Budget & Policy

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz mostly voiced support for the Senate’s nuclear waste legislation yesterday, calling major parts of the bill “potentially workable” at a hearing on the bill, although he noted the administration has not taken a position on the legislation. At the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, Moniz said the bill—proposed in […]

As is our annual practice, Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will taking on an abbreviated schedule during ExchangeMonitor’s August publication break, publishing only Tuesdays and Thursdays during the weeks of Aug. 5 and Aug. 12. We will be returning to our normal Monday-Thursday publishing schedule the week of Aug. 19.

Though calls from Republicans not to abandon Yucca Mountain dominated a House Environment and the Economy subcommittee hearing with Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz on nuclear waste strategy yesterday, there appeared to be at least some progress toward toward new legislation as a bipartisan group of lawmakers stating support for a bill, as long as […]

The White House earlier this week announced plans to nominate Kenneth Mossman to serve on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Mossman is currently a professor of health physics at Arizona State University and an Administrative Judge for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. If confirmed by the Senate, Mossman would replace […]

A group of state environmental agency directors is calling on Congress to provide additional funding for the Department of Energy’s cleanup efforts in Fiscal Year 2014. In a letter sent to lawmakers earlier this week, the officials urged that Congress provide approximately $5.9 billion for DOE’s defense environmental cleanup activities and non-defense cleanup activities. In […]

An article in the Aug. 2 edition of Weapons Complex Monitor erroneously suggested that the Ohio-based company Shawnee Environmental Services is part of Shawnee Environmental Technical Services Alliance, LLC, which is protesting to the Government Accountability Office the Department of Energy’s recent award of the new Portsmouth environmental technical services contract. WC Monitor regrets the […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is strengthening how it documents risks that underpin its recommendations to the Department of Energy in response to language in the Fiscal Year 2013 Defense Authorization Act. Lawmakers directed the Board to account for risk in its recommendations in the bill in an attempt to reform the Board, which […]

While continuing an assessment of alternatives for plutonium disposition, the National Nuclear Security Administration has indefinitely pushed out release of its final Surplus Plutonium Disposition Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. While the report had been scheduled to be released early this year, that was later delayed to a target date this summer. In a schedule posted […]

Frank Klotz, the Obama Administration’s nominee to head up the National Nuclear Security Administration, will get his first chance to appear before the Senate next month. Klotz’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee has been scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Sept. 19, and the retired Air Force lieutenant general and commander of Global Strike […]

The 12-member panel assembled to study governance options for the National Nuclear Security Administration will meet for the first time in early September, study co-chairman Norm Augustine told NW&M Monitor. The long-delayed study’s first meeting will take place in Washington, D.C., but the final date has not been set, Augustine, the former Lockheed Martin CEO, […]

New Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz is reconstituting the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, expanding a panel that was resurrected under former Energy Secretary Steven Chu. The 19-member panel, an increase from the 12-member panel under Chu, will be chaired by former SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Director Persis Drell and former Under Secretary of Energy John […]

The long-awaited first meeting of the Congressionally mandated National Nuclear Security Administration governance advisory panel will take place next week, NW&M Monitor has learned. The 12-member panel chaired by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine and retired Strategic Command chief Richard Mies will meet Sept. 3 at the Alexandria, Va.-based Institute for Defense Analyses, which […]

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz’s newly constituted Secretary of Energy Advisory Board will meet for the first time next month, the Department of Energy said yesterday. The 19-member SEAB will meet at DOE’s Forestal Building from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sept. 13 as part of an introductory meeting. The group is chaired by former […]

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz raised the possibility during a visit yesterday to New Mexico that the Administration might seek an “anomaly” for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons program in upcoming discussions about a Continuing Resolution to fund federal work after Oct. 1. “In the end Congress has to pass budgets, otherwise we’ll just have […]

During a visit to Los Alamos National Laboratory yesterday, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz suggested a stronger partnership between the labs and NNSA could help solve the management issues that have plagued the agency over the last several years. Moniz visited Los Alamos as part of his first official visit to New Mexico as Energy Secretary […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Allison Macfarlane is set to testify to House lawmakers today that the NRC will “act expeditiously” on how to proceed in the licensing process for the Yucca Mountain repository following a court ruling directing the Commission to resume its review. In her testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Environment and […]

A proposed National Nuclear Security Administration management reorganization, which would streamline the agency’s reporting structure and strengthen the responsibilities of its site offices, has the blessing of retired Air Force Gen. Frank Klotz, the Obama Administration’s nominee to head the agency, acting NNSA chief Bruce Held told NW&M Monitor yesterday. During an NNSA all-hands meeting […]

Members of the House Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, led by Subcommittee Chairman John Shimkus (R-Ill.), accused the NRC and NRC Chairman Allison Macfarlane of stalling in their attempts to re-initiate the license review process for the Yucca Mountain application in a hearing yesterday on the progress of the Yucca Mountain license review. Shimkus […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to consider next week the nomination of Elizabeth Robinson as the new Under Secretary of Energy for Management and Performance. The panel’s hearing will be held Sept. 17 at 9:30 a.m. in Room 366 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building in Washington. The under secretary position, […]

The House Appropriations Committee has unveiled a short-term Continuing Resolution that would fund the Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration and other federal agencies through Dec. 15, but no DOE programs will receive preferential treatment in the stopgap funding legislation. The National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons program has received exceptions in recent CRs, allowing […]

With the confirmation hearing for his nomination as National Nuclear Security Administration chief looming, Frank Klotz has been making the rounds on Capitol Hill lately, and yesterday the retired Air Force general met with Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Klotz will appear before the committee next Thursday […]

Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz kicked off his first Secretary of Energy Advisory Board meeting Friday, naming nuclear security, stockpile stewardship and environmental cleanup among the topics he would welcome Board input on. Stockpile stewardship will present a challenge, Moniz said. “The stockpile must remain safe and reliable even as it is drawn down, if in […]

It is shaping up to be a busy week for Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration officials on Capitol Hill, highlighted by a pair of confirmation hearings for key Administration officials. At 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Beth Robinson, the Obama Administration’s nominee to be Under Secretary of Energy for Management and Performance, will […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration attempted to push the Obama Administration to request an anomaly for its weapons program in the Fiscal Year 2014 Continuing Resolution, but the Administration ultimately left the agency off of its list of requested exceptions for the funding legislation, a senior Pentagon official said yesterday. Speaking on the sidelines of […]

Elizabeth Robinson, the Obama Administration’s choice to fill the new position of Under Secretary of Energy for Management and Performance, breezed through a confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee yesterday. Robinson faced few questions from committee members, who instead focused the bulk of the hearing on the nomination of Ronald Binz […]

The United States may be facing a massive price tag to modernize the nation’s nuclear deterrent, but it’s a necessary cost, senior Air Force officials said yesterday at the Air Force Association Air and Space Conference. In the face of difficult budget realities, Air Force Global Strike Command chief Lt. Gen. James Kowalski continued to […]

Calling the National Nuclear Security Administration “big government on steroids,” the Albuquerque Journal yesterday blasted the agency for massive cost overruns on major projects and implored a Congressionally mandated governance panel to recommend massive changes for the semi-autonomous arm of the Department of Energy. “The panel should come up with a well-thought-out plan to either […]

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) yesterday cited several weaknesses in the Nonproliferation Treaty as among the nuclear security issues that should be addressed by Congress. “We must also take steps to strengthen the international nonproliferation regime enshrined in the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and also to explore continued bilateral arms reductions with the Russians. The great weakness […]

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), ranking member on the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, and Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) released a proposed bill yesterday that aims to provide “checks and balances” within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The bill, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Reorganization Act, would give more power to the other Commissioners and weaken the […]

House appropriators have finally signed off on the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plutonium reprogramming request, but the agency isn’t getting all of the money it wanted. In a letter sent to Department of Energy Deputy Chief Financial Officer Alison Doone late last week, Reps. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) and Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio)—the chairman and ranking member […]