Budget & Policy

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Thursday it is considering a request from New Mexico’s congressional delegation for more time to submit comments on a key document in licensing a planned spent nuclear fuel storage facility in the state. The NRC, like agencies at all levels of government, is wrestling with managing its regular operations while […]

The Senate voted 96-0 Wednesday night to approve a $2 trillion relief package to battle the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout. The House of Representatives will vote Friday on the measure, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) President Donald Trump is expected to sign the measure soon afterward. This would mark Congress’ third legislative […]

Negotiators agreed to language on a $2 trillion economic stimulus bill to help the nation combat the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, CNN and other national news outlets reported. The specific language of the bill had not been released at deadline for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. At press time it […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday it expects shortly to decide on a request from New Mexico’s congressional delegation for more time to submit comments on a key document for a planned spent nuclear fuel storage facility in the state. “An announcement should come soon,” agency spokesman David McIntyre said by email. In a draft […]

The Energy Department on Monday reported the first case of COVID-19 among the workforce at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, which is now being downshifted to “minimum mission-critical activities.” Management at SRS management learned of the positive test Monday morning, according to a DOE press release. “During this period, activities that support our […]

As part of a much larger spending request, the White House has requested $28 million in emergency 2020 funding to help the Department of Energy telework during the COVID-19 pandemic. The DOE share will pay “for additional information technology requirements and telework support, also including increased cybersecurity costs, in response to coronavirus,” according to a […]

By Richard Abott Defense Daily A bipartisan group of over 100 lawmakers pushed House appropriators in a letter to fund a second Virginia-class submarine in the fiscal 2021 defense budget bill. Led by the chairman and ranking member of the House Armed Services seapower subcommittee, Reps. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) and Rob Wittman (R-Va.), the letter […]

President Donald Trump will nominate a familiar face, Joyce Connery, to serve a new term on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), the White House said Tuesday morning. If confirmed by the Senate, Connery would serve a term expiring Oct. 18, 2025, according to the intent to nominate announcement. Initially nominated by President Barack […]

President Donald Trump will nominate a familiar face, Joyce Connery, to serve a new term on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), the White House said Tuesday morning. If confirmed by the Senate, Connery would serve a term expiring Oct. 18, 2025, according to the intent to nominate announcement. Initially nominated by President Barack […]

As part of a much larger spending request, the White House has requested $28 million in emergency 2020 funding to help the Department of Energy telework during the COVID-19 pandemic. The DOE share will pay “for additional information technology requirements and telework support, also including increased cybersecurity costs, in response to coronavirus,” according to a […]

President Donald Trump will nominate a familiar face, Joyce Connery, to serve a new term on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), the White House said Tuesday morning. If confirmed by the Senate, Connery would serve a term expiring Oct. 18, 2025, according to the intent to nominate announcement. Initially nominated by President Barack […]

The head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) should serve a fixed term, a National Academies panel said this week in an interim report on a four-and-a-half-year study into nuclear security governance. The National Academies panel did not say how long the NNSA administrator should serve. However, the group did cite the findings of a […]

House appropriators told the head of the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office on Wednesday that the budget cut proposed for fiscal 2021 will not stand, especially not at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The script is familiar by now, written at the beginning of the Donald Trump administration’s first term and played out already […]

By John Stang Incumbent David Wright and newcomer Christopher Hanson sailed through a Senate committee hearing Wednesday on their way toward confirmation as members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In a nomination hearing, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee quizzed Hanson, Wright, and Douglas Benevento, the Trump administration’s candidate for deputy administrator at the Environmental […]

House appropriators got their first crack at acting Environmental Management head Ike White on Wednesday, when they promised the interim cleanup manager that proposed cuts to legacy nuclear waste cleanup will not stand — especially not at the Hanford Site. The script is familiar by now, written at the beginning of the Donald Trump administration’s […]

Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) latest legislative push to establish a pilot program for interim storage of radioactive waste got stuck in Senate gridlock this week when the big, bi-partisan energy bill stalled out amid a fight about climate change. Feinstein’s proposal was one of many amendments being balled up into a legislative package known as […]

An Idaho congressman on Tuesday said he believes Congress again will choose to keep a nuclear cleanup program with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, instead of allowing it to be transferred to the Department of Energy. The program is the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), which manages remediation of properties contaminated from […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in January spent just $219 of its remaining balance from the Nuclear Waste Fund. That left the agency with a balance of $430,978 from the fund intended to pay for a national repository for high-level waste from defense nuclear operations and spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants. “While there are […]

California Assemblywoman Christy Smith, a Democrat, and Republican Mike Garcia, a former Navy fighter pilot, are expected to face each other in a May 12 runoff to decide who will represent California’s 25th Congressional District until January 2021. Smith and Garcia were the top two vote-getters Tuesday in a crowded primary field to fill the […]

An Energy Department working group is still grappling with recommended changes on management of the payments in lieu of taxes (PILT) program for communities around nuclear facilities, Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said Feb. 27. During a hearing of the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, the secretary promised to personally brief Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) […]

Age, like the budget, is sometimes just a number, as Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) hopes to prove in a sixth Senate term, candidacy for which the pro-nuclear Armed Services chair announced this week in an ad that appeared to feature him flying upside down in an airplane. Inhofe famously has said he will stop running […]

WASHINGTON — At Congress’ direction, the Department of Energy is revising a controversial order that curtailed the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s (DNFSB) access to nuclear sites and personnel, Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette said Thursday. “We’re in the process of revising the order and I will be meeting with the DNFSB and we’ll have […]

Two of the Senate’s reliable nuclear skeptics last week asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the budget increase the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is seeking for the 2021 fiscal year. Among other things, the GAO should determine why the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency’s Weapons Activities budget needs a much greater increase […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is selling its own version of a funding skirmish within the Department of Energy that ended in January with President  Donald Trump approving a much larger raise for the civilian nuclear-weapons agency than expected — and they’re getting buy-in on Capitol Hill. The NNSA’s $19.8 billion budget request for […]

WASHINGTON — In the second week of 2021 budget hearings on Capitol Hill, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) eye-popping $20-billion request bled into a hearing about another agency and tractor-beamed appropriations leaders into subcommittees they sometimes ignore, lending credence to one lawmaker’s prediction that nuclear modernization will be “the most contentious issue” of Congress’ […]

WASHINGTON — At Congress’ direction, the Department of Energy is revising a controversial order that curtailed the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s (DNFSB) access to nuclear sites and personnel, Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette said Thursday. “We’re in the process of revising the order and I will be meeting with the DNFSB and we’ll have […]

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on Thursday chastised Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette for the deep budget cuts in fiscal 2021 proposed by the White House for the Hanford Site in Washington state. The former plutonium-producing site, considered the nation’s most complex nuclear cleanup, would see its total spending slashed from $2.6 billion enacted by Congress in […]

Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette said Wednesday he is ready to work with two key Senate appropriators to establish a pilot program for temporary storage of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants. Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) noted he and panel Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) have proposed the […]

The Air Force will not be affected in fiscal 2021 if Congress approves the White House’s plan to short the Pentagon budget by $2.5 billion to increase spending at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) by 25%, the service’s chief of staff said Wednesday. “The $2.5 [billion] didn’t have an impact on the Air Force, ” […]

California Assemblywoman Christy Smith, a Democrat, and Republican Mike Garcia, a former Navy fighter pilot, are expected to face each other in a May 12 runoff to decide who will represent California’s 25th congressional district until January 2021. A couple of hours after the polls closed in California, they are the top two vote-getters in […]