NS&D Monitor
2/13/2015
IN CONGRESS
Former Naval Reactors Government Affairs director Adam DeMella is joining the majority staff of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee where his portfolio will include the National Nuclear Security Administration, NS&D Monitor has learned. DeMella headed up Naval Reactor’s government affairs shop from 2001 until December. DeMella will assume most of the portfolio of former Senate Majority Clerk Tom Craig, who left the panel last month for a government affairs position with Duke Energy. Tyler Owens has replaced Craig as the majority clerk.
The Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee will hold a hearing on U.S. nuclear weapons policy March 4 with testimony from senior officials from across the weapons complex. National Nuclear Security Administration chief Frank Klotz will join Strategic Command chief Adm. Cecil Haney, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Brian McKeon, Deputy Director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Strategic Stability, Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate and Nuclear Weapons Council Chairman Frank Kendall, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. The hearing will help the panel shape its version of the Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act. It will be held in Room 222 of the Russell Senate Office Building at 3:30 p.m.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) helped introduce legislation this week that’s designed to “jumpstart” the nation’s pursuit of exascale computing – thousands of times more powerful than today’s most powerful supercomputers – and push for greater partnership in the scientific computing effort. According to sponsors, the Exascale Computing Leadership Act of 2015 would create partnership between the Department of Energy’s national labs and universities and industry to help meet the goals of supercomputing supremacy. Besides Alexander, Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-Ill.) and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) were the early sponsors of the legislation that’s designed to have best-of-best architectures available for the ultimate computing goals by 2023.
IN DOE
The Department of Energy has created an Office of Technology Transitions designed to help better commercialize research efforts at DOE laboratories, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said this week. The office will coordinate the commercialization across DOE, managing the $20 million Energy Technology Commercialization Fund, which aims to promote applied energy research and development efforts that can be translated and marketed by industry.” Jetta Wong, the director of the Lab Impact Initiative in the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, will serve as acting director of the office until a permanent leader is selected. “Through technology transfer, commercialization, and deployment activities, the Department of Energy has made significant contributions to economic growth in the United States,” Moniz said in a statement. “The Office of Technology Transitions will give the Department the opportunity to increase the American people’s return on investment in federally-funded science and energy research.”
IN NNSA
The National Nuclear Security Administration and the Air Force completed a series of eight flight tests of the refurbished B61-12 nuclear bomb in December, marking another milestone in the bomb’s life extension program. The tests, known as Vibration Fly Around/Instrumented Measurement Vehicle tests, were conducted at Eglin Air Force Base and Edwards Air Force Base from July to December of last year, providing flight environment data for the life extension program. The NNSA said the tests are key preparation for the bomb’s first flight test drop scheduled later in Fiscal Year 2015. “These tests are a major achievement for the B61-12 LEP to evaluate flight environments,” NNSA Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs Don Cook said in a statement. “This achievement within the B61-12 Life Extension Program is an important milestone that demonstrates the nation’s commitment to maintain the B61 and provides assurance to our allies.”
IN STRATCOM
Crews serving the USS Alaska stationed at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, and the 91st Missile Wing at Minot AFB, won the 2014 Omaha Trophy recognizing the premier intercontinental ballistic missile wing and ballistic missile submarine over the past year, according to a Feb. 10 U.S. Strategic Command press release. STRATCOM commander Adm. Cecil Haney presented the awards during the Nuclear Task Force Commander’s Conference at Offutt AFB on Jan. 5. “We applaud the members of these professional units, and extend our heartiest congratulations on their selection for this prestigious award,” he said. “I am proud of your contributions to our nation’s defense.” According to the release, the recipients represent units which are critical to fulfilling the combatant command’s primary mission: to detect, deter and prevent strategic attacks against the U.S. and its allies.
IN THE AIR FORCE
President Barack Obama has nominated Col. Vito Addabbo, mobilization assistant to the commander of the 20th Air Force at F.E. Warren AFB, for promotion to the rank of brigadier general. Addabbo’s nomination is one of 24 promotions that Obama announced for senior Air Force officers, according to a Feb. 6 press release.