
William Bookless, nominated to be second-in-command at the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), defended the agency’s plan to build two nuclear-warhead-core factories in the face of a double-edged inquisition from a pair of Senate Democrats last Thursday.Facing pressure from a third Democratic lawmaker during his confirmation hearing, the physicist and longtime Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory staffer also indicated he could support renewing the primary U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control treaty.Despite the hard-edged questioning, no member of the Senate Armed Services Committee…