Budget & Policy

Senate Democrats — led by a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Democratic presidential candidate — are calling on committee leaders to adopt several House-passed measures that would ban low-yield missiles deployment and extend the New START Treaty during future conference sessions over the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. Sen. Elizabeth Warren […]

Claire Chase, government affairs director for a New Mexico oil and gas company, intends to seek the Republican nomination to represent the congressional district that covers the U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad. If successful in a GOP primary for New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District, Chase would challenge Rep. Xochitl Torres […]

An article in the Aug. 22 Weapons Complex Morning Briefing provided incorrect shifts for plutonium downblending operations at the Savannah River Site. Current operations cover one 12-hour shift per day, seven days a week. A scale-up that could come in fiscal 2020 would cover two 12-hour shifts per day, seven days a week. An article […]

A group of six scientists and nuclear waste experts on Monday renewed their call for Congress to fund the frozen federal licensing of the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada. Advancing the licensing is both required by law and necessary to avoid extending the “financial liabilities” and potential environmental threats of keeping tens of thousands of […]

Senate Democrats — led by a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and Democratic presidential candidate — are calling on committee leaders to adopt several House-passed measures that would ban low-yield missiles deployment and extend the new START Treaty during future conference sessions over the fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). […]

Requiring comprehensive consent to build a nuclear waste disposal site is “an excuse to do nothing,” according to a leader in the Nevada county that would be home to the long-delayed repository under Yucca Mountain. “To believe that any controversial project in the 21st century will get consent from every level of government – state, […]

The story “Power Outage at Nevada Site Knocks JASPER Support Offline for Two Weeks” (Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, July 30, 2019) should have said that the Joint Actinide Shock Physics Experimental Research (JASPER) facility at the Nevada National Security Site simulates some of the effects of a nuclear detonation by propelling a non-nuclear target down […]

President Donald Trump on on Aug. 2 signed H.R. 3877, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019, into law after the bill passed the House July 25 and the Senate Aug. 1. The legislation suspends the debt limit through July 31, 2021, and sets defense spending toplines at $738 billion for fiscal 2020 and $741.5 billion […]

U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) joined three of his House colleagues on a trip to Yucca Mountain last week to argue his case against building a nuclear waste repository on the federal property in his state. “I visited Yucca Mountain today to ensure the information shared by the Department of Energy was as accurate as […]

Separate bills introduced in the House of Representatives would put the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) branch on the job of helping resolve the long impasse over disposition of the nation’s radioactive waste. Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) submitted his “ARPA-E Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2019” on July 23, followed a week […]

President Donald Trump has signed H.R. 3877, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019, into law after the bill passed the House July 25 and the Senate Aug. 1. The legislation, signed late last week after deadline for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, suspends the debt limit through July 31, 2021, and sets defense spending toplines at […]

Separate bills introduced in the House of Representatives would put the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) branch on the job of helping resolve the long impasse over disposition of the nation’s radioactive waste. Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) submitted his “ARPA-E Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2019” on July 23, followed a week […]

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will be published on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the ExchangeMonitor’s publishing recess in the second and third full weeks of August. The regular daily publishing schedule will resume on Monday, Aug. 26.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in June continued to spend next to nothing from its remaining balance from the federal fund intended to pay for a nuclear waste disposal facility. The agency spent only $479 from the Nuclear Waste Fund for unspecified “program planning and support,” according to its latest monthly report to Congress. “While […]

President Donald Trump on Friday signed H.R. 3877, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019, into law after the bill passed the House July 25 and the Senate Aug. 1. The legislation suspends the debt limit through July 31, 2021, and sets defense spending toplines at $738 billion for fiscal 2020 and $741.5 billion in fiscal 2021. […]

U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) joined three of his House colleagues on a trip to Yucca Mountain last week to argue his case against building a nuclear waste repository on the federal property in his state. “I visited Yucca Mountain today to ensure the information shared by the Department of Energy was as accurate as […]

Debating nine of her rivals for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president on Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) made her case again for a U.S. policy against first use of nuclear weapons. “The United States is not going to use nuclear weapons preemptively, and we need to say so to the entire world. It reduces […]

The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed a budget caps deal that officially set defense funding toplines for the next two years, essentially doing away with future budget cuts via sequestration. H.R. 3877 sets the defense spending topline at $738 billion in fiscal 2020 and at $741.5 billion in fiscal 2021. The 2020 level is significantly […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday approved Gen. John Hyten to become vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, following a hearing in which the Air Force four-star and current commander of U.S. nuclear forces fielded questions about his alleged sexual assault of a subordinate officer. The committee voted 20-7 to report the […]

The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed a budget caps deal that officially set defense funding toplines for the next two years, essentially doing away with future budget cuts via sequestration. H.R. 3877 sets the defense spending topline at $738 billion in fiscal 2020 and at $741.5 billion in fiscal 2021. The 2020 level is significantly […]

Longtime Department of Energy manager Ed McGinnis has left the agency’s Office of Nuclear Energy to take a position at the White House, a source said Monday. McGinnis had served as principal deputy assistant secretary for nuclear energy from May 2017, leading the office until Rita Baranwal was sworn in as assistant secretary for nuclear […]

The White House is expected to submit two nominations in tandem for positions on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an informed source said this week. Senate Appropriations Committee staffer Christopher Hanson would be nominated to succeed Stephen Burns, who retired from the commission in April ahead of the end of his term on June 30. […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) said Wednesday that it had voted to favorably report Air Force Gen. John Hyten’s nomination to become the next vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The committee voted 20-7 to report the U.S. Strategic Command commander’s nomination to the Senate for a floor vote. That followed a […]

An article in Wednesday’s edition of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing should have said Comprehensive Decommissioning International’s contract for decomissioning the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Debating nine of her rivals for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president on Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) made her case again for a U.S. policy against first use of nuclear weapons. “The United States is not going to use nuclear weapons preemptively, and we need to say so to the entire world. It reduces […]

The Senate’s top nuclear-weapon authorizer pumped Air Force Gen. John Hyten during a Tuesday confirmation hearing for ammunition to use in upcoming budget negotiations with House Democrats over spending levels for the ongoing modernization and maintenance of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. President Donald Trump in April nominated Hyten, commander of U.S. Strategic Command since 2016, […]

Senate leadership is eager to bring the House-passed Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 to the floor this week before members leave for recess Aug. 2. But with multiple GOP members still reportedly undecided and eight Democrats out of town this week for presidential debates, it is still unclear whether the votes are there to pass […]

The White House is expected to submit two nominations in tandem for positions on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an informed source said this week. Senate Appropriations Committee staffer Christopher Hanson would be nominated to succeed Stephen Burns, who retired from the commission in April ahead of the end of his term on June 30. […]

Longtime Department of Energy manager Ed McGinnis has left the agency’s Office of Nuclear Energy to take a position at the White House, a source said Monday. McGinnis served as principal deputy assistant secretary for nuclear energy from May 2017, effectively leading the office until Rita Baranwal was sworn in as assistant secretary for nuclear […]

The Energy Communities Alliance says the U.S. Energy Department’s reinterpretation of the definition for high-level radioactive waste (HLW) could expedite disposal of such material now held at four nuclear cleanup sites. The ECA said it “can reasonably interpret that the waste streams to which this interpretation may apply” are the canisters of waste that have […]