Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor Vol. 22 No. 09
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Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor
Article 3 of 13
March 02, 2018

Graham Prods NNSA Nonproliferation Nominee on Plutonium Disposal

By Dan Leone

WASHINGTON — Brent Park, the White House’s choice to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) nonproliferation office, promised he would if confirmed weigh in on a big nonproliferation construction project Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wants to protect in South Carolina.

In a confirmation hearing that ended without anyone outright opposing the Oak Ridge physicist’s nomination, Graham lectured Park about the Department of Energy’s plan to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapon-grade plutonium under an arms control pact finalized with Russia in 2010. When the agreement was signed, the NNSA planned to convert the material into commercial reactor fuel in the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) under construction at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C.

But for the last three years, the NNSA has proposed killing MFFF and instead using proposed, but unfunded, facilities at Savannah River to prepare the material for burial deep underground in New Mexico. The agency says this option would be significantly cheaper and faster than proceeding with the MOX project.

And for the last three years, Congress has refused to go along with that plan. That has been particularly true of Graham, who on Thursday secured Park’s promise — if confirmed — to “go to Savannah River Site and come back and tell this committee how much of the plant is completed in my opinion.”

Construction and operations contractor CB&I AREVA MOX Services says MFFF is 70 percent done and could begin processing plutonium by 2029. The NNSA has said the facility is nowhere close to that far along with in construction. A 2015 report the agency commissioned from the Pentagon-funded Aerospace Corp. found the MFFF might not even be finish plutonium processing this century.

Park told Graham he would make a visit to Savannah River among his “highest priorities,” if confirmed.

This was essentially the same playbook Graham ran in a hearing last month with Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, who was subsequently confirmed unanimously by the committee and the full Senate to be NNSA administrator.

As at Gordon-Hagerty’s confirmation session, Graham appeared to telegraph his support for Park’s confirmation.

“I think you’re very qualified for your job, so congratulations on the nomination,” Graham told Park.

If Park, a physicist and associate laboratory director at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is confirmed as the NNSA’s deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation, he will lead a roughly $1.8-billion-a-year office that includes not only the plutonium disposition effort dear to Graham’s heart, but a plethora of other programs aimed at reducing the availability of weaponizable nuclear materials while encouraging peaceful atomic programs.

Such programs include Material Management and Minimization, which focuses on reducing use of weapon-grade highly enriched uranium for peaceful purposes, and Global Material Security, which works to prevent unfriendly nations and actors from obtaining nuclear material material.

The White House nominated Park Feb. 13. He now must be approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee and the full Senate before he can join the agency. The committee had not scheduled a vote on Park’s nomination at press time Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.

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NEW: Via public records request, I’ve been able to confirm reporting today that a warrant has been issued for DOE deputy asst. secretary of spent fuel and waste disposition Sam Brinton for another luggage theft, this time at Las Vegas’s Harry Reid airport. (cc: @EMPublications)

DOE spent fuel lead Brinton accused of second luggage theft.



by @BenjaminSWeiss, confirming today's reports with warrant from Las Vegas Metro PD.

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