An internal panel of National Nuclear Security Administration personnel have started their headquarters-led review of the agency’s Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Office and expects to wrap up the work sometime in 2022, an agency spokesperson said Monday.
“The independent strategic review of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation’s (DNN) mission space is beginning its work and conversations with DNN are just starting,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “A final report is expected in late 2022.”
In February — a little more than a month before Russia invaded Ukraine — Jill Hruby, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), said the agency would l “reexamine the priorities and missions” of the Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation “in light of the current geopolitical environment.”
DNN, with a roughly $2-billion-a-year budget, runs a series of programs aimed at preventing bad actors from acquiring fissile and radioactive materials. The office also handles disposal of U.S. surplus plutonium and uranium left over from the Cold War arms race with the Soviet Union.
Corey Hinderstein, NNSA’s new deputy administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, told the Exchange Monitor in February that the DNN would be handled by “an NNSA-initiated, NNSA-scoped panel.”
“The work of the panel will be independent. We’re giving them their charge, but then they’re going to do their review and come back to us with their guidance,” Hinderstein said.
