Budget & Policy

A House of Representatives committee on Tuesday turned back the latest legislative attempt to appropriate funds for licensing the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. A bipartisan group of five lawmakers proposed to provide $15 million via an amendment to H.R. 2740, a “minibus” funding bill for the upcoming 2020 federal fiscal year […]

By John Stang Discussion on whether a state’s consent is needed for it to host a major nuclear waste repository flared up and then went unresolved at a Thursday hearing in Congress. The session of the House Energy and Commerce environment and climate change subcommittee, called to discuss three bills on radioactive waste storage and […]

The House Armed Services Committee on Thursday proposed a nearly $5.6 billion cap on defense environmental remediation spending at the Department of Energy for fiscal 2020, about $400 less than recommended by the lower chamber’s Appropriations Committee. The National Defense Authorization Act sets policy and annual spending limits for the largest funding tranche of legacy […]

William “Ike” White will begin managing the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) effective Monday. White for now is taking the title of senior adviser at EM, following the resignation of Anne Marie White about 15 months into her tenure as assistant energy secretary for environmental management. Ike White could eventually be named […]

The House Armed Services Committee this morning approved its version of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) after about 20 hours of debate. The annual defense policy bill, now headed to the House floor, authorizes about 4% less funding than sought for active nuclear weapons programs managed by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear […]

The House of Representatives on Thursday is at last clear to debate several amendments to a 2020 minibus spending bill that concern nuclear weapons operations at the Department of Energy. Debate could have started Wednesday evening, but floor action on the House Appropriations Committee’s fiscal 2020 minibus appropriations package ground to a snail’s pace as […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in April spent $939 of its remaining balance from the federal fund intended to pay for a federal repository for the nation’s nuclear waste. The spending left the agency on April 30 with a $409,861 unspent, undedicated balance from the Nuclear Waste Fund, according to the latest report to Congress. […]

The ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee is looking to increase the topline of the next defense policy bill to $750 billion, with plans to introduce an amendment for an additional $17 billion in funding when his panel meets Wednesday to consider the proposal. Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) told reporters Tuesday the chairman’s […]

The House Rules Committee on Tuesday turned back the latest legislative attempt to appropriate funds for licensing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. A bipartisan group of five lawmakers proposed to provide $15 million via an amendment to H.R. 2740, a “minibus” funding bill for fiscal 2020 encompassing several smaller measures already approved […]

Nuclear hawks and doves had varying success this week in attaching amendments to a minibus spending bill in the House of Representatives that would fund the Department of Energy in fiscal 2020. The bill was slated for debate on the House floor today. That debate begins even as the House Armed Services Committee is scheduled this morning to […]

Banning a low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead could stop “some nitwit at the Pentagon” from attempting to fight a nuclear war, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Monday. It remains unclear how far Smith is willing to go to block the low-yield warhead, dubbed the W76-2. The Smith-authored $733 billion […]

The Energy Department in today’s Federal Register formally published its reinterpretation of high-level radioactive waste. As announced last week and months ago, DOE interprets that the existing HLW definition means that not all wastes from spent fuel reprocessing are highly-radioactive. Some material on the less radioactive end of the traditional high-level spectrum could conceivably be […]

The House Armed Services Committee fell in line with their counterparts on the Appropriations Committee on Monday, proposing to authorize a 2020 defense-nuclear budget that nixes the Donald Trump administration’s proposal to cut legacy weapons cleanup to fund looming nuclear-weapon programs. The proposal is part of the Committee’s 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which […]

Language in a fiscal 2020 spending package passed by the full House Appropriations Committee May 21 says the Energy Department should comply with prior consent decrees when it comes to remediation its portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) in California. A provision of the report accompanying the Energy and Water Development appropriations bill […]

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee along with state Attorney General Bob Ferguson voiced their opposition Thursday to the Energy Department’s decision to reinterpret the definition of high-level radioactive waste at the Hanford Site and elsewhere in the weapons complex. Washington currently holds 60% of the nation’s high-level waste with 56 million gallons stored in 177 underground […]

The House Armed Services Committee will vote on the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) even as the full House considers a multi-bill appropriations package, or minibus, that contains the Department of Energy’s spending bill for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The minibus provides almost $7.2 billion to the DOE Office of Environmental […]

Despite another burst of activity in Congress, it could be years or even decades more before the United States settles on a final strategy for disposal of its growing stockpile of nuclear waste, according to issue watchers. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are in 2019 again debating whether to restart the frozen licensing for the planned […]

A multi-bill appropriations package that includes fiscal year 2020 funding for interim spent nuclear-fuel storage — but not a permanent repository such as Yucca Mountain — is headed to the House floor on Wednesday. The package, or minibus, includes many spending bills for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1; it was not clear at […]

The Department of Energy authorized two transfers of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after that nation allegedly authorized the murder of U.S. resident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Tuesday. Beginning in 2017, the Department of Energy granted seven companies Part 810 authorizations — named for the section of the […]

Democrats on the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee on Tuesday used their majority on the panel to kill a GOP amendment that would have kept the Department of Energy’s plan to produce plutonium pits in South Carolina off the chopping block. Subcommittee Democrats, led by Rep. James Cooper (Tenn.), quashed the amendment from Rep. […]

Two of the most important bills of the year for the National Nuclear Security Administration are slated for consideration on Wednesday, when the full House and a key committee will take up proposals to fund and authorize critical nuclear security programs for fiscal year 2020. The House Armed Services Committee will vote on the 2020 […]

Eight Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate on Wednesday urged President Donald Trump in a letter to extend the New START arms control treaty that limits the U.S. and Russia to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads. New START went into effect in 2011. The Barack Obama administration proposed the treaty, which the then-Democrat-controlled Senate ratified with […]

Eight Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate on Wednesday urged President Donald Trump in a letter to extend the New START arms control treaty that limits the U.S. and Russia to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads. New START went into effect in 2011. The Barack Obama administration proposed the treaty, which the then-Democrat-controlled Senate […]

Democrats on the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee on Tuesday used their majority to kill a GOP amendment that would have kept the Department of Energy’s plan to produce plutonium pits in South Carolina off the chopping block. Subcommittee Democrats, led by Rep. James Cooper (R-Tenn.), quashed the amendment from Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) […]

Language in a fiscal 2020 spending package passed by the full House Appropriations Committee May 21 says the Energy Department should comply with prior consent decrees when it comes to remediation its portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) in California. A provision of the report accompanying the Energy and Water Development appropriations bill […]

The Department of Energy would no longer have to make 80 plutonium pits a year by the end of the next decade, if legislation unveiled Monday in the Democrat-controlled House becomes law. The legislation, due for a vote Tuesday by House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee “would repeal the requirement for the Secretary of Energy […]

Don’t expect another Senate-confirmed nominee during President Donald Trump’s current term to succeed Anne Marie White at the helm of the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management. That was the assessment offered Monday by several observers of the DOE weapons complex. The chances of the White House finding a qualified and willing candidate – and […]

Community reuse organizations designed to promote economic development at Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup sites got good news last month when the House Appropriations Committee voted to affirm their authority to receive and resell old equipment the federal agency no longer needs. The committee-approved $7.2 billion fiscal budget for the Office of Environmental Management makes it […]

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) plans in September to release a report on the Energy Department’s payment in lieu of taxes (PILT) to communities surrounding its national laboratories and nuclear cleanup sites. The report will analyze how PILT payments are calculated across sites and how have they varied over time, according to the GAO. […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) program to keep nuclear and radiological materials out of the hands of bad actors would be funded at or above the requested level for the fifth year in a row, if a fiscal 2020 spending bill the House Appropriations Committee passed last week becomes law. The spike in funding, […]