Budget & Policy

A Senate committee will vote Thursday on whether to send three of President Donald Trump’s nominees for senior Energy Department positions to the Senate floor for confirmation. It is a quick pivot for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which only last week heard testimony from the three nominees: Mark Wesley Menezes, a lobbyist […]

Three U.S. representatives from Nevada on Monday filed an amendment that would strip funding for Yucca Mountain out of an Energy Department budget bill set for a floor vote in the House of Representatives this week. Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D), whose 4th District includes Yucca Mountain, filed the amendment along with Reps. Jacky Rosen (D) […]

The Departments of Energy and Defense should better explain their 10-year nuclear deterrent modernization budget estimates and address future affordability concerns, the Government Accountability Office said in a newly released report. The GAO examined the DOD and DOE’s fiscal 2017 joint report, which places the total cost of the two Cabinet agencies’ nuclear modernization plans […]

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, believes the United States should reconsider plans to modernize all three legs of its nuclear triad. Speaking July 20 at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., he said that bombers and ballistic missile submarines might provide a sufficient nuclear deterrent, and […]

Sen. Dean Heller’s (R-Nev.) Las Vegas office was burglarized Sunday morning, the Las Vegas Sun newspaper reported. An aide to Heller confirmed the apparent break-in but declined to comment further about the ongoing investigation by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. The Sun, citing a source, said the burglar or burglars might have left a […]

The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility being built in South Carolina is on its way to becoming a sticking point between the House and Senate as they work toward settling on a single energy and water funding bill for fiscal 2018. House appropriators remain intent on saving the controversial Department of Energy project, while their […]

Marc Selinger Defense Daily Former Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan was sworn in as the 33rd deputy secretary of defense during an informal ceremony July 19, a day after the Senate voted, 92-7, to confirm him as the Pentagon’s second-ranking official. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), endorsed Shanahan before the vote, […]

The University of Arkansas hopes Congress will soon come through with the last $10.1 million needed to complete cleanup of the long-disused Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor (SEFOR) facility. The university aims in October to begin the third and final phase of the nearly decade-long remediation program, which would involve removing the plant reactor and […]

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said Monday the United States should work to preserve the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia while taking concrete steps to develop military capabilities similar to those prohibited by the accord, as covered in the House and Senate versions of the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. “For the time being, […]

Marc Selinger Defense Daily The Department of Defense plans to send a reprogramming request to Congress to ensure the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) does not run out of money for the rest of the current fiscal year, a top military officer said July 18. DOD, which has placed “tremendous demands” on DIUx, began developing […]

By Wayne Barber The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday easily passed a fiscal 2018 energy and water spending bill that includes a $25 million cut to the budget request for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The nuclear industry regulator requested $952 million for the budget year beginning Oct. 1, encompassing all salaries and expenses and funding […]

The House Appropriations Committee approved Wednesday its fiscal 2018 State Department funding bill, which would cut overall agency funding while making more modest changes to the accounts related to arms control and international security. The bill in total provides $47.4 billion for the State Department in discretionary and Overseas Contingency Operations funding – $10 billion […]

A group of senators on Wednesday encouraged the U.S. secretaries of state, defense, and energy to implement a set of actions in the ongoing Nuclear Posture Review process meant to increase transparency and reinforce national nuclear policy positions. In a July 19 letter, Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and 20 of their colleagues, […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management would get some $6.6 billion in fiscal 2018 and take on $55 million worth of new cleanup projects from active nuclear-weapon sites, under a budget bill approved Thursday by the Senate Appropriations Committee. The panel’s recommendation for the Office of Environmental Management (EM) is nearly 3 percent above the […]

WASHINGTON — A Senate committee convened here Thursday to consider three of President Donald Trump nominees for senior Energy Department jobs The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will mull the testimony of the three DOE nominees and, in a business meeting that had not been scheduled at press time for Weapons Complex Monitor,  vote on […]

The University of Arkansas hopes Congress will soon come through with the last $10.1 million needed to complete cleanup of the long-disused Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor (SEFOR) facility. The university aims in October to begin the third and final phase of the nearly decade-long remediation program, which would involve removing the plant reactor and […]

The Energy Department would get no money to turn Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev., into a permanent nuclear-waste disposal site under a roughly $30-billion agency budget the Senate Appropriations Committee approved Thursday. The committee signaled its intention in draft legislation that leaked earlier in the week before appropriators released the language of their bill and […]

The Energy Department would get no money to turn Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev., into a permanent nuclear-waste disposal site under a roughly $30-billion agency budget the Senate Appropriations Committee approved Thursday. The committee signaled its intention in draft legislation that leaked earlier in the week before appropriators released the language of their bill and […]

Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) issued a fist-pumping press release lauding the Senate Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee for not funding the Energy Department’s application to license Yucca Mountain as a permanent nuclear-waste repository in 2018. The bill, which has yet to be released publicly, “does not include the $120 million requested by the Department […]

Former Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan was sworn in as the 33rd deputy secretary of defense during an informal ceremony July 19, a day after the Senate voted, 92-7, to confirm him as the Pentagon’s second-ranking official. Sen. Jack Reid (D-R.I.), ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), endorsed Shanahan before the vote, calling him “fully qualified […]

The Department of Defense plans to send a reprogramming request to Congress to ensure the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) does not run out of money for the rest of the current fiscal year, a top military officer said July 18. DoD, which has placed “tremendous demands” on DIUx, began developing the reprogramming proposal after […]

The University of Arkansas hopes Congress will come through with the last $10.1 million needed to complete cleanup of the long-disused Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor (SEFOR) facility. The university hopes in October to begin the third and final phase of the nearly decade-long remediation program, which would involve removing the plant’s reactor and all […]

A Senate Appropriations panel advanced a fiscal 2018 spending bill that would focus DOE’s near-term nuclear-waste management efforts on consent-based interim storage and cancel the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility under construction in South Carolina. The $38.4-billion bill from the Senate Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee would also provide a smaller-than-requested funding increase for DOE’s […]

The Energy Department would be permitted to construct one or more interim storage sites for nuclear waste, under a 2018 budget recommendation Senate appropriators are expected to release today. That is according to the bill report for the Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee’s 2018 energy and water development appropriations act. Weapons Complex Morning Briefing […]

The U.S. Transportation Department would receive the $3 million it requested for fiscal 2018 to continue storing a retired nuclear-powered freighter in Baltimore Harbor as part of a $56.5-billion Transportation, Housing and Urban Development spending bill the House Appropriations Committee approved Monday. The merchant ship NS Savannah, now moored at Canton Marine Terminal’s Pier 13, was launched […]

Sen. Dean Heller’s (R-Nev.) Las Vegas office was burglarized Sunday morning, the Las Vegas Sun newspaper reported. An aide to Heller confirmed the apparent break-in but declined to comment further about the ongoing investigation by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.  The Sun, citing a source, said the burglar or burglars might have left a threatening note […]

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said Monday the United States should work to preserve the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia while taking concrete steps to develop military capabilities similar to those prohibited by the accord, as covered in the House and Senate versions of the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. “For the time being, […]

Some military veterans could qualify for a new Atomic Veterans Service Medal, if an amendment to the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act the House approved Friday becomes law. The amendment offered by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Ma.) would allow radiation-exposed veterans — or in the case of a deceased veteran, next of kin — to request […]

In a sign that the leadership logjam at the Energy Department might be clearing, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is scheduled this week to vote on three of the White House’s choices for senior DOE positions. The committee on Thursday is set to consider the Donald Trump administration’s nominees for DOE undersecretary for […]

The Senate Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee will mark up its recommended Energy Department budget for fiscal 2018 on Tuesday, with an eye toward moving the measure to the full Appropriations Committee for consideration Thursday. The subcommittee, which had not released the text of its energy and water bill at deadline Sunday for Weapons Complex […]