Budget & Policy

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 2/14/2014 The “Nuclear Waste Administration Act” is unlikely to see any movement during this year due to the change in leadership of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, according to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) during her remarks at the at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ Winter Meeting, […]

Kenneth Fletcher RW Monitor 2/7/2014 A group of 12 lawmakers this week expressed concern about the impact on the uranium mining industry of the Department of Energy’s Excess Uranium Inventory Management Plan. “We are very concerned about the impact of DOE’s recent and planned uranium sales and transfers on the domestic industry. While we recognize […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 2/7/2014 Texas state lawmakers are set to consider the logistics and economic impact of potentially hosting a high-level radioactive waste disposal site or interim storage facility, according to the Interim Committee Charges issued by Texas Speaker of the House Joe Straus (R) late last week. The Charge asked the Committee […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 2/7/2014 House lawmakers are open to discussions on the possible creation of interim spent fuel storage sites, but Yucca Mountain needs to be involved in that process, House Environment and the Economy Subcommittee Chairman John Shimkus (R-Ill.) said this week at an event hosted by POLITICO. Shimkus, along with most […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/31/2014 The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit this week ordered that the petitioners in the Nuclear Waste Fund Fee case respond to the Department of Energy’s motion for a re-hearing en banc, effectively extending the time period the court has to decide if the motion should be granted. […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/31/2014 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied requests late last week for clarification on the timeline and cost figures associated with the NRC Yucca order issued last year, citing that nothing in the court’s writ of mandamus requires detailed time and budgetary outlines. Nye County, Nev., the States of South Carolina […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/31/2014 The markup of the “Nuclear Waste Administration Act” currently under consideration in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has been delayed once again after the sponsors of the bill sent the proposed legislation to the Congressional Budget Office for additional scoring. Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) had expressed […]

Republicans Press on Yucca Allocations; Saunders Wants More State Involvement in Decommissioning Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/31/2014 Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) chastised the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for failing to produce documents and for allegedly taking actions to circumvent Congressional oversight during a Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety […]

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 […]

Politics and Funding Dominate INMM’s Seminar Discussions on Yucca Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/17/2014 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects to complete and release the Safety Evaluation Reports for the Yucca Mountain repository by January 2015, NRC Deputy Director of Operations Michael Weber said this week at the 29th Annual Institute of Nuclear Materials Management’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 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 […]

Politics and Funding Dominate INMM’s Seminar Discussions on Yucca Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/17/2014 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects to complete and release the Safety Evaluation Reports for the Yucca Mountain repository by January 2015, NRC Deputy Director of Operations Michael Weber said this week at the 29th Annual Institute of Nuclear Materials Management’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 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 […]

Site Will Need $3.6B Next Year, Officials Say WC Monitor 5/16/2014 Hanford will need about $3.6 billion in Fiscal Year 2016 to meet its legal obligations, officials said at the annual Hanford budget meeting this week. That’s $1.5 billion more than the Obama Administration has proposed for FY 2015 and still could not be enough […]

Regalbuto Ranks Cleanup Priorities: 1. WIPP, 2. Hanford, 3. Savannah River Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 5/16/2014 The nominee to be the next Department of Energy cleanup chief suggested this week that cleanup at Hanford may be a higher priority than the Savannah River Site, raising eyebrows among some stakeholders in South Carolina. Monica Regalbuto, the […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/16/2014 The Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory last week issued a Request for Information seeking research on challenges related to subsurface engineering. Such information is desired due to its potential application in advancing research of the storage of energy, CO2 and nuclear waste. NETL may use information submitted […]

GHG Monitor 5/16/2014 IN THE INDUSTRY FutureGen 2.0 continues to make progress, having received approval on the pipeline to its storage site. The 30-mile underground pipeline which will carry CO2 to a storage site in Morgan County, Ill. received approval from the Illinois Commerce Commission Tuesday evening. The approval is contingent on the final federal […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/16/2014 If another polar vortex were to hit while the nation’s coal fleet is under strict Environmental Protection Agency regulations, the energy system will not be able to meet increased demands, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va) said Monday  “There are a lot of people on the lower end of the socio-economic […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/16/2014 The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) received more than one million comments on the proposed New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) at the close of the comment period last Friday, as stakeholders weighed in on number of issues including the current viability of carbon capture and storage technology. Comments, both positive […]