Budget & Policy

Lawmakers are “on track” to unveil the fiscal year 2018 omnibus appropriations conference report sometime during the week of March 12-16, a spokeswoman for the House Appropriations Committee said March 9. Negotiators have been working for weeks to combine 12 individual appropriations bills for defense and other programs into a single package. They were expected […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry is set to testify before Congress on Thursday about his agency’s fiscal 2019 budget request, which would sharply increase spending on active nuclear weapons programs while keeping funding for Cold War nuclear-waste cleanup roughly flat. Perry is scheduled to appear before the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee at 10 […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday approved the White House’s nominee to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s roughly $2-billion-a-year nuclear nonproliferation branch. The Donald Trump administration nominated Brent Park, an associate director and physicist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, on Feb. 13. It took the committee 21 days and one […]

As of March 2, Rick Perry had been U.S. secretary of energy for one year. Like his predecessor, Ernest Moniz, Perry has been on Twitter since the first day of his tenure at the top floor of the Forrestal Building in Washington, D.C. In that span of time, Perry tweeted exactly — yes, exactly — twice […]

In a blow to local interest groups that backed the measure, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) vetoed a bill Wednesday that would have increased taxes for nonprofit entities that operate Department of Energy national laboratories in the state. Martinez vetoed the measure — which would have levied the states gross receipts tax on nonprofit […]

The future of the Savannah River Sites nuclear-weapons mission should become clearer by next month, when the Department of Energy plans to release a draft solicitation for the contract that includes the site’s work for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). To date this year under a series of short-term budgets, the NNSA is spending […]

Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee on Wednesday signed into law a bill that is expected to increase the number of Hanford Site workers’ compensation claims approved by the state Department of Labor and Industries. The legislation would require the state to presume a wide range of illnesses were caused by working for as little as […]

A hold by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) is seemingly the only barrier remaining between Anne Marie White and a vote by the full Senate on her nomination to become assistant secretary of energy for environmental management. The Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday it on March 1 automatically advanced White’s nomination to head the Energy […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has less than $500,000 left in its available balance from the Nuclear Waste Fund, which pays for the agency’s work on the proposed Yucca Mountain radioactive waste repository in Nevada. In its latest update to Congress on activities related to licensing of Yucca Mountain, the NRC said its unobligated Nuclear […]

U.S. Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) on Monday said he believes 300 members of the House of Representatives would line up behind his bill on advancing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository if it could get a floor vote. In an evening speech on the House floor, Shimkus noted that H.R. 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy […]

The House’s top energy appropriator appeared to quash any hope that a fiscal 2018 budget being put together in advance of a March 23 federal-funding deadline would contain any money for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste repository in Nevada. In the face of that ominous prediction, Yucca booster-in-chief Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) told news outlets […]

Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee on Wednesday signed into law a bill that is expected to increase the number of Hanford Site workers’ compensation claims approved by the state Department of Labor and Industries. The legislation would require the state to presume a wide range of illnesses were caused by working for as little as […]

In a blow to local interest groups that backed the measure, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) vetoed a bill Wednesday that would have increased taxes for nonprofit entities that operate Department of Energy national laboratories in the state. Martinez vetoed the measure — which would have levied the states gross receipts tax on nonprofit […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday it has advanced the nomination of Anne Marie White to be assistant secretary of energy for environmental management. However, there was still no official word on whether Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) might lift his hold on the nomination anytime soon. White was also approved by the Senate Energy […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday approved the White House’s nominee to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s roughly $2-billion-a-year nuclear nonproliferation branch. The Donald Trump administration nominated Brent Park, an associate director and physicist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, on Feb. 13. It took the committee 21 days and one […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has less than $500,000 left in its available balance from the Nuclear Waste Fund, which pays for the agency’s work on the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. In its latest update to Congress on activities related to licensing of Yucca Mountain, the NRC said its unobligated Nuclear […]

Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) on Monday evening led a group of lawmakers to the floor of the House of Representatives to call for action to address the decades-old impasse in finding a permanent home for the nation’s nuclear waste. Standing before a sign with the title of legislation Shimkus filed last year to advance the […]

Anne Marie White, the Trump administration’s nominee for assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, understands Congress is getting antsy over the slow progress on key projects within the Energy Department’s $6.5 billion nuclear cleanup program. In 13 pages of questions and answers submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee before her confirmation hearing last […]

As of Friday, Rick Perry had been U.S. secretary of energy for one year. Like his predecessor, Ernest Moniz, Perry has been on Twitter since the first day of his tenure at the top floor of the Forrestal Building in Washington, D.C. In that span of time, Perry tweeted exactly — yes, you read that correctly — […]

Top Department of Defense officials are set to testify Wednesday before a House Armed Services panel about the Pentagon’s fiscal 2019 budget request for nuclear weapon programs. On the witness list for the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee are Air Force Gen. John Hyten, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, and John Rood, undersecretary of […]

WASHINGTON — Brent Park, the White House’s choice to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) nonproliferation office, promised he would if confirmed weigh in on a big nonproliferation construction project Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wants to protect in South Carolina. In a confirmation hearing that ended without anyone outright opposing the Oak Ridge physicist’s […]

WASHINGTON — At the end of a roughly two-hour hearing that focused for only a few minutes on the Department of Energy’s $6.5-billion-a-year Cold War nuclear cleanup operation, no senator indicated any opposition to the White House’s pick to lead the program. Anne Marie White “got off pretty easy,” Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), acting chairman […]

President Donald Trump has officially nominated the leader of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s nuclear weapons programs to run weapons programs for the full U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration. The White House sent Charles Verdon’s nomination to the Senate late Tuesday, only a day after announcing the president’s intent to nominate the Livermore hand as deputy […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee has scheduled a nomination hearing Thursday for two Trump administration picks to lead the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup and nuclear nonproliferation operations. The Senate panel will take testimony from Brent Park, nominated as deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, and Anne Marie White, […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee had yet to schedule a hearing to consider the nomination of Anne Marie White to be assistant secretary of energy for environmental management as of close of business Friday. Sources have said the panel could conduct its nomination hearing as early as March 1. White cleared the Senate Energy and […]

The White House requested roughly $31 million for the independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in 2019, roughly even with the appropriation that now funds the independent health-and-safety watchdog of the Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapon sites. The requested budget of $30.6 million is less than one percent lower than the $30.9 million the Defense Nuclear […]

Accelerating upgrades for the nuclear warhead slated to fly in the next decade on a new air-launched cruise missile would consume the single largest portion of the budget increase proposed for National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) nuclear weapons programs in 2019, according to a detailed budget document released Friday. For fiscal 2019, the semiautonomous Department […]

Lisa Gordon-Hagerty was sworn in as administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) on Thursday, officially putting the former National Security Council and Energy Department staffer in charge of a roughly $13-billion nuclear-weapons budget that is only set to grow. The NNSA announced the swearing-in Thursday in a press release. The Senate confirmed Gordon-Hagerty […]

The White House requested roughly $31 million for the independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in 2019, roughly even with the appropriation that now funds the independent health-and-safety watchdog of the Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapon sites. The requested budget of $30.6 million is less than one percent lower than the $30.9 million the Defense Nuclear […]

An article in Wednesday’s edition of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing incorrectly reported funding for headquarters operations for the U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management would be reduced under the 2019 budget request. The line item cited in the article represents a limited set of activities within the office, including mission support. The Office of […]