NS&D Monitor
3/6/2015

IN CONGRESS

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said this week that she will not seek reelection in 2016, opening up the top Democratic slot on the powerful spending panel. Mikulski, 78, has spent the last 30 years in the Senate, becoming chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee in 2012. She lost the chairmanship last year when Republicans took control of the upper chamber, but she remained the ranking member, and her departure is sure to shuffle leadership on the committee. “This has been a hard decision to make,” Mikulski said during a press conference yesterday. “There’s no health problem. I’m not frustrated with the Senate.”

IN DOE

The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board will meet March 31 at the Department of Energy’s Forestall Building to hear updates on a handful of reports. The March 31 meeting will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and will include consideration of reports from the SEAB task forces on nuclear nonproliferation and the national laboratories as well as a briefing on the Quadrennial Energy Review.

AT STRATCOM

Adm. Cecil Haney, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, met with Defense Department and military personnel on Feb. 24 to review and assess the status of the Integrated Tactical Warning and Attack Assessment (ITWAA) during a Nuclear Enterprise Stakeholder’s Conference hosted by STRATCOM at Peterson AFB, Colo., according to a March 4 STRATCOM press release. “The ITWAA stakeholder’s conference is important given the critical role tactical warning and attack assessment plays in our strategic enterprise and in 21st Century deterrence,” Haney said. “The goal for this forum was to focus on assessment of the strategic warning mission executed by USSTRATCOM and [the North American Aerospace Defense Command], and the leaders from all of the commands present are instrumental in accomplishing our global mission.” STRATCOM leaders chair regular forums to evaluate the health and direction of the nation’s strategic forces, including bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, ballistic missile submarines and nuclear command, control and communications.