Budget & Policy

The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday said the White House can go ahead with plans for major layoffs and restructuring of the federal government while legal challenges play out, according to media reports. The Washington Post  and other media outlets reported Tuesday afternoon that the high court elected not to block planning for mass layoffs at […]

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) signed two bills into law last week designed to further nuclear research and deployment in the state. Senate Bill 124, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 11, will create a board to advance in-state nuclear power and fusion technology and host a Wisconsin nuclear summit. Senate Bill 125, now 2025 Wisconsin Act […]

The House last Thursday voted 218-214 to pass the massive reconciliation bill with $150 billion for defense that the Pentagon has built into its fiscal year 2026 spending plans. After consideration of the tax and spending bill went through the night in the lower chamber, the “One Big Beautiful Bill” was signed by President Trump […]

Three months after he was nominated to head the Department of Energy’s $8-billion nuclear cleanup office, Colorado developer Timothy Walsh will undergo a hearing this week before the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee. Walsh, nominated in March to head DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, is one of four people nominated to the Department of […]

The House Appropriations Committee and its Energy and Water subcommittee have postponed both subcommittee and full committee markups for this week. “Due to the recently announced change in the House calendar, markups originally planned for the week of July 7th are postponed,” according to House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-OK) said in a July […]

The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works is scheduled to vote Wednesday morning at 8:45 a.m. on the renomination of David Wright to be a commissioner on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Wright was renominated by President Donald Trump on June 16. He was previously appointed to serve on the NRC in May 2018, during […]

The Senate could vote this week on the nomination of Preston Griffith to be undersecretary of energy. The Senate is expected to vote Monday July 7 at 5:30 p.m. on whether to invoke cloture, effectively ending debating, on the Griffith nomination, clearing the way for a floor vote. Griffth’s nomination was passed out of the […]

Here are events related to nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking: July: 09: Forum: The Energy Technology and Environmental Business Association kicks offr the Savannah River Federal Business Opportunities Forum starting at 8 a.m. Eastern Time and running through July 10 at the Crown Plaza Hotel in North Augusta, SC.  16: Virtual meeting: […]

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), whose district includes the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, on Thursday July 3 voted in favor of President Donald Trump’s budget reconciliation package dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill. In a statement after the vote, Newhouse said the final version of the bill preserves production tax credits for nuclear power plants […]

The House Appropriations subcommittee on Energy and Water will mark up its fiscal 2026 budget bill, which would appropriate funds to the Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration, on Monday July 7. The hearing is scheduled to start on Monday at 6 p.m. Eastern Time. Also, on Thursday, July 17, the full House […]

The final version of the budget reconciliation package signed into law July 4 by President Donald Trump includes a long-sought bipartisan proposal to extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). “After nearly two years of negotiations—and two separate passages of RECA packages by the Senate in 2023 and 2024,” the RECA expansion was included in […]

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright this week announced Department of Energy plans to end what he calls “permitting paralysis” under the National Environmental Policy Act. Wright announced the changes, which are in line with a prior executive order by President Donald Trump, in a July 2 press release. DOE published an interim final rule rescinding […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair David Wright’s term has concluded on Monday and is no longer with the commission, at least temporarily. Wright was originally sworn as a commissioner in May 2018 as he was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term. Wright was renominated on June 16 and underwent a hearing before the […]

The Senate voted 53-to-47 Friday evening June 27 to defeat a resolution by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) that would have directed President Donald Trump to seek approval from Congress before launching further military attacks against the Islamic Republic of Iran. The vote fell along party lines with a couple of notable exceptions. Sen. John Fetterman […]

The Government Accountability Office, which serves as Congress’s watchdog over federal programs, would see its budget nearly cut by nearly half in fiscal 2026, under a bill advanced by the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday June 26. The Legislative Appropriation Act for fiscal 2026, which passed through the committee Thursday 34-to-28, provides  $415.4 million for […]

If things don’t change by mid-October, what is designed to be a five-person safety panel for Department of Energy sites could be down to one member. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) currently has only two members, Acting Chair Thomas Summers and board member Patricia Lee. Summers was confirmed by the Senate in July […]

The Senate on Tuesday narrowly passed the massive reconciliation bill with $150 billion for defense that the Pentagon has built into its fiscal year 2026 spending plans, sending the measure to the House. The lower chamber is expected to take up the “One Big Beautiful Bill” this week, to include the changes the Senate made […]

The Government Accountability Office, which serves as Congress’s watchdog over federal programs, would see its budget nearly cut by nearly half in fiscal 2026, under a bill advanced by the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday. The Legislative Appropriation Act for fiscal 2026, which passed through the committee Thursday 34-to-28, provides  $415.4 million for the Government […]

Access Intelligence and Exchange Monitor  staff will be off on July 3 and 4 in observance of the Independence Day holiday.  As a result, we will not be publishing Weapons Complex Morning Briefing on Wednesday July 2 and Thursday July 3. The Morning Briefing will resume its normal publication schedule starting Monday July 7.  Exchange […]

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, will not seek re-election, he said over the weekend after opposing President Donald Trump’s signature reconciliation bill, dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” While Tillis liked tax credits and other elements of the legislation, “I did my homework on behalf of North Carolinians, and […]

The Government Accountability Office, which serves as Congress’s watchdog over federal programs, would see its budget nearly cut by nearly half in fiscal 2026, under a bill advanced by the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday. The Legislative Appropriation Act for fiscal 2026, which passed through the committee Thursday 34-to-28, provides  $415.4 million for the Government […]

The Senate voted 53-to-47 Friday evening to defeat a resolution by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) that would have directed President Donald Trump to seek approval from Congress before launching further military attacks against the Islamic Republic of Iran. The vote fell along party lines with a couple of notable exceptions. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) voted […]

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) on June 18 expressed skepticism that the wide-ranging Golden Dome missile defense initiative is realistic, and also questioned the wisdom of planned cuts to the Pentagon’s top weapons testing office. In a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kelly told Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth that getting the system to […]

Corey Hinderstein, the former National Nuclear Security Administration’s deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation during the Joe Biden administration, said increasing weapons and slashing nonproliferation spending in the budget is a “recipe for national security failure.” “Cutting nonproliferation funding would be lose-lose: harming programs with valuable near-term threat-reduction benefits and making deterrence less sustainable for […]

Despite the recent executive order to overhaul the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, safety will continue to be the independent agency’s highest priority, NRC Chair David Wright told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday. “Safety is our strike zone over home plate, it is our North Star and it will continue to be that,” […]

Nearly 30 former Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff members and one ex-chair criticized President Donald Trump’s firing of Commissioner Christopher Hanson in a Tuesday letter. On June 13 Trump fired Hanson from his position on the Commission in a move that shook up the nuclear industry. The Tuesday letter was written to the agency’s four remaining […]

Energy Secretary Chris Wright used an appearance before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last week to plead for the upper chamber to confirm more DOE nominees. “If I can ask one thing for the whole senate is please help confirm my people,” Wright said during a hearing last week on the DOE budget […]

Energy Secretary Chris Wright used an appearance before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last week to plead for the upper chamber to confirm more DOE nominees. “If I can ask one thing for the whole senate is please help confirm my people,” Wright said during a hearing last week on the DOE budget […]

Nearly 30 former Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff members and one ex-chair criticized President Donald Trump’s firing of Commissioner Christopher Hanson in a Tuesday letter. On June 13 Trump fired Hanson from his position on the Commission in a move that shook up the nuclear industry. The Tuesday letter was written to the agency’s four remaining […]

Despite the recent executive order to overhaul the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, safety will continue to be the independent agency’s highest priority, NRC Chair David Wright told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday. “Safety is our strike zone over home plate, it is our North Star and it will continue to be that,” […]