National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

The Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration plans to extend by four months an existing deal with a small business that provides technical support and analysis. In a procurement notice published Friday, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said its current three-year-and-a-half year deal with Vector Resources, Inc., which is worth about $3 […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration and the prime contractor for the Y-12 Nuclear Security Complex at Oak Ridge, Tenn., are working with the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management to shrink the high-security protected area around Y-12 by almost  half. Ground was broken April 7 on the $160-million West End Protected Area Reduction project, […]

The acting deputy manager of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Nevada field office will take over her role in an official capacity, the agency announced this week. Laura M. Tomlinson will take over as deputy manager of the Nevada Field Office (NFO) after serving as acting deputy since last February, according to a press release […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration and the prime contractor for the Y-12 Nuclear Security Complex at Oak Ridge, Tenn., are working with the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management to shrink the high-security protected area around Y-12 by almost  half. Ground was broken April 7 on the $160-million West End Protected Area Reduction project, […]

Public interest groups are ready to sue the Department of Energy and its semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration over what they claim is insufficient review of plans for expanded plutonium pit production in South Carolina and New Mexico. The coalition claims the government failed to adequately review plans to “vastly ramp up production” of nuclear […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration has “limited information on the prevalence of sexual harassment” in its nuclear security forces and needs to take steps to comply with federal anti-harassment policies, said a government study published this week. The NNSA currently doesn’t meet the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) guidelines on responding to and preventing […]

People in Nevada don’t want to see the U.S. government resume underground explosive-nuclear weapons testing in their state, Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) said Tuesday during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.   “Nevadans do not want to return to a time when there was explosive nuclear testing in our state,” Rosen told Admiral Charles Richard, commander […]

Across the National Nuclear Security Administration’s sites and Washington headquarters, the trickle of current positive cases remained steady at under 200 this week, while the number of vaccines administered across the nuclear security enterprise continued to climb. Due to revised Department of Energy guidelines, NNSA is only reporting confirmed active cases and any additional deaths, […]

A National Academies panel said Monday that monitoring, detection and verification of nuclear weapons and fissile material should be a higher national security priority and that more government coordination is needed on the issue. That is the crux of an interim report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, published Monday. The report, […]

The U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program has awarded Lynchburg, Va.,-based BWX Technologies contracts worth about $2.2 billion for making naval reactor parts and fuel, the company said in a Tuesday morning press release. BWXT Nuclear Operations Group sites in Virginia, Ohio and Indiana will manufacture nuclear reactor components for Columbia and Virginia-class submarines over an […]

President Joe Biden has formally sent Jill Hruby’s nomination to be undersecretary for nuclear security at the Department of Energy to the Senate for consideration, the White House announced Thursday. Also Thursday Biden announced his intent to nominate Frank Rose as the principal deputy administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Rose is currently […]

Public interest groups are ready to sue the Department of Energy and its semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration over what they claim is insufficient review of plans for expanded plutonium pit production in South Carolina and New Mexico. The coalition claims the government failed to adequately review plans to “vastly ramp up production” of nuclear […]

People in Nevada don’t want to see the U.S. government resume underground explosive-nuclear weapons testing in their state, Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) said Tuesday during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.   “Nevadans do not want to return to a time when there was explosive nuclear testing in our state,” Rosen told Admiral Charles Richard, commander […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration has “limited information on the prevalence of sexual harassment” in its nuclear security forces and needs to take steps to comply with federal anti-harassment policies, said a government study published Monday. The NNSA currently doesn’t meet the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) guidelines on responding to and preventing workplace […]

The U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program has awarded Lynchburg, Va.,-based BWX Technologies contracts worth about $2.2 billion for making naval reactor parts and fuel, the company said in a Tuesday morning press release. BWXT Nuclear Operations Group sites in Virginia, Ohio and Indiana will manufacture nuclear reactor components for Columbia and Virginia-class submarines over an […]

A National Academies panel said Monday that monitoring, detection and verification of nuclear weapons and fissile material should be a higher national security priority and that more government coordination is needed on the issue. That is the crux of an interim report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, published Monday. The report, […]

It was not quite a year ago when Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) reorganized its Technical Services segment to include three distinct business units.  Nuclear and Environmental Services, the unit in charge business development at Department of Energy nuclear-weapons sites, got an unambiguously DOE-styled spear tip in Michael Lempke, a former procurement honcho from the DOE’s […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration reported only 13 new confirmed, positive COVID-19 cases this week, which was well below the mean average for the last two months and, individually, one of the lowest week-to-week increases since the disease reached the U.S.  Across the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency’s nuclear security enterprise, vaccinations continued at the […]

The chair of the House Armed Services Committee quoted chapter-and-verse from his bible of nuclear weapon policies this week in a chat with the D.C.-based Reagan Institute, during which he advocated for trimming the defense budget by preventing particular crises rather than gearing up to win an all-out war. “I think that we can have […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration appointed Jason Armstrong to lead the Savannah River Field Office, the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapon steward wrote in a press release on this week. Armstrong was most recently assistant manager for nuclear safety and engineering at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Production Office in Tennessee, where he had […]

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 Joe Biden will nominate Jill Hruby, former director of the Sandia National Laboratories, to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration, the White House said Wednesday. 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 federal […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration appointed Jason Armstrong to lead the Savannah River Field Office, the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapon steward wrote in a press release on Monday. Armstrong was most recently assistant manager for nuclear safety and engineering at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Production Office in Tennessee, where he had worked […]

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 […]

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 […]

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said Thursday spent nuclear fuel policy meetings are happening inside the Department of Energy but it is too early to spell out what the administration of President Joe Biden will pursue with Nevada’s stalled Yucca Mountain project off the table. Granholm’s remarks came in response to a reporter’s question at […]

Texas’ deep freeze in February damaged “pipes and air-handling units” at the Pantex Plant, including at weapons production facilities, but most of the damage had been repaired by March, a spokesperson for the plant’s prime contractor said Wednesday. The affected systems “developed leaks and other cold‑related impacts [but] [a]ll operations in the impacted facilities were […]

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 […]