National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

David Huizenga, the No. 3 official at the National Nuclear Security Administration, will take over as acting Secretary of Energy until the Senate confirms President Joe Biden’s nominee for the post, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D), the administration said Wednesday. Granholm is scheduled for a Jan. 27 confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy Natural […]

In his Senate nomination hearing Tuesday, Secretary of Defense designate Lloyd Austin would not commit outright to supporting the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plan to build two factories to produce new plutonium pits. “Maintaining a credible, reliable, safe and sustainable nuclear capability is of utmost importance, of the highest importance. And so [pits] is a […]

Adding another hash mark to the record of winter disruptions on the hill, the Los Alamos National Laboratory opened late today, advising essential personnel needed for national security work inside the fence to wait out some heavy snow before reporting in. That means the roughly 20% of Los Alamos’ workforce still on site amid ongoing […]

William Bookless will resign as acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration on inauguration day, Jan. 20, setting up career civil servant David Huizenga to shepherd the nuclear-weapons agency through the early days of the Joe Biden administration. Bookless announced his impending departure Monday in an all-hands memo to National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) […]

With the National Nuclear Security Administration’s capacity to manufacture new nuclear weapon cores still a question mark, the Navy is studying whether the recently funded W93 submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead needs a brand new plutonium pit, the admiral in charge of the service’s nuclear weapon systems said Thursday. “We are, in the [Department of Defense], […]

Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall is officially headed to the National Security Council, ending for now any prospects of a return to the Department of Energy, where the nonproliferation and weapons-of-mass-destruction policy hand was second-in-command during the Obama administration. The Biden transition team officially announced the move Wednesday, which media had reported earlier. Sherwood-Randall will be homeland security […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration has scheduled another virtual job fair, with the next in the series scheduled for Jan. 27, the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency announced. The agency said it has “more than 2,000 NNSA federal and contractor positions” to fill, “including engineers, policy experts, and physical scientists, throughout the country.” Those interested […]

Despite headaches that touch, in one way or another, almost every major nuclear weapons refurbishment underway at the National Nuclear Security Administration, the agency’s big contractors generally got good reviews in the pandemic-beleaguered 2020 fiscal year, according to agency’s annual scorecards. Below is Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor’s annual digest of the National Nuclear Security […]

Three more National Nuclear Security Administration employees have died from COVID-19, an agency spokesperson said this week, as active cases across the enterprise tricked down, despite more than 400 new cases cropping up. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency said, some National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) sites are starting to […]

The incoming Biden administration should designate a senior official reporting to the White House to negotiate both long-term and interim radioactive waste storage with Congress, an Obama-era Department of Energy official said this week. “A senior negotiator representing the administration would provide focus, leadership, and momentum for legislative action that puts the United States on […]

Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall is officially headed to the National Security Council, ending for now any prospects of a return to the Department of Energy, where the nonproliferation and weapons-of-mass-destruction policy hand was second-in-command during the Obama administration. The Biden transition team officially announced the move Wednesday, which media had reported earlier. Sherwood-Randall will be homeland security […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration has scheduled another virtual job fair, with the next in the series scheduled for Jan. 27, the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency announced.  The agency said it has “more than 2,000 NNSA federal and contractor positions” to fill, “including engineers, policy experts, and physical scientists, throughout the country.” […]

The incoming Biden administration should designate a senior official reporting to the White House to negotiate both long-term and interim radioactive waste storage with Congress, said David Klaus in an op-ed published Tuesday by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “A senior negotiator representing the administration would provide focus, leadership, and momentum for legislative action […]

William Bookless will resign as acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration on inauguration day, Jan. 20, setting up career civil servant David Huizenga to shepherd the nuclear-weapons agency through the early days of the Joe Biden administration. Bookless announced his impending departure Monday in an all-hands memo to National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) […]

A federal judge declined to give the former prime contractor of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility any relief from federal fraud claims, even though the company argued it had already paid back some of the money the government sued to recover, according to a recent filing in the U.S. District Court for South Carolina. […]

The commander of U.S. nuclear forces, who met with President-elect Joe Biden’s (D) transition team recently, worried this week that the civilian nuclear weapons complex faces problems bigger than a potential slip in plutonium-pit production. Under the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act passed into law this month over President Donald Trump’s veto, U.S. Strategic Command […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Nevada National Security Site are resetting the underground U1a facility at the former Nevada Test Site for the second in three planned Nightshade subcritical experiments. Nightshade B is scheduled to fire in “spring 2021,” a spokesperson for the Los Alamos National Laboratory told Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor […]

The Sandia National Laboratories split its Nuclear Deterrence division into two new organizations and brought in a former Raytheon executive to oversee them, the Albuquerque, N.M.-based labs network announced this week. Sandia rolled out the changes internally in November, a labs spokesperson wrote in an email to Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor. A major cog […]

Maggie Oliver will not run for Congress next year to represent the district that includes the Sandia National Laboratory, the New Mexico’s secretary of state tweeted before the holidays.  Oliver, a Democrat in Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s (D) administration, was seen as a possible candidate to replace Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) who is leaving Congress […]

In the omnibus spending bill signed this week, Congress appropriated $30 million for the National Nuclear Security Administration to continue cleaning up a downtown Seattle building that has been vacant for more than a year after an agency contractor botched the removal of a cesium-137 blood irradiator from the premises and contaminated the facility. Together […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration got its big requested budget increase under the omnibus spending bill signed into law just before New Year’s, jumpstarting key nuclear-weapons programs even as the incoming Joe Biden administration squares up the ongoing U.S. modernization regimen for possible cuts. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will get $19.7 billion, which […]

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 […]

A federal judge declined to give the former prime contractor of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility any relief from federal fraud claims, even though the company argued it had already paid back some of the money the government sued to recover, according to a recent filing in the U.S. District Court for South Carolina. […]

The commander of U.S. nuclear forces, who met with President-elect Joe Biden’s (D) transition team recently, worried Monday that the civilian nuclear weapons complex faces problems bigger than a potential slip in plutonium-pit production. Under the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act passed into law this month over President Donald Trump’s veto, U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Nevada National Security Site are resetting the underground U1a facility at the former Nevada Test Site for the second in three planned Nightshade subcritical experiments. Nightshade B is scheduled to fire in “spring 2021,” a spokesperson for the Los Alamos National Laboratory told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing in […]

The Sandia National Laboratories split its Nuclear Deterrence division into two new organizations and brought in a former Raytheon executive to oversee them, the Albuquerque, N.M.-based labs network announced this week. Sandia rolled out the changes internally in November, a labs spokesperson wrote in an email to Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. A major cog in […]

Maggie Oliver will not run for Congress next year to represent the district that includes the Sandia National Laboratory, the New Mexico’s secretary of state tweeted before the holidays.  Oliver, a Democrat in Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s (D) administration, was seen as a possible candidate to replace Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) who is leaving Congress […]

In the omnibus spending bill signed this week, Congress appropriated $30 million for the National Nuclear Security Administration to continue cleaning up a downtown Seattle building that has been vacant for more than a year after an agency contractor botched the removal of a cesium-137 blood irradiator from the premises and contaminated the facility. Together […]

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 […]