Budget & Policy

Martin Schneider GHG Monitor 3/21/2014 The Illinois Commerce Commission will hold a public hearing next week to hear comment on the FutureGen Alliance’s 30-mile carbon dioxide pipeline for its proposed carbon capture and storage project. The March 27 hearing, which will be held in Jacksonville, Ill., follows the Commerce Commission’s approval of a certificate to […]

Martin Schneider GHG Monitor 3/14/2014 A bill directing state regulators to develop a plan for coal-fired power plants to meet potential Environmental Protection Agency emissions rules without switching to natural gas or implementing carbon capture and storage technology was approved by the Kentucky legislature this week and now awaits Gov. Steve Beshear’s signature. The bill, […]

IN THE INDUSTRY Uranium enrichment firm URENCO USA has appointed David Sexton as its new president and CEO, the company announced this week. Sexton will take over for Gregory OD Smith, who has been named the chairman of the URENCO UK Board and chief cultural officer for the URENCO Group starting Feb. 1. Sexton has […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/17/2014 Lawmakers unveiled this week an omnibus spending bill for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2014 that would largely match the Army Corps of Engineers’ budget request for the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP). Under the bill, FUSRAP would receive $103.49 million, a $501,000 cut from the Corps […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/17/2014 The Fiscal Year 2014 omnibus spending bill released this week includes language that would stipulate the Nuclear Regulatory Commission revert its sensitive document policy towards Congressional requests for information back to its 2011 version of the Commission policy. The provision would cancel the much-maligned sensitive document policy update that […]

Kenneth R. Fletcher RW Monitor 1/17/2014 While the spending bill released by Congress this week includes $62 million for a program supporting USEC’s American Centrifuge project, it also makes another $56.65 million in funding contingent on a Department of Energy cost-benefit analysis of potential domestic enrichment technologies for national security needs. The Department is supporting […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/17/2014 The Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington, D.C-based think tank, is launching a new project on nuclear waste issues, announcing last week that to lead the effort, it has tapped Tim Frazier, the former designated federal officer for the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future. BPC’s new project, “America’s […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/10/2014 With a change in the works for the head of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, industry officials have begun to speculate what a new Committee Chair could mean for nuclear waste issues. Although not yet official, there is heavy expectation Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who has been […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/10/2014 The Department of Energy has begun efforts to satisfy requirements set forth by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission concerning the license review of the Yucca Mountain geological repository, according to a letter Assistant Energy Secretary for Nuclear Energy Peter Lyons sent to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/10/2014 The Department of Energy filed for a re-hearing en banc late last week in the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit concerning the court’s decision to reduce the Nuclear Waste Fund fee to zero. DOE argued that the three-judge panel’s unanimous ruling places it in a “damned if […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 4/11/2014 A group of Mississippi state lawmakers proposed a resolution last week that would voice the state’s opposition to potentially hosting a high-level radioactive waste site. The proposed resolution, introduced by four Republican Representatives from southern Mississippi, followed a separate attempt by the state’s Public Service Commission to pass a […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 4/11/2014 Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) accused the Department of Energy this week of attempting to drain the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Nuclear Waste Fund appropriations so it cannot complete the Yucca Mountain Safety Evaluation Reports. During a House Science, Space and Technology Committee hearing, Johnson noted DOE’s  change of heart towards […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 4/4/2014 Rep. John Shimkus (R- Ill.) reiterated his frustrations with the Department of Energy’s decision to shutter the Yucca Mountain waste repository project and to pursue a new approach for developing interim storage sites in an exchange with Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz this week.  “Your job is to comply […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/28/2014 Language referring to the availability of a repository "when needed" within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Waste Confidence rulemaking may change or be deleted altogether when the final ruling comes out, Andy Imboden of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards said during a Commission meeting late last […]

Addl. Details Released of FY 2015 FUSRAP Budget Request Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/28/2014 The Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) has elected to add a new site to its cleanup list. The Middlesex North Site, also known as the Middlesex Municipal Landfill, located in New Jersey, will join […]

NUCLEAR SHUTDOWNS DOMINATES ENERGY APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/28/2014 The Congressional appropriations process may go faster this year than in previous years, according to House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho).  The Appropriations Committee is making an effort to hasten the pace of its effort to try and […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/28/2014 House Environment and the Economy Subcommittee Chairman John Shimkus (R-Ill.) may bring in the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as well as contractors, to get answers on potential project deadlines and estimated costs figures for Yucca Mountain, according to a statement issued this week. Shimkus has […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/21/2014 A group of scientists from the Sustainable Fuel Cycle Task Force called on Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz this week to take a more active role in the handling of the nation’s radioactive waste. The group expressed its concerns in a letter to Moniz following the release of DOE’s Fiscal […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/21/2014 The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied two separate motions this week that would have re-opened the court’s decision to reduce the Nuclear Waste Fund fee to zero. The Department of Energy filed a motion for a re-hearing in front of the three judge panel that unanimously […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/21/2014 The Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget request includes $30 million to support DOE’s nuclear waste management program, of which $24 million would come from the Nuclear Waste Fund, according to detailed budget documents released late last week. The Obama Administration is seeking to access the funds in […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/7/2014 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s funding next year would remain relatively flat compared to previous years under the Commission’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget request, submitted to Congress this week. The Commission is seeking $1.059 billion, of which only $124.2 million would be from appropriations due to the NRC collecting licensee […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/7/2014 Members of Missouri’s Congressional delegation are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to relinquish control of the West Lake Landfill cleanup to the Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program. In a letter sent late last month to to EPA Region 7 Administrator Karl Brooks, the […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/7/2014 The Department of Energy will not complete a supplemental environmental impact statement that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requested to support its review of the Yucca Mountain license application, although DOE will give NRC all the information it has and has suggested the NRC complete the EIS itself. DOE had […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/7/2014 The Obama Administration is seeking to access the funds in the Nuclear Waste Fund to help off-set some off the costs of implementing pilot interim waste storage facilities, according to the Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget request submitted to Congress this week.  The request includes a proposal […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 2/28/2014 The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee announced this week that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) would take over as head of the Clean Air and Nuclear Safety subcommittee. The chairmanship opened up after Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) sought to fill the chair position on the EPW’s Subcommittee on Transportation […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 2/28/2014 The case seeking Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Allison Macfarlane’s recusal from all Yucca Mountain licensing review decisions was dismissed late last week by the Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit. The petitioners, made up of Nye County, Nev., the state of South Carolina, and Aiken County, S.C., […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 2/28/2014 Nuclear Regulatory Chairman Allison Macfarlane does not support asking for more appropriations to complete the licensing review for the Yucca Mountain high level waste repository, according to comments she supplied this week to members of the House Energy and Commerce committee. Macfarlane stated that as she understood the Court […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 2/28/2014 House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) looked beyond Yucca Mountain this week at the Energy Communities Alliance Peer Exchange Meeting and supported movement forward on interim storage. House Republicans have maintained a ‘Yucca-or-bust’ mentality, although there appears to be growing support for interim storage. […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 2/14/2014 The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners suggested that the Department of Energy can fix the Nuclear Waste Fund fee without the need for a rehearing en banc, according to NARUC’s response to DOE’s en banc motion filed this week. DOE is arguing that the court has placed it […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 2/14/2014 It appears that the chairmanship for the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety has opened up as current Chairman Tom Carper (D- Del.) seeks to fill the chair position on the EPW’s Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure left open by the confirmation of […]