Budget & Policy

The fiscal 2018 omnibus budget bill signed by President Donald Trump on Friday would provide $7.1 billion for Department of Energy’s environmental management activities, $706 million above the $6.4 billion fiscal 2017 enacted level. That amounts to roughly an 11-percent increase on a year-over-year basis. Congress by early Friday approved the $1.3 trillion budget that […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry and the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) both assured Congress this week that the two new low-yield warheads called for in the Donald Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review can fit in projected agency budgets. Perry and NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty faced the same question Thursday on separate sides […]

The fiscal 2018 omnibus spending legislation approved by Congress by Friday morning includes $2.42 billion for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, not including security spending. The bill provides $203 million more for the Washington state cleanup site than requested by the Donald Trump administration for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1., and would […]

The U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed Anne Marie White to become assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, after Energy Secretary Rick Perry agreed to suspend the agency’s uranium barter program. The commitment by Perry, offered publicly during a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, evidently helped persuade Sen. John Barrasso […]

The fiscal 2018 omnibus spending bill that passed Congress this week provided no funding for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, but it also did not incorporate language from a Senate appropriations package that some in industry dubbed a “Yucca-mountain position pull.” The House of Representatives passed the $1.3 trillion spending measure Thursday, […]

The U.S. Energy Department is unprepared to build the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, and presumptuous for requesting funding for the project, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) told Energy Secretary Rick Perry in a congressional hearing this week. Perry took a blast from the dais while testifying Tuesday on his agency’s fiscal 2019 budget plan before the […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s proposed fiscal 2019 budget provides enough funding for staff to review two applications to build facilities for interim storage of spent nuclear fuel, commission members assured a U.S. Senate committee Wednesday. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) raised the question during the panel’s oversight hearing on the […]

With budget caps lifted, all major Department of Energy nuclear programs would see substantial year-over-year funding increases for fiscal 2018, if an omnibus spending package unveiled late last night is signed into law. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would take home the biggest increase for the current budget year, which began on Oct. 1. […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry told a Senate panel Tuesday he would like to end his agency’s uranium barter program, possibly as soon as fiscal 2019. Testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on DOE’s $30.6 billion budget request for fiscal 2019, Perry said trading excess government uranium is a bad policy and should […]

Anne Marie White could be confirmed this week as assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, and in the meantime has already started working as an adviser at the Energy Department, a DOE official said Monday. “She has reported to DOE” in a senior advisory role, according to Jim Colgary, chief of staff to Deputy […]

The three sitting members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission are scheduled to make two appearances on Capitol Hill this week to testify on the agency’s fiscal 2019 budget and other matters. NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki and Commissioners Jeff Baran and Stephen Burns are due to appear this morning at a joint hearing of the […]

U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) on Monday offered an optimistic outlook on the future of the planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. “Whether it’s been in the courts or Congress, we are winning the battle on Yucca, but we’re not there yet,” Fleischmann said in a prerecorded video message to attendees of […]

Congress was expected to vote on a final fiscal 2018 budget this week, but the text of the legislation — including spending details for Department of Energy nuclear programs — still were not available late Monday. The Department of Energy (DOE), like all federal agencies except the Pentagon, will run out of money after midnight […]

An article in the March 15 issue of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing should have reported Tom Fletcher had been named new federal project director and assistant manager for the Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), are due to testify in Congress this week in separate budget hearings. It will be the second public trip to Capitol Hill in as many weeks for both officials. Gordon-Hagerty will be first to face lawmakers this week. The new NNSA […]

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Thursday expressed his opposition to continuing sales of excess government uranium to help finance cleanup of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio, an issue that is holding up confirmation of Anne Marie White to head the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. The topic came up in the […]

WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy’s final budget for the 2018 fiscal year that began last October might be published Monday, the agency’s top House appropriator told reporters Thursday. After a hearing on the 2019 budget with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said congressional leaders “hope to put it [the bill] online” […]

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Kristine Svinicki on Tuesday touted the benefits of full membership in the five-person panel, without directly mentioning the U.S. Senate’s extended inaction on nominees waiting to fill two vacancies. Svinicki noted that the commission has been at three members “for some period of time” – specifically since William Ostendorff stepped […]

WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy’s final budget for the 2018 fiscal year that began last October might be published Monday, the agency’s top House appropriator told reporters Thursday. After a hearing on the 2019 budget with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said congressional leaders “hope to put it [the bill] online” […]

The new head of the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, in office less than a month, should direct the agency to produce an overarching plan for the future of “the entire nuclear security enterprise,” a National Academies panel said in a report published Tuesday. “In response to the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review and […]

The U.S. Senate will continue to reject the Department of Energy’s requests for funding to resume work on the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) told Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Wednesday. In a tense exchange during a Senate commerce committee hearing on national infrastructure, Heller asked Perry to […]

WASHINGTON — The head House appropriator for the Department of Energy still does not see much hope for any funding for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in the 2018 spending bill that could be published Monday. The energy portion of the 2018 omnibus the House and Senate are negotiating behind the scenes “has […]

The U.S. Senate will continue to reject the Department of Energy’s requests for funding to resume work on the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) told Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Wednesday. In a tense exchange during a Senate commerce committee hearing on national infrastructure, Heller asked Perry to […]

The article “SRS Advisory Group Says Plutonium Dilute and Dispose is a Top Priority” (Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, March 13) should have said the plutonium to be diluted at the Savannah River Site and disposed of at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant was part of a 6-metric-ton tranche that is separate from the 34 metric-ton […]

The new head of the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, in office less than a month, should direct the agency to produce an overarching plan for the future of “the entire nuclear security enterprise,” a National Academies panel said in a report published Tuesday. “In response to the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review and […]

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Kristine Svinicki on Tuesday touted the benefits of full membership in the five-person panel, without directly mentioning the U.S. Senate’s extended inaction on nominees waiting to fill two vacancies. Svinicki noted that the commission has been at three members “for some period of time” – specifically since William Ostendorff stepped […]

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U.S. Energy Department officials, possibly including Energy Secretary Rick Perry, have reached out to persuade Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) to lift his hold on the nomination of Anne Marie White to be assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, an informed source said Monday. Barrasso wants White and DOE to commit to ending the agency’s […]

Details about the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2019 budget proposal for Cold War nuclear cleanup and civilian nuclear waste programs still were not available at deadline Monday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, only days before Energy Secretary Rick Perry is due on Capitol Hill to explain his agency’s latest spending plans. The week the White […]

The heads of the Department of Energy’s multibillion-dollar nuclear arms and cleanup programs are slated to testify Wednesday in a Senate hearing that could shift the course of the weapons complex policies Congress writes into this year’s annual defense authorization bill. The witness list includes Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, who was confirmed last month as head of […]