NS&D Monitor
1/30/2015
IN CONGRESS
There will be a major shakeup on the staff of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee with two of the top staffers on the panel leaving Capitol Hill for lobbying jobs. NS&D Monitor has learned that Senate Majority Clerk Tom Craig and Senate Minority Staffer Leland Cogliani are leaving the subcommittee at the end of this week. Craig, who joined the panel two years ago, will serve as the director of government affairs for Duke Energy, while Cogliani will serve as a senior lobbyist for Washington, D.C., lobbying consulting firm Lewis-Burke Associates. Craig will be replaced as majority clerk by Tyler Owens, though the panel is likely to hire a staffer to handle Craig’s portfolio, which includes the National Nuclear Security Administration. Chris Hanson, who is detailed to the committee from the Department of Energy, will take over Cogliani’s NNSA and applied energy portfolio. Minority Clerk Doug Clapp will handle Cogliani’s Office of Science portfolio.
IN THE NNSA
The National Nuclear Security Administration has named a pair of new deputy managers at two of its field offices, announcing Carol Sohn as the new deputy manager of the Nevada Field Office and Michael Duvall as the deputy manager of the Sandia Field Office. Sohn recently served as the acting deputy manager of the Nevada Field Office on a detail from the Office of Science. She was the Office of Science’s Senior Nuclear Safety Advisor. An Air Force veteran, Duvall joined NNSA in 2012 and served as the acting deputy manager and chief operating offier of the Los Alamos Field Office. Before joining NNSA, he was the secretary of the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
Oral arguments have been set for March 12 in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals for the three Plowshares protesters—Sister Megan Rice, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed—who were convicted on sabotage charges for the 2012 break-in at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge. The three are currently incarcerated in federal prisons in New York, Pennsylvania and Kansas. The appeal will be heard before a three-judge panel in Cincinnati, Ohio.
ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT
The first tests of a new Russian intercontinental ballistic missile called the Sarmat are “well on track” and pop-up tests from a silo will take place in 2015, Russian Deputy Minister of defense Yuri Borisov told Russian radio station RSN, according to a Jan. 26 Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces Blog post. The missile, according to Borisov, will be ready to begin service in 2020, as planned, the blog states. The blog also notes that the announcement “seems to be consistent” with a Russian plan to begin flight tests of the missile in 2017. Borisov also suggested that the missile will be able to deliver payloads of up to 10 tons, fly over the South Pole, if necessary, and will be overall superior to the existing R-36M/SS-18 line of ICBMs, according to the blog. “At this point, it is difficult to tell if these claims are correct, but none of this is technically impossible,” the post states. “Whether it’s reasonable is another matter.”
IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT
Rose Gottemoeller, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, will travel to Seoul, Beijing, London, Munich, and Berlin from Jan. 30 to Feb. 9, where she will conduct bilateral and multilateral meetings on arms control and nonproliferation issues and participate in two international security conferences, according to a Jan. 29 State Department announcement. On Jan. 30, Gottemoeller will lead the U.S. delegation at the U.S.-South Korea Disarmament and Nonproliferation Consultation in Seoul. On Feb. 2, Gottemoeller will lead the U.S. Delegation at the U.S.-China Security Dialogue in Beijing. From Feb. 4 to 5, Gottemoeller will lead the U.S. Delegation to the Sixth Annual P5 Conference in London, where she will deliver remarks on behalf of the U.S. at the conference’s public event. From Feb. 6 to 8, Gottemoeller will participate in the Munich Security Conference, and on Feb. 9, Gottemoeller will meet with German counterparts at the Foreign Office to discuss international security issues.
