Budget & Policy

Risk reduction activities at Savannah River’s 235-F facility would be largely put on hold in Fiscal Year 2016 under the Department of Energy’s budget request, DOE Savannah River Manager Dave Moody told WC Monitor yesterday. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board urged action at the former plutonium processing facility in a 2012 recommendation, and DOE […]

Two members of the House Armed Services Committee, including South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson, are voicing concerns about the National Nuclear Security Administration’s decision to use The Aerospace Corporation to conduct a study on alternatives to the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. In a March 25 letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz obtained by NS&D […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 3/27/2015 Southern Company will join a delegation of 25 American companies on a business development trade mission to China led by the U.S. departments of Energy and Commerce next month. The delegation will travel to Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou in an effort to “launch or increase their business operations in […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 3/27/2015 A bill introduced by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.V) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) late last week to reauthorize the U.S. Export-Import Bank includes language that would lift the bank’s current restrictions on financing new coal-fired power plants unless they use carbon capture technology. A provision in the bill states that […]

Environmental Groups Warn Against “Just Say No” Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 3/27/2015 Continuing a campaign urging states to oppose the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon emissions standards for coal-fired power plants, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last week sent a letter to the nation’s governors advising them not to submit implementation plans until […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 3/27/2015 Several senators were successful late this week in adding provisions concerning carbon pollution and climate change to the Senate version of the Fiscal Year 2016 budget resolution. Among the amendments put forth during debate on the budget resolution was one by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) that would put in […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 3/27/2015 The European Union will work to develop an energy union based on a European Commission framework released last month, the EU announced late last week. The European Council wrote that “the EU is committed to building an Energy Union with a forward-looking climate policy on the basis of the […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 3/27/2015 A series of new reports released this week by the United Kingdom’s Department of Energy & Climate Change and by British think tank the Green Alliance highlight the significant impact that the development of carbon capture and storage hubs, or “clusters,” throughout the country will have on the industrial […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 3/27/2015 Senators from Washington state and New Mexico pressed Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz  over cleanup programs in their states at a Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee hearing this week. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) led with concerns about DOE’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget  request for Hanford’s Richland Operations Office, which […]

Brian Bradley NS&D Monitor 3/27/2015 OGDEN, UTAH—Air Force nuclear missileers are maintaining a safe, secure and effective deterrent, but are doing so at a “diminished margin,” Dr. Jamie Morin, Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said here at last week’s TRIAD forum. “That’s the most […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 3/27/2015 Another lawmaker raised concerns this week regarding former Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman’s new position as CEO of Centrus Energy Corp., as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) questioned Poneman’s potential influence on Department of Energy staff. Earlier this month the uranium enrichment firm, which under its previous name USEC received substantial […]

Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 3/27/2015  The National Nuclear Security Administration will deliver a report to Congress on its response to the recommendations of the Congressional Advisory Panel on the Governance of the Nuclear Security Enterprise in three-to-four weeks, NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz told the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee this week. The timeline represents […]

Brian Bradley NS&D Monitor 3/27/2015 The Air Force has programmed a plus-up of about $5.6 billion for its nuclear enterprise over the Future Years’ Defense Program (FYDP), some of which would presumptively fund the procurement of close to 100 long-range strike bombers, but the Budget Control Act (BCA) could force the service to reduce to […]

Kenneth Fletcher NS&D Monitor 3/27/2015 Another lawmaker raised concerns this week regarding former Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman’s new position as CEO of Centrus Energy Corp., as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) questioned Poneman’s potential influence on Department of Energy staff. Earlier this month the uranium enrichment firm, which under its previous name USEC received substantial […]

Todd Jacobson and Brian Bradley NS&D Monitor 3/27/2015 Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) reintroduced parallel legislation this week in the House and Senate that would cut $100 billion in nuclear weapons spending over the next decade. The lawmakers have previously authored bills similar to the “Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures (SANE) […]

Kenneth Fletcher RW Monitor 3/27/2015 Another lawmaker raised concerns this week regarding former Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman’s new position as CEO of Centrus Energy Corp., as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) questioned Poneman’s potential influence on Department of Energy staff. Earlier this month the uranium enrichment firm, which under its previous name USEC received substantial […]

Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 3/27/2015 New Mexico Sens. Tom Udall (D) and Martin Heinrich (D) introduced a bill this week to boost Laboratory Directed Research and Development programs at the Department of Energy’s national laboratories. The “LDRD Enhancement Act of 2015” would increase the percentage of lab funding that can be set aside for special […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/27/2015 Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced this week that he will not seek re-election after his term expires in 2016. Reid, one of Yucca Mountain’s staunchest opponents, has served as senator for 28 years, and from 2009 to 2014 he served as the Senate’s majority leader. A long-time […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/27/2015 Action on nuclear waste reform took major strides this week as a bipartisan Senate bill emerged that would allow interim storage, while the Department of Energy announced that it would begin taking an active role in siting a consent-base interim storage facility. A bipartisan group of Senators reintroduced legislation […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/27/2015 Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) indicated this week that he would like to include clarifying language in Appropriations legislation that would enable the Department of Energy to use Waste Control Specialists as a consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. Alexander pressed Secretary […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/27/2015 To start the Yucca Mountain adjudication process, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would need $25 million to $30 million in Fiscal Year 2016 appropriations, NRC Chair Steven Burns said this week during a hearing in front of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee. The NRC currently has about $4 […]

Senate appropriators indicated yesterday that they would like to include clarifying language in the budget that would enable the Department of Energy to use Waste Control Specialists as a consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) pressed Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz on what […]

Another lawmaker is raising concerns about former Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman’s new position as CEO of Centrus Energy Corp. as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) questioned Poneman’s potential influence on Department of Energy staff yesterday at a Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee hearing with Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. Earlier this month the uranium enrichment […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration will deliver a report to Congress on its response to the recommendations of the Congressional Advisory Panel on the Governance of the Nuclear Security Enterprise in three to four weeks, NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz told the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee yesterday. The timeline represents a delay from previous […]

A group of bipartisan Senators re-introduced legislation yesterday that would overhaul the nation’s nuclear waste policy. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) put forth the Nuclear Waste Administration Act of 2015, which heavily echoes the bill the group introduced in 2013, but that bill never made it […]

To start the Yucca Mountain adjudication process, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would need $25-30 million in Fiscal Year 2016 appropriations, NRC Chair Steven Burns said yesterday during a hearing in front of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee. The NRC currently has about $4 million in Nuclear Waste Fund appropriations that will most likely […]

New Mexico Sens. Tom Udall (D) and Martin Heinrich (D) introduced a bill yesterday to boost Laboratory Directed Research and Development programs at the Department of Energy’s national laboratories. The bill, called the LDRD Enhancement Act of 2015, would increase the percentage of lab funding that can be set aside for special projects from 6 […]

Adm. Cecil Haney, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, yesterday underscored the importance of “stable, predictable funding” in sustaining the nuclear triad, as Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) introduced the Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures (SANE) Act this week. The bill would cut nuclear weapons spending by $100 billion over the next […]

Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz feels confident that funding for a pilot interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel will make it into the Fiscal Year 2016 Budget, he said yesterday during remarks at the 2015 Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference. The Department of Energy has moved away from the Yucca Mountain project, deeming the […]

The Air Force has programmed a plus-up of about $5.6 billion for its nuclear enterprise over the Future Years’ Defense Program, but an active Budget Control Act could force the service to cut that number down to about $4 billion, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said yesterday. “We would lose between $1 and $2 […]