partner Amentum, Germantown, […]

After senior and junior partners Fluor and Amentum, the new prime contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s main weapons production sites also includes Criterion Systems, General Atomics, and SOC, Fluor said Tuesday. Fluor, which has a 60% stake in new prime Nuclear Production One (NPOne), announced some more of the details of its winning […]

The Senate on Tuesday unanimously confirmed Corey Hinderstein to be deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Security Administration. A think-tanker with a previous detail to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) under her belt, Hinderstein was on the Senate’s executive calendar for 40 days after clearing the Senate Armed Services […]

An ex-Sandia National Laboratories employee who racked up fraudulent charges of thousands of dollars or more on his company credit card is trying to stay out of prison, according to a sentencing memo filed before Thanksgiving. “If sentenced to pay a fine and be placed on probation for a period of five years, Mr. [Joshua] […]

The Department of Energy has given the green light to a group led by Virginia-based BWX Technologies to begin a 90-day transition to take over liquid waste management and other work included under the Integrated Mission Completion Contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, an agency spokesperson said Monday morning. The notice was […]

About 100 people are already working at a new Kansas City National Security Campus satellite facility that opened in October just down the road from the National Nuclear Security Administration’s main factory for non-nuclear nuclear weapon parts, a spokesperson said Tuesday. For the moment, however, Building 23 — also called Kansas City East — is […]

While he is no longer acting assistant secretary, career fed William (Ike) White remains the top boss at the Department of Energy’s $7-billion-plus Office of Environmental Management as he has been for about two-and-a-half years, an agency spokesperson confirmed Monday. The latest DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) organizational chart dated Wednesday Nov. 17 shows […]

For the second year in a row, concern over potential spread of COVID-19 has prompted cancellation of the public deer hunt at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. “Due to COVID-19, the 2021 Deer Hunt has been cancelled,” according to a recent “deer control activities”  notice posted on the Savannah River […]