Budget & Policy

Fossil Energy Funding Debated as House Energy Spending Bill Hits Floor Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/1/2015 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) unveiled this week a new strategy to fight the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed regulations for coal-fired power plants as he faced off against EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy at a hearing of the […]

Brian Bradley NS&D Monitor 5/1/2015 The House Armed Services Committee agreed to a set of five amendments to the Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act that would directly impact the Defense Department’s role in nuclear enterprise during a lengthy markup hearing on the bill this week. The bill was ultimately reported out of committee […]

Mike Nartker NS&D Monitor 5/1/2015 Lawmakers were unsuccessful this week during floor debate on the House Fiscal Year 2016 Energy and Water Appropriations bill in several attempts to reduce funding in the bill for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons activities. The full House subsequently voted 240-177 to approve the energy spending bill, which would […]

Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor  5/1/2015 The National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons program got a significant boost in the House version of the Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act cleared by the House Armed Services Committee this week as the bill authorizes $9.08 billion for the program, up from the $8.84 billion requested by the […]

Brian Bradley NS&D Monitor 5/1/2015 Even though the post-2021 budgetary landscape—as many nuclear modernization programs move from research-and-development to the production phase—will likely threaten investments in strategic deterrence, the United States should still follow plans to modernize the full nuclear weapon portfolio, a Senate appropriator told a Capitol Hill audience this week. “Will there be […]

NS&D Monitor 5/1/2015 IN THE WHITE HOUSE President Barack Obama submitted to the Senate this week the Protocol to the Treaty on a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central Asia, urging the Senate’s “early and favorable consideration.” Ratified by Kyrgyrzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan, the Central Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (CANWFZ) is a legally binding […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/1/2015 PITTSBURGH, Pa.—Grace Bochenek, the new Director of the National Energy Technology Laboratory, this week stressed the importance of expanding NETL’s industry partnerships in her vision for the future of the organization. “NETL is a great organization. It has great partnerships. It’s done great work. What I want to do […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/1/2015 PITTSBURGH, Pa. — The solution to battling climate change will be based in science and for that reason the discussion surrounding the issue must be shifted away from the ideological form it has taken and back to a technical platform, former Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal said here this week […]

GHG Monitor 5/1/2015 IN CONGRESS The House Committee on Energy and Commerce voted this week to advance Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield’s (R-Ky.) “Ratepayer Protection Act,” a bill aimed at halting the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants. The EPA’s proposal, which is currently the subject of […]

The House Armed Services Committee yesterday approved preliminary legislation aimed at expediting cited delays in Defense Department-to-Congress communication regarding strategic forces. Noting a lack of DoD disclosure to Congress about “several specific problems” uncovered by last year’s Nuclear Enterprise Reviews, HASC Strategic Forces Chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) introduced a bill during the marathon full […]

US Ecology reported a $5.9 million net income for the first quarter of 2015, down from its $9.4 million net income from the first quarter of 2014, but within the company’s expectations, US Ecology said yesterday. The company experienced an exceptionally strong first quarter of 2014, so the decrease in net income was expected, US […]

The Obama Administration threatened to veto the House 2016 Energy and Water Appropriations bill should it include funding to jump start the Yucca Mountain license review, among other reasons, according to a Statement of Administration Policy issued yesterday. President Barrack Obama shuttered the Yucca Mountain project in 2010 after the Department of Energy deemed the […]

The Obama Administration continued to try to distance itself from the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, objecting to language in the House version of the Fiscal Year 2016 Energy and Water Appropriations Act that would keep construction on the controversial facility going in FY 2016. Calling the language “unnecessarily restrictive,” the Administration said in a […]

Lifecycle costs for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility could reach into the “high $30 billions” even if funding constraints on the project were lifted, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee yesterday. Scrutiny has increased on the project since the National Nuclear Security Administration released a study by The […]

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) pushed Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz yesterday on why the Department of Energy did not include spent nuclear fuel policy in its Quadrennial Energy Review. Murkowski has supported efforts in the Senate for nuclear waste reform in the past, going so far as to co-sponsor the […]

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) is calling for more transparency and oversight from the Department of Energy on uranium transfers to the metal commodities firm Traxys that are used to fund Portsmouth cleanup work. Traxys recently appointed former Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman to its Board, which Barrasso called “deeply troubling” in an April 23 letter […]

Even though the post-2021 budgetary landscape—as many nuclear modernization programs move from research & development to the production phase—will likely threaten investments in strategic deterrence, the U.S. should still follow plans to modernize the full nuclear weapon portfolio, a Senate appropriator told a Capitol Hill audience yesterday. “Will there be funding challenges after 2021, after […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons program would get a significant boost in the House version of the Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act as the markup released by the House Armed Services Committee yesterday authorizes $9.08 billion for the program, up from the $8.84 billion requested by the Obama Administration. A large chunk […]

President Barack Obama yesterday submitted to the Senate the Protocol to the Treaty on a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central Asia, urging the Senate’s “early and favorable consideration.” Ratified by Kyrgyrzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan, the Central Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (CANWFZ) is a legally binding commitment not to acquire, test, make or possess […]

The House Armed Services Committee yesterday released its markup of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016, authorized $25 million for exploring response options to Russia’s alleged violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The President’s FY 2016 budget did not request funds to explore possible offsets to Russia’s cited violation of the […]

The House version of the Fiscal Year 2016 Defense Authorization bill would reject the Department of Energy’s request for a contribution to a federal fund used to help cover cleanup costs at the Paducah, Portsmouth and Oak Ridge sites, according to additional details about the bill released yesterday. The bill would not authorize any of […]

House lawmakers are expected to advance work on two key bills that impact the Department of Energy’s cleanup program and the National Nuclear Security Administration this week. The House Armed Services Committee will mark up the Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act starting at 10 a.m. Wednesday in Room 2118 of the Rayburn House […]

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control has appointed as its new director Catherine Heigel, the General Counsel for accounting firm Elliot Davis Decosimo, LLC, and former president of Duke Energy South Carolina. The move comes after former DHEC Director Catherine Templeton stepped down in January and former appointee for the post Eleanor […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/24/2015 A new pilot project to decommission the Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor (SEFOR) in Arkansas would be launched in Fiscal Year 2016 under the House Appropriations Committee’s version of the FY 2016 Energy and Water spending bill, according to report language released this week. The bill would provide $9.5 million […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/24/2015 Review and design work for a long-term storage facility for elemental mercury would move ahead with $1.3 million in funding included in the House version of the Fiscal Year 2016 Energy and Water spending bill that cleared the Appropriations Committee this week.  In September 2013, DOE released a final Environmental […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 4/23/2015 An amendment to the House 2016 Energy and Water Appropriations bill this week cut the funding for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing review of Yucca Mountain in half to $25 million when compared to an earlier version of the bill. The passed amendment lowers the NRC’s total allocated funding […]

Bill Proposes Less Funding for ORP, But Would Boost Richland Funding Mike Nartker WC Monitor 4/24/2015 House appropriators may be putting at risk the Department of Energy’s current goal to begin processing liquid radioactive waste at Hanford by the end of 2022 with their version of the Fiscal Year 2016 Energy and Water Appropriations bill, […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/24/2015 Most Department of Energy cleanup sites, including Portsmouth and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, would see funding increases in the Fiscal Year 2016 House Energy and Water Appropriations bill when compared to DOE’s budget request, according to legislation that cleared the full committee this week. In order to support recovery […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/24/2015 House lawmakers are asking the Department of Energy for a plan to transfer excess facilities held by the National Nuclear Security Administration to the Office of Environmental Management for cleanup. Both House authorizers and appropriators have asked for reports from DOE for moving NNSA buildings to the cleanup program. The […]