The Federation of American Scientists asked the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to declassify and disclose the current size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, as they have done in past years.
The number of nuclear weapons presently in the U.S. arsenal is deemed “Formerly Restricted Data” (FRD) that is classified under the Atomic Energy Act. Unlike information that is classified by executive order, there is no provision for automatic declassification of such information. Furthermore, information that is classified as FRD requires the concurrence of both the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense in order to be declassified.
But there is a provision of DOE regulations that enables anyone to request the declassification of specific FRD. And so we (once again) invoked that provision to request declassification of the stockpile size.
“We have formally sent this [request] over to the DoD for their consideration,” said Dr. Andrew Weston-Dawkes, director of the DOE Office of Classification, to whom the request was directed.
We’ve identified the key ingredients of successful moonshots that meet the moment, and developed recommendations about what future efforts can and should look like.
We sat down with biomedical research pioneer Lee Hood to talk moonshots, metascience in medicine, and the Human Phenome Initiative.
Complex systems – from ecological to political to socio-technical – rarely change the way we expect.
The NCARS Act would amend the National Security Act of 1947 to establish a durable, coordinated federal approach to national resilience.