Budget & Policy

A bipartisan border control bill published by the Senate over the weekend would provide $2.7 billion to jumpstart a new domestic, commercial uranium enrichment and fuel-making industry. In a statement posted Sunday to the website X, Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the bill would not pass his chamber. Aside from the […]

National Nuclear Security Administration program offices do not consistently monitor performance of minor construction projects of fewer than $30 million in total cost, the Government Accountability Office found in a recent audit. From fiscal year 2019 through July 2023, NNSA offices undertook 414 minor construction projects that cost an estimated total of about $3 billion, […]

Among the many differences the House and Senate must settle before they can pass a permanent 2024 federal budget are competing policies about interim storage of spent nuclear fuel. Senate appropriators want to change the law to let the Department of Energy build a pilot interim storage site. House appropriators say nothing about a federal […]

Funding for the Department of Energy’s effort to rebuild a commercial U.S. uranium refining industry is hung up in a debate over a supplemental spending bill between House Republicans and the White House.  In remarks to reporters this week before and after a meeting at the White House, Speaker of the House Rep. Michael Johnson […]

President Joe Biden (D) on Friday signed a spending bill to keep agencies including the Department of Energy open until March 1. The Senate passed the bill 77-to-18 on Tuesday afternoon. The House followed quickly after, approving the month-and-a-half stopgap budget 314-to-108.  The measure will keep DOE, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other agencies funded […]

President Joe Biden (D) on Friday signed a spending bill to keep agencies including the Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration open until March 1. The Senate passed the bill 77-to-18 on Tuesday afternoon. The House followed quickly after, approving the month-and-a-half stopgap budget 314-to-108.  The measure will keep DOE, the Nuclear Regulatory […]

President Joe Biden (D) on Friday signed a spending bill to keep agencies including the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management open until March 1. The Senate passed the bill 77-to-18 on Tuesday afternoon. The House followed quickly after, approving the month-and-a-half stopgap budget 314-to-108.  The measure will keep DOE and other agencies funded […]

On Thursday, two Democrats on a House Oversight subcommittee forcefully condemned expanding nuclear power in the U.S. before the federal government builds a permanent repository for nuclear waste. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mich.), ranking member of the House Oversight economic growth, energy policy, and regulatory affairs subcommittee, used the hearing as a platform to again demand […]

Congress on Thursday approved a spending bill to keep agencies including the Department of Energy open until March 1, according to a schedule posted by the Democrat majority. The Senate passed the bill 77-to-18 on Tuesday afternoon. The House followed quickly after, approving the month-and-a-half stopgap budget 314-to-108.  The bill now goes to President Joe […]

Senior officials from the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission were scheduled to testify about nuclear power Thursday before a House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee. Headlining the list of three witnesses is Kathryn Huff, DOE’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy. Huff was scheduled to testify at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time alongside Daniel Dorman, the […]

House and Senate appropriators on Sunday agreed to extend 2023 budgets for federal agencies for about another month-and-a-half, into March, while they continue work on permanent budget bills for the 2024 fiscal year, now in its second quarter. Under the latest continuing resolution, the third such stopgap of the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, […]

Congressional leaders on Jan. 7 announced they had reached an agreement in principle to fund the federal government for the nine months that remain in fiscal year 2024. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker of the House Rep. Michael Johnson (R-La.) agreed to limit federal spending in the fiscal year that runs through […]

Congressional leaders on Jan. 7 announced they had reached an agreement in principle to fund the federal government for the nine months that remain in fiscal year 2024. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker of the House Rep. Michael Johnson (R-La.) agreed to limit federal spending in the fiscal year that runs through […]

Congressional leaders over the weekend announced they had reached a sort of agreement in principle to fund the federal government for the nine months that remain in fiscal year 2024. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker of the House Rep. Michael Johnson (R-La.) agreed to limit federal spending in the fiscal year that […]

Congressional leaders over the weekend announced they had reached a sort of agreement in principle to fund the federal government for the nine months that remain in fiscal year 2024. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker of the House Rep. Michael Johnson (R-La.) agreed to limit federal spending in the fiscal year that […]

President Joe Biden (D) on Friday signed the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, setting a year’s worth of spending limits and policy for national security programs, including those at the Department of Energy.  Under the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) the National Nuclear Security Administration is authorized to spend $24 billion, or about […]

On the Friday before Christmas, President Joe Biden (D) signed the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, setting a year’s worth of spending limits and policy for national security programs, including those at the Department of Energy. The bill is separate from annual appropriations bills that fund government agencies. Agencies including DOE and the […]

The Department of Energy this week formalized its decision to award Pacific Gas and Electric Co. some $1 billion in financial aid over four years to keep the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant running. DOE on Monday published its record of decision in the Federal Register, making official the award the agency announced in 2022, […]

The Department of Energy this week formalized its decision to award Pacific Gas and Electric Co. some $1 billion in financial aid over four years to keep the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant running. DOE on Monday published its record of decision in the Federal Register, making official the award the agency announced in 2022, […]

President Joe Biden (D) on Friday signed the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, setting a year’s worth of spending limits and policy for national security programs, including those at the Department of Energy. The law is separate from appropriations bills that provide money for federal agencies to spend. The Department of Energy, Nuclear […]

A group of lawmakers recently urged the Department of Energy to speed up its consideration of Holtec International’s request for a large federal loan to restart the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan. “[W]e urge the Department of Energy to give its fair, full, and swift consideration to the application,” the bipartisan, nine-member bloc of […]

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will not publish on Monday, Dec. 25, 2023, Wednesday Dec. 27 and Monday, Jan. 1, 2024 in observance of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. 

A group of lawmakers recently urged the Department of Energy to speed up its consideration of Holtec International’s request for a large federal loan to restart the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan. “[W]e urge the Department of Energy to give its fair, full, and swift consideration to the application,” the bipartisan, nine-member bloc of […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory would be barred from expanding equipment needed to dispose of surplus plutonium until the lab certifies it can produce at least 30 nuclear weapon cores annually, under a bill passed last week. The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which Congress passed Thursday, would prohibit expansion of the Advanced Recovery and […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week: December 20: Hearing, Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Future of Arms Control and Deterrence. Senate Dirksen Office Building, Room 419, Washington. Streaming online. 10:00 a.m. Eastern time.

The U.S. Supreme Court Monday agreed to vacate a national preliminary injunction against President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for federal contractors, after the Justice Department argued the issue became moot when pandemic emergency measures ended this spring. The court Monday granted a petition filed by Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar in July asking the high […]

President Joe Biden (D) was set to sign a fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act that authorizes raises for nuclear weapons programs and flat spending for nuclear-weapons cleanup but no major changes for civilian nuclear energy policies. This week, with overwhelming bipartisan majorities, both chambers of Congress approved the bill, a compromise version of separate […]

President Joe Biden (D) on Friday was set to sign a fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act that jettisoned a package of nuclear energy reforms that would have affected the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Both chambers of Congress approved the legislation by overwhelming majorities this week. The final bill, unveiled last […]

Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker’s (D) on Friday signed a law that partially repealed a 36-year ban on new nuclear reactors. The law, HB2473, also removed spent nuclear fuel and waste created by extracting uranium from spent fuel from the state’s list of high level nuclear waste materials.  Under the new law, introduced in November […]

The U.S. Supreme Court Monday agreed to vacate a national preliminary injunction against President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for federal contractors, after the Justice Department argued the issue became moot when pandemic emergency measures ended this spring. The court Monday granted a petition filed by Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar in July asking the high […]