Budget & Policy

Rita Baranwal, who made headlines in her Department of Energy tenure as a voice for the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, resigned last Friday as President Donald Trump’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy. Baranwal announced the decision on the official twitter account for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, which by Monday she no longer controlled. […]

Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall is officially headed to the National Security Council, ending for now any prospects of a return to the Department of Energy, where the nonproliferation and weapons-of-mass-destruction policy hand was second-in-command during the Obama administration. The Biden transition team officially announced the move Wednesday, which media had reported earlier. Sherwood-Randall will be homeland security […]

The incoming Biden administration should designate a senior official reporting to the White House to negotiate both long-term and interim radioactive waste storage with Congress, said David Klaus in an op-ed published Tuesday by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “A senior negotiator representing the administration would provide focus, leadership, and momentum for legislative action […]

William Bookless will resign as acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration on inauguration day, Jan. 20, setting up career civil servant David Huizenga to shepherd the nuclear-weapons agency through the early days of the Joe Biden administration. Bookless announced his impending departure Monday in an all-hands memo to National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) […]

Jamie Shimek will remain clerk of the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, providing a modicum of stability for Washington nuke watchers scrambling to update their contacts list ahead of the transition to the Joe Biden administration. Shimek joined the committee that writes each year’s first draft of the Department of Energy annual budget bill […]

With the Donald Trump administration coming to an end in a little over a week, longtime cleanup hand Todd Shrader is expected to take over as acting head of the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management office until President-electric Joe Biden has his own people in place. An industry source on Monday said to […]

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), whose district includes the Oak Ridge Site, has tested positive for COVID-19. Meanwhile, there are a batch of new cases at the Department of Energy headquarters in Washington, D.C. Fleischmann announced in a Sunday press release that he has tested positive for the coronavirus. “Today, I learned that I have tested […]

Office of Nuclear Energy Chief Baranwal Leaves DOE Ahead of Inauguration Rita Baranwal, who made headlines in her Department of Energy tenure as a voice for the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, resigned Friday as President Donald Trump’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy. Baranwal announced the decision on the official twitter account for DOE’s Office […]

Time appears to have run out on the nomination of Matthew Moury to be a member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. As of Jan. 3, the nomination to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) was officially returned by the Senate to President Donald Trump after the nomination never advanced to the full […]

On Thursday, a day after violent supporters of President Donald Trump broke into the United States Capitol, Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette called for condemnation of politically motivated violence, urged civil discourse in politics, supported a peaceful transition to the administration of President-elect Joe Biden and promised to stay on as energy secretary until inauguration […]

Kristine Svinicki will retire from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Jan. 21, more than a year before her five-year term is up, after serving under three presidents and leading the nuclear-power-plant regulator as chair since 2017. Svinicki, first nominated to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2007 by then-President George W. Bush, has been commissioner since […]

A bill to stop rate increases for customers of two financially ailing nuclear power plants in Ohio died after the state legislature failed to act on the emergency legislation before the holidays and it’s unclear if the measure will be revived in the 2021 session of the Ohio General Assembly that begins today. In the […]

By John Stang The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio greenlighted the latest in a series of third-party audits of Firs Energy Corp.’s finances. A request for proposals for an independent  auditor will go out soon, according to a PUCO order filed on Dec. 30.  “Today the Commission is ordering additional audits of FirstEnergy charges. This […]

While a Biden presidency may well keep Yucca Mountain on ice, there might be some hope of the administration pushing for a solution to long-term waste storage, if nuclear power figures into the united Democratic government’s clean-energy push.  Biden and his energy-secretary-to-be, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) will determine whether nuclear survives the cut […]

On Thursday, a day after violent supporters of President Donald Trump broke into the United States Capitol, Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette called for condemnation of politically motivated violence, urged civil discourse in politics, supported a peaceful transition to the administration of President-elect Joe Biden and promised to stay on as energy secretary until inauguration […]

As part of the omnibus spending package signed Dec. 27 by President Donald Trump, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management will receive almost $7.6 billion for fiscal 2021, which is $131 million above its funding level for the 2020 budget year that ended Sept. 30, 2020. It is also about 22% more than […]

Time appears to have run out on the nomination of Matthew Moury to be a member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. As of Jan. 3, the nomination to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) was officially returned by the Senate to President Donald Trump after the nomination never advanced to the full […]

Maggie Oliver will not run for Congress next year to represent the district that includes the Sandia National Laboratory, the New Mexico’s secretary of state tweeted before the holidays.  Oliver, a Democrat in Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s (D) administration, was seen as a possible candidate to replace Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) who is leaving Congress […]

In the omnibus spending bill signed this week, Congress appropriated $30 million for the National Nuclear Security Administration to continue cleaning up a downtown Seattle building that has been vacant for more than a year after an agency contractor botched the removal of a cesium-137 blood irradiator from the premises and contaminated the facility. Together […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration got its big requested budget increase under the omnibus spending bill signed into law just before New Year’s, jumpstarting key nuclear-weapons programs even as the incoming Joe Biden administration squares up the ongoing U.S. modernization regimen for possible cuts. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will get $19.7 billion, which […]

Like other federal agencies, the Department of Energy may continue to reimburse contractors for paid leave related to COVID-19 through March 31, under the combination omnibus budget bill and coronavirus relief package signed into law last week. The paid-leave reimbursement became law this summer in section 3610 of the CARES act, an early COVID-19 stimulus […]

Time appears to have run out on the nomination of Matthew Moury to be a member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. As of Jan. 3, the nomination to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) was officially returned by the Senate to President Donald Trump after the nomination never advanced to the full […]

Lowering the hazard classification of some defense-nuclear waste could save the Department of Energy more than $200 billion in disposal costs, the agency told Congress in a report three years in the making. Most of the potential savings, between roughly $70 billion and $200 billion, would come from reclassifying low-activity waste at the Hanford West […]

Kristine Svinicki will retire from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Jan. 21, more than a year before her five-year term is up, after serving under three presidents and leading the nuclear-power-plant regulator as chair since 2017. Svinicki, first nominated to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2007 by then-President George W. Bush, has been commissioner since […]

Maggie Oliver will not run for Congress next year to represent the district that includes the Sandia National Laboratory, the New Mexico’s secretary of state tweeted before the holidays.  Oliver, a Democrat in Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s (D) administration, was seen as a possible candidate to replace Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) who is leaving Congress […]

A bill to stop rate increases for customers of two financially ailing nuclear power plants in Ohio died after the state legislature failed to act on the emergency legislation before the holidays and it’s unclear if the measure will be revived in the 2021 session of the Ohio General Assembly that begins today. In the […]

In the omnibus spending bill signed this week, Congress appropriated $30 million for the National Nuclear Security Administration to continue cleaning up a downtown Seattle building that has been vacant for more than a year after an agency contractor botched the removal of a cesium-137 blood irradiator from the premises and contaminated the facility. Together […]

Like other federal agencies, the Department of Energy may continue to reimburse contractors for paid leave related to COVID-19 through March 31, under the combination omnibus budget bill and coronavirus relief package signed into law this week. The paid-leave reimbursement became law this summer in section 3610 of the CARES act, an early COVID-19 stimulus […]

On Sunday, nearly a week after Congress passed it, President Donald Trump at last signed a permanent 2021 spending bill that locks in raises for the Department of Energy’s major nuclear waste and weapons programs. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) would receive over $7.5 billion for the rest of 2021, some $130 million over […]

House Armed Services chair Adam Smith (D-Wash.) again railed against the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plan to turn Savannah River into a plutonium pit factory, saying the “idiotic” and “dangerous,” plan might leave the U.S. without the means to modernize its nuclear weapons on time and on budget. “I am highly skeptical of the level […]