Budget & Policy

The House of Representatives started floor consideration Tuesday of a 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, which would allow the Department of Energy to create a new low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead by modifying some existing weapons. Floor debate, scheduled through Thursday, began a few hours after the House Rules Committee approved the rules of debate for […]

WASHINGTON —The National Nuclear Security Administration would receive not quite $15 billion if a Department of Energy budget bill approved Tuesday by a Senate Appropriations subcommittee becomes law. The bulk of the money — $10.9 billion — would fund nuclear-weapon operations at the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency, with the rest split almost evenly between […]

The Senate Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee is again trying to jump-start a pilot program for consolidated, temporary storage of spent fuel stranded at U.S. nuclear reactors. The panel spent less than an hour Tuesday on the markup and approval of its $43.8 billion funding measure for fiscal 2019, covering the Department of Energy, […]

Chris Roscetti will become technical director for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) on June 23, the independent federal health-and-safety watchdog for Department of Energy nuclear programs announced Friday. Roscetti, a naval submarine veteran, previously served as the board’s associate technical director for nuclear programs and analysis, and has also served as DNFSB deputy […]

The decades-long failure to establish a route for permanent disposal of U.S. spent nuclear reactor fuel could undermine industry efforts to expand nuclear power around the nation, the Congressional Research Service said in a recent report. A number of nuclear power plants have shut down in recent years, or announced their near-term closure, in the […]

The full House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on its version of the fiscal 2019 National Defense Appropriations Act (NDAA) this week. The Senate Armed Services subcommittees and full panel, meanwhile, will mark up their version of the annual military policy bill, which authorizes work and sets spending limits for Department of Energy nuclear-weapon programs. […]

Marc Selinger  Defense Daily The U.S. Air Force may ask Congress to move around previously approved funds for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) because the program is running ahead of schedule, according to service officials. GBSD “is on schedule. In fact, it’s actually a little ahead of schedule and we may be coming to […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would get the $65 million it seeks in fiscal 2019 for a low-yield nuclear warhead, but nothing for a new warhead-core factory in South Carolina, under a budget bill approved this week by the House Appropriations Committee. The bill, voted to the floor Wednesday 29-20 along party lines, also […]

The House Rules Committee will craft the rules of debate for the chamber’s fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act beginning Monday, and already members have proposed several amendments related to Department of Energy nuclear programs. One proposed amendment, from Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), would entirely strip out $65 million the House Armed Services Committee authorized […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration said Wednesday it is gearing up to provide another $40 million in cooperative agreements supporting commercial programs to develop production capabilities for the medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99). That would be on top of $100 million pledged in recent years to four projects led by three companies: NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, […]

The Department of Energy would receive about $53 million less than requested for liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in fiscal 2019 under legislation advanced Wednesday by the House Appropriations Committee. All told, the DOE facility in South Carolina would receive $1.38 billion under the energy and water funding bill for the budget […]

By John Stang Nine states and the District of Columbia have formally called on Energy Secretary Rick Perry not to use the Federal Power Act to bail out FirstEnergy Solutions’ ailing nuclear and coal power plants. A few days later, Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) joined their opposition. Just before declaring bankruptcy in late March, Akron, […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration said Wednesday it is gearing up to provide another $40 million in cooperative agreements supporting commercial programs to develop production capabilities for the medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99). That would be on top of $100 million pledged in recent years to four projects led by three companies: NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, […]

The House Appropriations Committee again teed up an inter-chamber debate about the future of U.S. nuclear waste disposal this week when it voted along party lines to give the White House $100 million more than it sought in fiscal year 2019 for Yucca Mountain. In a Wednesday markup, the committee also shot down an amendment, […]

The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday rejected an amendment to its fiscal 2019 energy and water bill that would have siphoned away certain increased funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and Energy Department environmental cleanup programs. During the committee markup of the bill, Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) proposed the amendment to help restore […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would get the $65 million it seeks in fiscal 2019 for a low-yield nuclear warhead, but nothing for a new warhead-core factory in South Carolina, under a budget bill approved Wednesday by the House Appropriations Committee. Overall, the NNSA would receive more than $15 billion for 2019: 4.5 percent more […]

The proposed House of Representatives’ fiscal 2019 spending plan for Hanford Site would provide more money than the Department of Energy requested but would not match current spending levels, according to information from the staff of Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.). On Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee sent its marked-up energy bill to the full House. […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration said Wednesday it is gearing up to provide another $40 million in cooperative agreements for production projects for the medical isotope molybdenum-99. That would be on top of $100 million pledged in recent years to four projects led by three companies: NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, SHINE Medical Technologies, and General […]

The House Appropriations Committee is recommending $6.9 billion in fiscal 2019 for the nuclear cleanup program overseen by the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management (EM). That would be $257 million less than the fiscal 2018 appropriation but $268 million more than the Trump administration’s request for the budget year beginning Oct. 1. Ahead of […]

A draft 2019 budget bill up for a vote in the House today would steer the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) away from creating a nuclear warhead that could fly on both Navy and Air Force missiles, and jump-start construction of a new warhead-core factory at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. That […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would get a sizable budget boost in fiscal 2019, almost entirely from funding for its review of the license application for the Yucca Mountain radioactive waste repository in Nevada, under the House Appropriations energy and water bill to be marked up today. The nuclear industry regulator asked for $958.1 million for […]

Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) has joined the opposition to FirstEnergy Solutions’ request for emergency assistance from the Department of Energy to sustain the company’s nuclear and coal-fired power plants. “I urge you to follow the law and respect the Federal Power Act, and not attempt to proceed with misusing obscure provisions of law to issue […]

Days after the full House of Representatives mustered a massively bipartisan vote to approve a major Yucca Mountain policy bill, the chamber’s Appropriations Committee will consider a measure that “fully supports” funding the proposed permanent nuclear-waste repository in Nevada. Under the bill to be marked up at 10 a.m. Eastern time today, the Department of […]

It will cost about $20 billion to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-grade plutonium by burying it in the New Mexico desert, compared with almost $50 billion to convert the material into commercial reactor fuel using an unfinished facility in South Carolina, Energy Secretary Rick Perry told Congress on Thursday. The preliminary life-cycle […]

Nine states and the District of Columbia have formally called on Energy Secretary Rick Perry not to use the Federal Power Act to bail out FirstEnergy Solutions’ ailing nuclear and coal power plants. Just before declaring bankruptcy in late March, Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy Solutions said it would by October 2021 halt power production at three […]

After a marathon of amendments and votes that began Tuesday morning and ended Wednesday morning, the House Armed Services Committee defeated a doomed-to-fail Democratic attempt to prevent the National Nuclear Security Administration from starting work on a new low-yield nuclear warhead in fiscal year 2019. Ranking member Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), who called the low-yield […]

Department of Energy veteran Theodore Garrish has become the agency’s acting general counsel — a position he has held before. Garrish, whose name appeared without announcement in the general counsel spot on a Department of Energy organization chart, was already the agency’s assistant secretary for international affairs. The Senate confirmed him for the post in April. It was not […]

The House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee approved a roughly $36-billion Department of Energy budget bill Monday, which heads to the full committee for a markup Wednesday, May 16. The Department of Energy (DOE) would receive a 5-percent budget raise over all from 2018, if the bill the House Appropriations energy and water development […]

The man who would lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons branch, better than a $10-billion-a-year portfolio that includes the some of nation’s most sensitive and secret defense work, drew barely any attention Thursday in a Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing. The exception was Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), who warned Charles Verdon that if […]

The House’s version of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act would require the Department of Energy’s Environmental Management office to notify Congress within two days if more workers are contaminated by radioactive material at the Hanford site in Washington state. The bill also would require the Environmental Management (EM) office to provide a report to […]