Budget & Policy

The Oregon House of Representatives on Monday voted 39-20 in favor of legislation requiring the elimination of coal-fired power generation from the state energy mix. The bill specifically states that “on or before January 1, 2030, an electric company shall eliminate coal-fired resources from its allocation of electricity.” Currently, there is only one coal-fired power […]

Seventy percent of U.S. utilities support implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan as is or in an even more assertive form, according to industry news source Utility Dive’s annual State of the Electric Utility survey. “Last year’s Utility Dive survey found utility executives were largely at peace with the regulations, with 62 […]

The Wisconsin State Senate in 23-9 vote Tuesday approved legislation that would lift the state’s 33-year ban on building new nuclear power plants, advancing the bill to Gov. Scott Walker for final approval. Wisconsin currently prohibits the construction of new plants because the federal government has not established a storage facility capable of taking nuclear […]

State Attorneys General Patrick Morrisey (W.Va.) and Ken Paxton (Texas) have launched a campaign to end state efforts to develop action plans to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. The Supreme Court last week ordered a stay of the rule pending judicial review. However, several states, including Colorado, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and […]

While last week’s Supreme Court-ordered stay of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan is a blow to the rule, it doesn’t necessarily spell disaster, Nathan Richardson, a visiting fellow at Resources for the Future, said at an event Thursday. “It’s certainly not good news for the Clean Power Plan, but it’s far from fatal,” […]

RW Monitor 2/12/2016 An article in the Feb. 9 edition of RW Monitor cited an incorrect amount proposed to be spent in fiscal 2017 for the Department of Energy’s nuclear waste management operations. RadWaste Monitor regrets the error.

Karl Herchenroeder RW Monitor 2/12/2016 Legislation that would allow the Department of Energy to spend annual interest from the $34 billion Nuclear Waste Fund on the storage of U.S. spent nuclear waste is likely a nonstarter, an inside source told RadWaste Monitor this week. According to a GOP aide, who requested anonymity, the House Energy […]

The federal fiscal 2017 budget request unveiled Tuesday proposed a monumental, long-term change for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico: making the facility the final destination for 34 metric tons of diluted weapon-usable plutonium that would arrive sometime in the early 2020s. In the near term, the White House proposed lowering WIPP’s […]

Funding for Environmental Management (EM) missions at the Savannah River Site would increase by about $111 million over current funding levels under President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2017 budget plan. The nearly $1.5 billion request includes $822.6 million for the site’s liquid waste program – an uptick from the $783.5 million appropriated in December’s omnibus. The request […]

Liquid waste cleanup at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state would see relatively stable funding under the fiscal 2017 budget released Tuesday, while funding for other cleanup in the central region of the nearly 600-square-mile site would tumble by nearly 20 percent. For the Office of River Protection (ORP), which focuses on projects […]

An article in the Feb. 9 edition of WC Monitor cited an incorrect amount proposed to be spent in fiscal 2017 for the Department of Energy’s nuclear waste management operations. The amount is $76.3 million. Weapons Complex Monitor regrets the error.  

The Obama administration is requesting $575 million in fiscal 2017 to continue design work and bolster other activities on the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee. The funding request is a significant bump-up from the current appropriation of $430 million. Based on Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz’s budget presentation, the […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) is planning a significantly greater investment in the maintenance and repair of National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) facilities, with a fiscal 2017 budget request for the agency’s deferred maintenance that exceeds the currently enacted amount by $17 million. Overall, DOE’s $32.5 billion budget request includes $12.9 billion for the NNSA, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is requesting $1.8 billion for defense nuclear nonproliferation (DNN) programs in fiscal 2017. The funding request is down from the $1.9 billion it currently receives due to prior year carryover balances and planned termination of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. The NNSA’s DNN program partners with the State, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) $12.9 billion budget request for fiscal 2017 maintains relatively flat funding levels for the agency’s weapons research, production, and testing sites. The Lawrence Livermore (LLNL) and Sandia National laboratories (SNL) would see the smallest change from the fiscal 2016 appropriation – a 1 percent proposed decrease to $1.2 billion […]

If Congress follow through on President Barack Obama’s plans to terminate the MOX project, employment at the Savannah River Site’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) would likely take a hit near the top of 2017. For now, MFFF construction will continue as the nation’s current pathway to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus […]

Members of Congress on Thursday challenged the Department of Energy’s (DOE) decision to terminate the Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility project in favor of a different plutonium dilution and disposal approach. The facility is being constructed to convert 34 metric tons of weapon-grade plutonium into commercial nuclear fuel under a U.S.-Russian nonproliferation agreement. Rep. […]

GHG Daily will not be published on Monday in observance of Presidents’ Day. Look for the next edition in your inbox on Tuesday, Feb. 16.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) on Thursday introduced legislation that would halt the extraction of fossil fuels from federal lands. The “Keep it in the Ground” bill would serve three main purposes: to stop new leases and end nonproducing leases for coal, oil, gas, oil shale, and tar sands on all federal lands; to stop new […]

Speaking two days after the Supreme Court ordered a stay of her agency’s historic carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said the stay would not stop the nation’s shift away from fossil fuels. “If you ask me am I disappointed in the Supreme Court decisions to stay […]

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to stay the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants, pending judicial review, the gap between the nation’s international climate pledge and what the United States can actually achieve has widened further, according to a blog post Wednesday by Stephen Eule of the […]

The Obama administration has passed too many regulations too fast and has no intention of slowing, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, said during a hearing Wednesday. “President Obama has rushed through many costly and burdensome regulations over the last seven years,” Smith said, adding that the president […]

If Congress follow through on President Barack Obama’s plans to terminate the MOX project, employment at the Savannah River Site’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) would likely take a hit near the top of 2017. For now, MFFF construction will continue as the nation’s current pathway to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapon-usable […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) is projecting a significantly greater level of investment in the maintenance and repair of National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) facilities, with a fiscal 2017 budget request for the agency’s deferred maintenance that exceeds the currently enacted amount by $17 million.   Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said Tuesday that DOE […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Daily 2/10/2016 Fossil energy research and development funding is set at $600 million, 5.1 percent less than last year, in the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2017 budget request rolled out Tuesday. Total requested funds would account for only $360 million of the full funding amount for the program, with the remaining […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Daily 2/10/2016 The Supreme Court on Tuesday evening in a 5-4 decision granted a stay of the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants, marking a significant blow to the Obama administration’s climate agenda. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elana Kagan voted against […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Daily 2/10/2016 The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday requested an additional $85.6 million for fiscal 2017 to fund its efforts to address climate change. The additional funding would bring total funding for the agency’s climate effort to $280 million. “The EPA will continue to address the impacts of climate change through […]

  The White House on Tuesday proposed a fiscal 2017 budget that would clear the way to send tons of diluted, weapon-usable plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico and shrink the energy the Energy Department’s legacy nuclear-waste cleanup budget by just over 2 percent to about $6.1 billion.   The […]

Chris Schneidmiller WC Monitor 2/9/2016 The Obama administration’s fiscal 2017 budget proposal, released Tuesday, lays out an aggressive funding plan to enact a nuclear waste management program to replace the Yucca Mountain deep geologic repository in Nevada. The money is to be used for the department’s phased, adaptive, consent-based approach to finding permanent storage for […]

WC Monitor 2/9/2016 The White House on Tuesday proposed a fiscal 2017 budget that would clear the way to send tons of diluted, weapon-usable plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico and shrink the energy the Energy Department’s legacy nuclear-waste cleanup budget by just over 2 percent to about $6.1 billion. […]