Budget & Policy

A safety culture review of the National Nuclear Security Administration released last month provided “sobering feedback” to the agency, according to Associate Principal Deputy Administrator Michael Lempke, who said yesterday that the agency was working to repair communications with employees and provide a better working environment for its workers. The safety culture study revealed a […]

Costs to modernize the nation’s nuclear stockpile and weapons complex from 2014 through 2031 increased $19 billion from Fiscal Year 2012 to Fiscal Year 2014, but the National Nuclear Security Administration may be understating the price tag for maintaining its portion of the nuclear deterrent, according to a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability […]

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Environment and Economy Subcommittee Chairman John Shimkus (R-Ill.) are looking for answers concerning the Department of Energy’s willingness to implement the court’s recent decisions upholding the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in a letter sent to Secretary Ernest Moniz yesterday. In August, the court issued a writ […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to address a slate of Department of Energy nominees this week. On Dec. 17, the committee is scheduled to vote on Steven Croley’s nomination to serve as DOE’s General Counsel and on Chris Smith’s nomination to serve as Assistant Secretary of Energy for Fossil Energy. Following […]

An Inspector General’s report on the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Waste Fund revealed that the Department accurately reported the amount of money in the Fund. The audit, conducted by KMPG and overseen by the Inspector General, showed that the NWF holds $36.6 billion in securities purchased from the U.S. government in the 2013 fiscal year, […]

More than four months after the National Nuclear Security Administration submitted a reprogramming request for programs in its nonproliferation account, the last congressional committee signed off on the request this week. While the reprogramming that cleared Congress this week includes $59.2 million for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, it does not include the $11.7 […]

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said yesterday that he plans on moving the Nuclear Waste Administration Act to markup in January when the Senate reconvenes after the holiday break. Previously, Wyden had said he wanted to mark up the bill in December, but a tight legislative schedule bumped the markup until the […]

The Department of Energy found itself in the bottom half of this year’s list of best “mid-size” federal agencies to work for, released yesterday. DOE came in 17th out of 23 agencies, according to the list, which is based largely upon data gathered by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Among the “mid-size” agencies that […]

As expected, President Obama yesterday sent back to the Senate dozens of nominations from last year, including several key Department of Energy posts. The move was necessary after late last week the Senate formally returned the nominations to the President because they were caught up in a dispute between Democrats and Republicans over new filibuster […]

Maintaining and modernizing the nation’s nuclear deterrent over the next 10 years is likely to cost about $355 billion, $141 billion more than the Obama Administration suggested in 2011, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released in late December. The report also notes that other nuclear-related activities, like nonproliferation, nuclear dismantlement, missile defense, and […]

The Senate, as expected, formally returned dozens of nominees to President Obama Jan. 3, including a handful of key Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration selections that were not cleared by the Senate before it adjourned last month. The nominees were caught up in a dispute between Democrats and Republicans over new filibuster […]

As expected, President Obama yesterday sent back to the Senate dozens of nominations from last year, including several key Department of Energy posts. The move was necessary after late last week the Senate formally returned the nominations to the President because they were caught up in a dispute between Democrats and Republicans over new filibuster […]

It could cost more than $1 trillion to maintain and modernize the nation’s nuclear deterrent over the next 30 years, according to a new report released yesterday by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. The report, “Trillion Dollar Nuclear Triad: US Strategic Modernization over the Next Thirty Years,” is among the first efforts by […]

Madelyn Creedon, the Obama Administration’s pick to be the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Principal Deputy Administrator, will appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee next week for her confirmation hearing. Creedon will testify alongside Army Under Secretary nominee Brad Carson and Air Force Assistant Secretary for Acquisition selection William LaPlante at 9:30 a.m. Jan. 16 […]

Lawmakers need a few more days to complete an omnibus appropriations bill, and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) on Friday filed a short-term Continuing Resolution that would provide three more days to finish up work on the legislation. The CR filed by Rogers would push back the deadline for completing the omnibus appropriations package […]

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel backed maintaining support for the nation’s nuclear deterrent last week. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) followed up with a call to hold him to his word. In a statement issued Friday, Corker urged Hagel to provide the “necessary” funding for the nation’s nuclear deterrent in the President’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget request. He […]

Here are the events we’ll be keeping an eye on this week:  The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will mark up a bill authorizing an extension of the U.S. 123 Agreement with South Korea at 2 p.m. Wednesday in Room 419 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Madelyn Creedon, President Obama’s pick to be the National […]

Congressional appropriators nearly matched the Obama Administration’s $7.868 billion request for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons program in the massive omnibus spending package unveiled last night, but several funding maneuvers obscure cuts to the program. While the bill provides $7.781 billion for the NNSA’s weapons program, $87 million less than the Obama Administration requested […]

For DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, the omnibus would provide approximately $5.8 billion, an increase of approximately $200 million from the Department’s FY 2014 budget request; and an increase of approximately $111 million from FY 2013 enacted funding levels. For defense environmental cleanup activities, which covers most of EM’s major sites, the bill would provide […]

While the spending bill released this week includes $62 million for a program supporting USEC’s American Centrifuge project, it also is making 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 American Centrifuge through a cost-share research, development […]

The omnibus spending package unveiled earlier this week by Congressional appropriators preserves Senate-drafted language that would create a broad-ranging Commission to Review the Effectiveness of the National Energy Laboratories. The nine-member panel would be chosen by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz from a list of 18 qualified officials picked by the President’s Council of Advisors on […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is set to vote again on the nomination of Elizabeth Robinson to serve as the new Under Secretary of Energy for Management and Performance, as well as on a host of other DOE nominees, at a business meeting scheduled for Jan. 16. Other DOE nominees set to be […]

Due to concerns by two Republican lawmakers regarding future nuclear weapons reductions, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday held off on voting on the nominations of Rose Gottemoeller to be Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security and Frank  Rose to be Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance. While 37 […]

The 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. This addition to the bill would cancel the much-maligned sensitive document policy update from September that applied restrictions as to […]

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) announced yesterday that he will be running for governor of Louisiana in the 2015 election. Vitter made waves in the Department of Energy last October when he placed a hold on Elizabeth Robinson’s nomination to serve as the new Under Secretary for Management and Performance due to concerns regarding her tenure […]

Senate Democrats are planning to pare back the length of a Continuing Resolution that is expected to fund the government starting Oct. 1, setting the stopgap funding measure’s expiration date at Nov. 15 rather than the Dec. 15 deadline established in a House version of the bill passed last week. The Senate is expected to […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration needs an extra $55.9 million to make a payment to the University of California Retirement Plan, according to a reprogramming request submitted to Congress Tuesday. The reprogramming request was coupled with an appeal to reprogram another $2.5 million to finish designing Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Low Level Waste building, a […]

The House rejected a Senate-passed version of stopgap funding legislation yesterday, moving the government to the brink of a shutdown. Republicans and Democrats remain deadlocked over a House-passed resolution that would delay implementation of President Obama’s health care overhaul, and the latest Continuing Resolution passed by the House adopted language to postpone Obamacare, drawing an […]

With the House and Senate at loggerheads over stopgap funding legislation to fund the government in Fiscal Year 2014, the White House Office of Management and Budget several hours before midnight last night officially told federal agencies to begin implementing plans to shut down the government. But what that means differs from agency to agency, […]

The exact amount of carryover funding available during the government shutodwn is different at each DOE site, but the Department declined to provide details on how long sites and programs could continue to operate normally under the shutdown. “In case of a shutdown, the Department will be able to operate for a short time if […]