NS&D Monitor
1/9/2015
IN THE WHITE HOUSE
The Obama Administration will release its Fiscal Year 2016 budget request on time on Feb. 2, the Associated Press reported this week. The first Monday in February is the deadline for the annual budget release, a date the Obama Administration has missed frequently in the past.
IN CONGRESS
Donna Shahbaz is taking over as the majority clerk of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, replacing Rob Blair, who is leaving the panel for the same spot on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Shahbaz has served as the clerk of the Military Construction/Veterans Affairs Subcommittee since 2012, and has worked for the House Appropriations Committee since 2007. Blair follows Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), who shifted to the top spot on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee two years ago after helming the Energy and Water panel. Blair was the Republican clerk on Energy and Water since 2008, taking the majority spot in 2011 when the GOP took control of the House.
IN THE INDUSTRY
A meeting of the Commission to Review the Effectiveness of the National Energy Laboratories scheduled for this week was cancelled. The meeting was to be the panel’s sixth and final of its phase one work, but with it expected to deliver its phase one report by Feb. 1, the final meeting was scrapped. The committee will meet Feb. 24 at the Hilton Mark Center in Alexandria and March 24 at the Hilton Mark Center to kick off the second phase of its work. The panel is chaired by former Deputy Energy Secretary T.J. Glauthier and former Carnegie Mellon President Jared Cohon, and is charged with examining whether the labs properly meet DOE’s strategic priorities, don’t have clear or redundant missions, and are appropriately sized.
ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT
Approximately 80 pounds of highly enriched uranium spent fuel has been removed from the Institute of Nuclear Physics (INP) in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in a joint operation with Russia, the National Nuclear Security Administration said Jan. 7. The HEU was transported via two air shipments to a secure facility in Russia for permanent disposition. This operation resulted from years of cooperation between the United States, Kazakhstan, Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the NNSA said the last 50 kilograms of HEU research reactor fuel will be transferred from Kazakhstan to Russia in the next several years. “The removal of this HEU is yet another example of how the international community continues to work together to prevent the threat of nuclear terrorism,” NNSA nonproliferation chief Anne Harrington said in a statement. The latest HEU removal follows another HEU removal from INP in September 2014, when approximately 10 kilograms was returned to Russia and will be downblended to low enriched uranium.
IN THE NAVY
Navy Strategic Systems Programs has awarded Boeing a $39.5 million cost-plus-fixed-fee, cost-plus-incentive-fee contract to maintain, repair, rebuild and provide technical services for Ohio-class and U.K. Vanguard-class submarines’ navigation systems, according to a Dec. 23 announcement. The contract contains options which could bring its value up to $80.2 million. Three-quarters of the work will be performed at Boeing’s Directed Energy and Strategic Systems (DESS) unit’s base of operations in Huntington Beach, Calif., and one-quarter will be performed at DESS’ repair and assembly plant for intercontinental ballistic missiles; military aircraft; guidance, navigation and control and antenna systems in Heath, Ohio. Work is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2017. The contract will draw $2 million from the Navy’s “other procurement contract funds” budget for Fiscal Year 2014, $26.4 million from operations and maintenance contract funds for FY 2015, $7.8 million from the Navy’s “other procurement contract funds” budget for FY 2015, $893,998 from research, development, test and evaluation contract funds for FY 2015, and $2.5 million from U.K. contract funds. $26.4 million will expire at the end of FY 2015.
IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT
Secretary of State John Kerry on Jan. 7 hosted the swearing-in ceremony for Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Frank Rose. The Senate confirmed Rose on Dec. 16, after he waited more than 500 days to be approved. He was originally nominated to the position in July 2013, but his nomination was blocked by Republicans over concerns about a lack of commitment from the Obama Administration to undertake further nuclear weapon reductions only through a treaty process. He had served as the deputy assistant secretary of state for space and defense policy within the Bureau of Arms Control Verification and Compliance. Previously, he was a staffer on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
IN THE NGOs
Voters have elected Austria’s Director for Arms Control, Nonproliferation and Disarmament Alexander Kmentt the Arms Control Association’s “2014 Arms Control Person of the Year,” according to a Jan. 8 ACA press release. Kmentt was chosen out of 10 nominees. “Ambassador Kmentt, who started his career at the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs in 1994 and has been a leading disarmament diplomat for many years, was recognized for organizing the third International Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, Dec. 8-9, 2014 in Vienna, which drew delegations representing 158 states, the United Nations, and civil society,” the release states. “For the first time in the series of conferences on nuclear weapons use, the list of participants included countries recognized as nuclear-weapon states by the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)—the United Kingdom and the United States. In addition, an unofficial representative from China attended the meeting. Two other nuclear-armed states, India and Pakistan, took part in the previous two meetings and were also present in Vienna.”
