Budget & Policy

Department of Energy contractors should consider requiring “diversity training” when developing diversity plans, according to the latest version of its acquisition guide, published this week. That’s despite recent pushback by Republican House appropriators. Diversity plans were already required by DOE’s acquisition regulation. The changes published this week, dated June 2024, ratchet up requirements to monitor […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee wants the Government Accountability Office to examine the culture and workings of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, according to a bill report the committee published this week. “Recent assessments from the National Academy of Public Administration and from the Office of the Inspector General for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission […]

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) wants to amend the House Appropriations Committee’s 2025 energy and water bill to strip out a GOP provision to zero-fund the Department of Energy’s Justice40 Initiative. Stansbury, whose district includes Albuquerque, filed an amendment with the House Rules Commitment to strike part of the bill that prohibits funds from being used […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee wants a report from the Air Force and Pentagon about the possible deployment of 450, rather than 400, Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missiles. The lawmakers asked for the study in a bill report published the same week the Department of Defense announced further cost overruns and developmental delays for LGM-35A Sentinel, […]

WASHINGTON — The first draft of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s 2025 budget passed the House Appropriations Committee Tuesday on a largely party line vote and one new directive about nuclear nonproliferation in Eastern Europe. The committee passed the bill 30-26, which if made law would provide some $25.5 billion to the National Nuclear Security […]

The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday voted 30-26, largely along party lines, to approve a budget bill that would provide more than $8.3 billion for the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch in fiscal 2025. There was little mention of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management during the hour-plus markup. The measure will next be considered […]

A California member of the House Armed Services Committee, famed for his opposition to the current nuclear modernization regime, announced Monday that he has a form of blood cancer. Rep. John Garamendi (D-Cali.), 79, was diagnosed with early stage multiple myeloma, a form of “treatable” blood cancer, according to a press release on his website. […]

President Joe Biden (D) on Tuesday signed a bill intended, among other things, to ease domestic and foreign deployment of U.S. nuclear technology and reform the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The reforms of the Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act were nested inside the Fire Grants and Safety Act of 2023, an unrelated bill used […]

The full Senate Tuesday voted 54-to-41, mostly upon party lines, to confirm the nomination of Patricia Lee, a manager at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina, to be a member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.  The final vote was tallied shortly after 3:00 p.m. Eastern time. The Senate […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of a must-pass defense policy bill would again authorize more than $7 billion for the Department of Energy to carry out Defense Environmental Cleanup at nuclear weapons complex sites. Language in the nearly 1,200-page bill would also allow the secretary of energy to accelerate cleanup at nuclear facilities if […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee wants to require the Department of Energy to pick two to four possible sites for a new domestic uranium enrichment facility for defense programs, according to a bill report published Monday. The report was appended to the panel’s version of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which the Senate […]

Complex-wide plutonium modernization is up slightly, with Los Alamos plutonium funding shifting to operations from modernization, in the House’s first draft of the Department of Energy’s 2025 budget. The full House Appropriations Committee was to debate and vote on the legislation Tuesday during a multi-bill markup scheduled to begin on Capitol Hill at 9:00 a.m. […]

The Department of Energy’s $8-billion nuclear cleanup branch has started implementing some best practices sought by the Government Accountability Office but still has far to go, according to a report out Monday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management “is updating its site-specific life-cycle cost and schedule estimates to use as baselines to track progress and […]

A subprogram responsible for consent-based siting of spent nuclear fuel from power plants would drop by more than half if a bill scheduled for a committee vote Tuesday becomes law. The Integrated Waste Management System (IWMS) within the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy would get $25 million for fiscal year 2025, $30 million […]

Key environmental construction projects are nearly complete at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state and its Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and that’s reflected in a House Appropriations funding plan for fiscal 2025. The budget proposal, details of which House appropriators released Monday in a bill report, was scheduled to be marked up […]

The House Appropriations Committee will mark up Tuesday a bill that would authorize a 2% year-over-year raise for the National Nuclear Security Administration and keep nuclear-weapons cleanup at the Department of Energy about flat in fiscal year 2025. The full-committee markup was scheduled for 9:00 a.m. Eastern time in the Rayburn House Office Building, room […]

The House Appropriations Committee was scheduled to mark up a 2025 spending bill on Tuesday that would keep the budget for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy about flat at $1.8 billion and preserve unrequested funding for the office’s advanced nuclear reactor programs. The markup of the 2025 Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations […]

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) this week signed a bill that would give Pacific Gas & Electric $400 million more to keep the Diablo Canyon Power Plant open for the rest of the decade. Newsom signed the bill June 29, days after the state legislature passed it. The funding, which Newsom proposed, is part of the […]

The California legislature last week passed a bill that would give Pacific Gas & Electric $400 million more to keep the Diablo Canyon Power Plant open for the rest of the decade. The funding, which Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) proposed, is part of the state’s annual budget bill. The legislature initially rejected Newsom’s proposal to […]

Pacific Gas & Electric would get $400 million more to help keep California’s last nuclear power plant open for another five years, if a state budget bill unveiled over the weekend becomes law. In a reversal for legislative leaders who opposed the funding as recently as June, the compromise spending bill would allow California to top up […]

In a Friday voice vote, the House Appropriations  Energy & Water Subcommittee advanced to the full committee a Department of Energy budget bill that proposes more than $8.3 billion for the agency’s Office of Environmental Management, down about $160 million from this year. The 2025 spending bill was reported to the full House Appropriations Committee […]

WASHINGTON — The National Nuclear Security Administration would get a year-over-year raise and roughly 2% more than requested under a 2025 budget bill approved here Friday by a House subcommittee. Among the beneficiaries would be the delayed, budget-busting Uranium Processing Facility (UPF)  at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., for which the […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear power and waste portfolio would remain about flat for fiscal year 2025 and again receive unrequested funds to help commercialize advanced nuclear reactors, if a spending bill unveiled this week becomes law. If the bill from the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee bill is signed, DOE’s Office of Nuclear […]

Congressional check-writers should direct the Environmental Protection Agency to use its 2025 budget to update its generic standards for a nuclear waste repository, interest groups said recently. The ask came in the form of a letter signed by twelve organizations and sent to the leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations interior and environment subcommittees […]

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration should update its racial diversity guides for prime contractors to ensure leading practices are being used, the Government Accountability Office said in a report out Friday. Also, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) May 2023 diversity report for management contractors generally […]

WASHINGTON — The National Nuclear Security Administration would get a year-over-year raise and roughly 2% more than requested under a 2025 budget bill approved here Friday by a House subcommittee. Among the beneficiaries would be the delayed, budget-busting Uranium Processing Facility (UPF)  at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., for which the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration would get about $25.5 billion, 2% more than requested for fiscal year 2025 and a roughly 5.5% raise year-over-year, if a bill released Thursday becomes law. Most of the increase proposed by the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee in the first congressional budget recommendation of the year for […]

House appropriators on Thursday rolled out a Department of Energy budget bill that proposes $8.32 billion for the agency’s Office of Environmental Management, down about $160 million from this year. Still, the topline figure for DOE’s nuclear cleanup branch is $100 million more than what President Joe Biden’s administration sought. The act, announced via press […]

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s $800-million request for the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is “a darn good start,” a congressional appropriator said here Wednesday at an industry conference. “Now, you’ll see my mark tomorrow,” Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), chair of the House Appropriations energy and water […]

Pacific Gas & Electric would get $400 million more to help keep California’s last nuclear power plant open for another five years, if a state budget bill unveiled over the weekend becomes law. In a reversal for legislative leaders who opposed the funding as recently as June, the compromise spending bill would allow California to […]