Budget & Policy

The advocacy group Taxpayers for Common Sense yesterday awarded its “Golden Fleece Award” for wasteful spending to the Department of Energy’s cost-share program for small modular reactors. In November DOE announced that B&W would be the recipient of a five-year cost-share program to help design, license and commercialize SMRs. But the group criticized the effort […]

  After months of delay, the Utah state Senate is set to vote today on the confirmation of the two final members of the Radiation Control Board. Gov. Gary Herbert (R) has nominated Matt William Rydalch, a quality control engineer at the Ogden Western Zirconium plant, and Lindsey Christensen Nesbitt, an assistant professor of biology […]

Nuclear deterrence will be the subject of two hearings on Capitol Hill this week. U.S. Strategic Command chief Gen. Robert Kehler will testify before the House Armed Services Committee at 10 a.m. Tuesday in Room 2118 of the Rayburn House Office Building as part of a budget hearing with Pacific Command chief Adm. Samuel Locklear. […]

With concerns over the integrity of Hanford’s aging underground waste tanks once again in the news, the Obama Administration new choice to lead the Department of Energy will be no stranger to the issue if confirmed. Yesterday, the White House announced, as expected, the choice of former DOE official Ernest Moniz to serve as the […]

In order to keep government programs running beyond the expiration of current funding legislation near the end of the month, the House Appropriations Committee yesterday unveiled a Continuing Resolution that would fund the federal government until the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. Under the bill, most government programs would be funded at […]

The new Continuing Resolution unveiled by House appropriators yesterday would allow a study on NNSA governance to get started. The Congressionally mandated study, which is funded by $3 million in Pentagon funds authorized as part of the Fiscal Year 2013 Defense Authorization Act, had stalled due to limits on beginning a program under the existing […]

Cleanup contractors across the Department of Energy complex have begun providing insight into the impacts of the sequestration funding cuts on their workforces. At Hanford, at least 1,900 workers are set to experience either furloughs or layoffs. Funding for work overseen by the Department of Energy’s Richland Operations Office is set to go down by […]

More insights emerged yesterday as the impacts of the millions of dollars of sequestration funding cuts on the Department of Energy’s contractor workforce. DOE yesterday sent a set of letters to governors of several states, including Washington, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Tennessee and South Carolina, among others, outlining the anticipated funding cuts sequestration is set […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory’s subcontractor workforce has shed 800 jobs as a result of lab cutbacks for outside workers, according to a report by the Albuquerque Journal. The numbers come from a survey of lab contractors made public by SOC Los Alamos official Liddie Martinez, an executive with the Los Alamos Major Subcontractors Consortium. Procurements […]

The Congressionally mandated National Nuclear Security Administration governance panel is beginning to take shape. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has named former California Democratic lawmaker and Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ellen Tauscher to the 12-person panel, following on the heels of House Speaker John Boehner’s selection of former […]

The House yesterday approved 267 to 151 a six-month Continuing Resolution to fund the federal government beyond the March 27 expiration of the current Continuing Resolution. Under the new House CR, most government programs would be funded at the current levels minus the across-the-board sequestration cuts that went into effect late last week. However, the […]

Congressional Republicans continue to finalize their choices for the National Nuclear Security Administration governance panel, with GOP members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees announcing their selections yesterday. House Armed Services Committee spokesman Claude Chafin confirmed yesterday that chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) had picked retired Adm. Kirkland Donald, the former head of the […]

As Los Alamos National Laboratory grapples with the impacts of sequestration, the lab still believes contractor employee layoffs can be avoided, according to a message sent yesterday to employees. Los Alamos’ budget is set to be reduced by approximately $61 million for the remainder of the fiscal year—a cut the Department of Energy has said […]

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), whose district includes the Savannah River Site, yesterday urged the House Budget Committee to provide adequate funding for Department of Energy programs at the site. Wilson noted in testimony before the Committee that the impacts of sequestration will be felt heavily at the site, with the furloughs of thousands of employees […]

The Senate is expected as early as this week to move forward with a new Continuing Resolution to fund the federal government for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2013. The Senate-version of the new CR is expected to include appropriations language for a number of specific agencies, but not for the Department of Energy. As […]

Acting National Nuclear Security Administration chief Neile Miller, Department of Energy Health, Safety and Security chief Glenn Podonsky, NNSA Production Office Manager Steve Erhart, and B&W Pantex General Manager John Woolery lead a long list of officials that are scheduled to testify at a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board hearing in Amarillo Thursday. The hearing […]

Here’s a look at some of the events we’ll be following this week:   Gen. Robert Kehler, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, will testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday along with U.S. Cyber Command chief Gen. Keith Alexander. The hearing will take place in Room G50 of the Senate […]

Senate appropriators last night released their version of a Continuing Resolution that will fund the government until the end of the fiscal year, maintaining an anomaly that would continue to boost funding for the NNSA’s weapons program but decreasing funding for USEC’s American Centrifuge Project. The Department of Energy’s cost-share program supporting the ACP enjoyed […]

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is holding off until April on implementing a salary reduction and closure day plan at the lab that was designed to address a sequestration-driven budget shortfall of $120 million. Livermore Director Parney Albright had previously said the lab could implement the plan as early as this week, but in a message […]

House appropriators are gearing up to hold hearings next week on Fiscal Year 2014 funding for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, as well as on how EM and the National Nuclear Security Administration oversee major projects. On March 19 at 10 a.m., DOE cleanup chief David Huizenga is scheduled to be the […]

Ernie Moniz, the Obama Administration’s Energy Secretary nominee, earned a strong vote of confidence from New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich after meeting with the Democrat yesterday afternoon. “New Mexico’s Sandia and Los Alamos labs heavily depend on strong leadership from the Department of Energy to support the lab’s energy research and nuclear stockpile programs,” Heinrich, […]

Maintaining the nuclear triad for the next 20 years could cost more than $500 million, according to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. The group released a fact sheet about U.S. nuclear weapons spending late last week in advance of a more detailed report on the topic that will be released this spring attempting to estimate […]

The Obama Administration appears set to submit its Fiscal Year 2014 budget request to Congress in early April—approximately two months behind schedule. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said yesterday that the request would “probably” be sent to lawmakers the week of April 8. "The president will be putting forward a budget in the next […]

The Department of Defense has enjoyed significantly more influence over the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Fiscal Year 2014 budget formulation, U.S. Strategic Command chief Gen. Robert Kehler told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday. Congress last year began requiring the Nuclear Weapons Council to certify the NNSA’s budget, urging it to take an active role […]

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing incorrectly reported yesterday that the due date for bids for the new Portsmouth environmental technical services contract has been extended to Oct. 14. The actual due date is now Oct. 18. We regret the error.

The House Armed Services Committee, which has staunchly backed the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility in the face of the Administration’s push to defer construction of the facility, isn’t signing off on the National Nuclear Security Administration’s request to reprogram $120 million for an alternate plutonium strategy. The committee, led by Chairman Buck McKeon […]

David Trimble has been named as a director in the Government Accountability Office’s Natural Resources and Environment division, heading up the department’s nuclear security, safety and nonproliferation group. Trimble is replacing Gene Aloise, who announced in August that he was retiring from GAO to become the deputy chief of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan […]

With the across-the-board funding cuts known as sequestration set to go into effect in less than a month, President Barack Obama called on lawmakers yesterday to approve a package of smaller cuts to push back the implementation of sequestration and provide time to reach a final solution on deficit reduction. In remarks at the White […]

In the face of potentially crippling cuts, all six current members of South Carolina’s House delegation signed onto a letter drafted by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) urging the Obama Administration to prioritize the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility currently under construction at the Savannah River Site. Wilson sent the letter to President Obama yesterday, and […]

Given recent comments by a group of U.S. Senators, Assistant Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Pete Lyons said yesterday he is “extraordinarily optimistic” that Congress will draft legislation to enact the Obama administration’s strategy for spent nuclear fuel management. At the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ winter 2013 meeting in Washington, D.C. yesterday, Lyons […]