Budget & Policy

Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, who the Senate confirmed last week to lead the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), is expected to report to the agency’s Washington headquarters on Thursday, a source said Tuesday. A Department of Energy spokesperson did not reply to multiple requests for comment Tuesday about when Gordon-Hagerty, who would be the first woman […]

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 […]

The Trump administration’s nominee for assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, Anne Marie White, is taking private one-on-one meetings with senators prior to an expected hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, an industry source said Thursday. “She started her Senate rounds this week,” said the source, who said he did not know how […]

Environmental Management (EM) missions at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina are in line to receive $287 million more in the next federal budget than they received in fiscal 2017, with a strong emphasis on liquid waste cleanup. President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2019 budget proposal, released Monday, would provide $1.66 billion […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico would get a funding spike to $403 million in the Trump administration fiscal 2019 budget request, which envisions the underground disposal site taking 10 shipments weekly. The budget proposal for the Carlsbad Field Office would be $79 million over the 2017 enacted level of spending […]

President Donald Trump’s defense-heavy budget request would have mixed effects at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee. Trump has made no secret of his desire to increase military-related spending. Toward that, the White House proposal for fiscal 2019 would provide $15.1 million for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, the Department of Energy’s stockpile steward, […]

Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who has pledged to stop the Department of Energy from building a permanent nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain in his state, is still preventing the White House from filling a key nuclear regulatory position in the U.S. government, Politico reported last week. President Donald Trump nominated Republican Annie Caputo for a […]

By John Stang The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has requested a $970.7 million budget for fiscal 2019, a nearly $60 million spike from the current level largely on the back of proposed funding for licensing of the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. If approved by Congress, the nuclear industry regulator’s budget would […]

The White House has officially nominated Brent Park, a physicist from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s $2-billion-a-year nonproliferation portfolio, but the Senate Armed Services Committee had not scheduled a nomination hearing as of Friday. Park, whose nomination was sent to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, is now an associate laboratory […]

The U.S. Senate on Thursday unanimously confirmed Lisa Gordon-Hagerty to be administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), making her the first woman to lead the semiautonomous Department of Energy branch in its nearly 20-year history. A former staffer at the Department of Energy and National Security Council, Gordon-Hagerty was nominated by President Donald […]

The New Mexico Legislature has approved a bill that would, if signed into law, force nonprofit operators of U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories in the state to pay a gross receipts tax. Senate Bill 17 cruised through the legislature with little opposition this session, culminating with a 48-19 vote in the state’s House of […]

The Donald Trump administration this week proposed what would amount to a $2-billion-a-year raise for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) — a roughly $15-billion fiscal 2019 budget request that would accelerate existing nuclear-warhead refurbishment programs and consider making warhead cores somewhere other than New Mexico. The Department of Energy’s (DOE) fiscal 2019 budget request […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) needs more funding in fiscal 2019 for licensing Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a nuclear waste repository, mostly to put more full-time people on the project, the independent nuclear-waste regulator said in its budget request this week. In a roughly $970-million request for the budget year starting Oct. 1, the […]

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The New Mexico Legislature has approved a bill that would, if signed into law, force nonprofit operators of U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories in the state to pay a gross receipts tax. Senate Bill 17 cruised through the legislature with little opposition this session, culminating with a 48-19 vote in the state’s House of […]

The Department of Energy will not release its detailed budget request for fiscal 2019 until sometime within the next two weeks. That is according to a Tuesday message from a Department of Energy (DOE) official reviewed by Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. The official also said the annual “budget in brief,” a summary that might or […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday unanimously approved Lisa Gordon-Hagerty to be the full-time administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. President Donald Trump nominated Gordon-Hagerty, a current government consultant and former civil servant, on Dec. 19. If confirmed by the full Senate, she would be the first woman and the fifth person to […]

Environmental Management (EM) missions at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina are in line to receive $287 million more in the next federal budget than they received in fiscal 2017, with a strong emphasis on liquid waste cleanup. A budget justification detailing specific funding lines for President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2019 […]

The Donald Trump administration on Monday proposed what would amount to a $2-billion-a-year raise for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) — a roughly $15-billion fiscal 2019 budget request that would accelerate existing nuclear-warhead refurbishment programs and consider making warhead cores somewhere other than New Mexico. The Department of Energy’s fiscal 2019 budget request also […]

Days before the end of the state’s legislative session, a New Mexico House of Representatives panel on Monday approved a bill that would levy a gross receipts tax on nonprofit national lab operators in the state. The House Taxation and Revenue Committee voted 10-5 to pass a bill that would if signed by Gov. Susana […]

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) is continuing to take aim at the Energy Department’s practice of bartering excess uranium for cleanup at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion plant in Ohio. Barrasso has cited uranium barter as the reason for his hold on Anne Marie White’s nomination for the position of assistant secretary of energy for environmental management. […]

The White House budget request for fiscal 2019, released Monday, would cut spending at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site by $230 million. The total budget would be $2.185 billion for the budget year beginning Oct. 1. The Office of River Protection (ORP) would receive $1.438 billion, which is $61 million below current spending for […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has requested a $970.7 million budget for fiscal 2019, a nearly $60 million spike from the current level largely on the back of proposed funding for licensing of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. The number of full-time equivalent positions at the nuclear industry regulator, meanwhile, would drop […]

The Donald Trump administration on Monday stuck to its guns about turning Nevada’s Yucca Mountain into a permanent nuclear waste repository, requested almost $170 million in fiscal 2019 for the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to work on the licensing the facility. The total 2019 request is just over 10 percent higher […]

Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who has pledged to stop the Department of Energy from building a permanent nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain in his state, is still preventing the White House from filling a key nuclear regulatory in the U.S. government, Politico reported last week. The mostly silent blockade against Annie Caputo, a Republican whom […]

As the state’s legislative session nears a close, a committee in the New Mexico House of Representatives was set to vote today on a bill that would levy a gross-receipts tax on nonprofit national lab operators in the state — a category locals worry could include the next manager of the Los Alamos National Laboratory […]

Appropriators in the House of Representatives are to blame for the failure to schedule a floor vote on legislation aimed at pushing forward development of the long-delayed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) said Tuesday. Rep. John Shimkus’ (R-Ill.) Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017 passed out of the […]

The U.S. Department of Energy’s record of policing itself is “mixed at best,” and the agency might benefit from independent oversight by an entity such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said Tuesday. Pallone made his remarks during a House Energy and Commerce energy subcommittee hearing on U.S. nuclear infrastructure. “For example, […]

The Department of Energy will remain frozen at fiscal 2017 spending levels through at least late March, under the stopgap spending bill passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump on Friday morning after an overnight government shutdown — the second of fiscal 2018. The bill is the fifth continuing resolution of the fiscal […]

The Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission will remain frozen at fiscal 2017 spending levels through at least late March, under the stopgap spending bill passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump on Friday morning after an overnight government shutdown — the second of fiscal 2018. The bill is the fifth continuing resolution of […]