Wrap-up: Lohmeier confirmed; MOUs with Malaysia and Bahrain; NRC public meetings; new AFGSC commander; More

On a 52 to 46 party line vote on Thursday, the GOP-controlled Senate confirmed Matthew Lohmeier as the 29th Undersecretary of the U.S. Air Force–the service’s number two civilian.

In written answers to Senate Armed Services Committee questions before Lohmeier’s nomination hearing on May 1, he said that nuclear modernization, including the Northrop Grumman LGM-35A Sentinel future ICBM, and space resilience would be the top Department of the Air Force challenges that he would address.

In May 2021, then Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting–now the four-star head of U.S. Space Command–fired then Lt. Col. Lohmeier as the commander of the 11th Space Warning Squadron at Buckley Space Force Base, Colo., after Lohmeier aired his views opposing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives during a conservative podcast. Before his time in the Space Force, Lohmeier served as an Air Force F-15C pilot. 

The United States and the Kingdom of Bahrain signed a Memorandum of Understanding Concerning civil nuclear cooperation (NCMOU) on July 16, the State Department said last week.

The signing between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Bahrain’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani happened less than a week after a NCMOU was signed between the United States and Malaysia, except Malaysia has also launched into negotiations for a civil nuclear cooperation agreement, or a more legally binding framework for peaceful nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and another country. 

A 123 agreement further requires a commitment to nuclear nonproliferation between both parties in order for the United States to export nuclear material, according to the State Department, while a NCMOU is a step toward that framework.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold two public meetings on July 31 and Aug. 6 to discuss the potential restart of Crane Clean Energy Center, formerly known as Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, in Middletown, Pa.

The July 31 meeting will be held in-person at Capitol Union Building, on the Penn State Harrisburg campus, in Middletown, Pa. from 6-8 p.m Eastern Time. The Aug. 6 meeting will be a webinar held on Microsoft Teams from 4-6 p.m. The two meetings will discuss the recent activities of the NRC’s Crane Clean Energy Center Restart Panel. The panel, formed earlier this year, is tasked with reviewing, inspecting and confirming if the plant is able to return to operating again.

Along with plans to restart, Constellation Energy also requested the name of the plant to be changed from Three Mile Island to Crane Clean Energy Center, naming it after Christopher Crane, former president and CEO of Exelon, who died in April 2024. NRC approved the name change on May 13. This is only the second time a nuclear company has sought to restart a permanently shut down U.S. nuclear plant, according to the NRC.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Stephen Davis, the current Air Force inspector general, is to pin on a fourth star and become the head of Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) to replace Air Force Gen. Thomas Bussiere, Pres. Trump’s nominee to be the next Air Force vice chief of staff. 

AFGSC is the service component of the U.S. Strategic Command. Trump has also nominated Air Force Lt. Gen. Andrew Gebara, the deputy Air Force chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, to become the director of Air Force staff; and Air Force Brig. Gen. Max Pearson, the deputy director of operations at the National Security Agency, to become a lieutenant general and to serve as Air Force deputy chief of staff for intelligence.

U.S. Marine Lt. Gen. Gregory Masiello became the new program executive officer (PEO) for the F-35 fighter program on Thursday. 

Masiello succeeds Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt, who has served in the position since July, 2022. DoD acquisition chief Michael Duffy attended the transition ceremony in Arlington, Va.

The F-35, specifically the Lockheed Martin F-35A fighters, are capable of carrying conventional munitions and the B61-12, which is produced by the National Nuclear Security Administration and completed its last production unit in December.