Budget & Policy

The U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday approved a three-week stopgap funding plan to keep the federal government open through March 11 after the current continuing resolution expires on Feb. 18. The full House voted Tuesday evening  272-to-162 to approve the short-term extension while appropriators continue to work on a spending plan to carry the government […]

Confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 across the National Nuclear Security Administration enterprise have tripled since January and are also three times higher than this time last year, according to data from agency headquarters. The civilian nuclear weapons steward also reported five confirmed COVID-19-related deaths since the first week of January, spokespersons from headquarters in Washington […]

The Department of Energy on Wednesday appointed nearly a half dozen nuclear scientists, engineers, policy experts and industry leaders to a federal council tasked with advising the agency on its current and future nuclear energy programs, according to a press release. Bill Magwood, director-general of the intergovernmental Nuclear Energy Agency, will chair the 11-person Nuclear […]

Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk met privately with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Jan. 27, a board spokesperson confirmed Monday. Members of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) leadership of DOE and its $7.5-billion Office of Environmental Management “try to meet periodically to discuss updates,” in closed sessions, DNFSB associate director for […]

The House of Representatives could vote Tuesday on a 21-day stopgap budget unveiled Monday by House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) to keep the Department of Energy and the rest of the federal government open through March 11. “This Continuing Resolution [CR] – the product of bipartisan, bicameral negotiation – extends funding through March […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week: 07-09: Exchange Monitor’s 14th Annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit. Hyatt Regency Crustal City at Reagan National Airport. Arlington, Va. 8:00 a.m. Eastern – 5:00 p.m. Eastern Monday and Tuesday, 8:00 a.m. Eastern to 12:30 p.m. Eastern Wednesday. […]

Confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 across the National Nuclear Security Administration enterprise have tripled since January and are also three times higher than this time last year, according to data from agency headquarters. The civilian nuclear weapons steward also reported five confirmed COVID-19-related deaths since the first week of January, spokespersons from headquarters in Washington […]

Ellen Lord, the Pentagon’s nuclear-weapons acquisition czar in the Donald Trump administration, was appointed to fill one of four slots on a new commission charged with scrutinizing the Defense Department’s budgeting process, according to a congressional press release. The leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees each were allowed to nominate one person […]

In recent public statements, the two South Carolina Republicans in the Senate sounded receptive to the idea of President Joe Biden nominating a federal judge from their state, U.S. District Court Judge Michelle Childs, to the U.S. Supreme Court.   At the same time, however, some labor unions told The Washington Post recently Childs is not […]

A West Virginia law to repeal a ban on nuclear power plants in the Mountain State headed to the governor’s desk this week after clearing the state legislature. The West Virginia state House voted 76-18 Monday to pass Senate Bill (SB) 4, a measure that would roll back the 1996 law barring nuclear power in […]

Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), who has taken an active interest in Department of Energy facilities in New Mexico,  has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke, but should make a full recovery, his office staff said in a Twitter posting on Tuesday. In an article citing senior aides to the lawmaker, The Santa Fe New […]

In recent public statements, the two South Carolina Republicans in the Senate sounded receptive to the idea of President Joe Biden nominating a federal judge from their state, U.S. District Court Judge Michelle Childs, to the U.S. Supreme Court.   At the same time, however, some labor unions told The Washington Post recently Childs is not […]

Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), who has taken an active interest in Department of Energy facilities in New Mexico,  has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke, but should make a full recovery, his office staff said in a Twitter posting on Tuesday. In an article citing senior aides to the lawmaker, The Santa Fe New […]

Unlike many other federal agencies, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board did not receive any supplemental funding during fiscal 2021 to ensure emergency operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a financial report released Monday. While the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) kept running without money from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security […]

Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), who has taken an active interest in Department of Energy facilities in New Mexico, has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke, but should make a full recovery, his office staff said this week in a statement. Lujan’s office said he would make a full recovery, though media subsequently reported he […]

Unlike many other federal agencies, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board did not receive any supplemental funding during fiscal 2021 to ensure emergency operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a finnancial report released this week. While the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) kept running without money from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic […]

The Department of Energy’s latest best- and worst-case estimates for fully cleaning up the Hanford Site in Washington State were each several tens of billions of dollars lower than the previous estimate, though the calculation released this week does not fully include the cost of delays to the site’s crucial High-Level Waste Facility. The feds […]

Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), who has taken an active interest in Department of Energy facilities in New Mexico,  has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke, but should make a full recovery, his office staff said in a Twitter posting on Tuesday. Early last Thursday, Luján age 49, experienced dizziness and fatigue before checking into […]

Banning storage of high-level nuclear waste and spent fuel in New Mexico would be like diverting a planet-killing asteroid, a New Mexico state Senator who supports a ban said Tuesday. “This is our Don’t Look Up moment,” said state Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D) Tuesday during a New Mexico Senate Conservation Committee hearing, referencing the 2021 […]

Unlike many other federal agencies, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board did not receive any supplemental funding during fiscal 2021 to ensure emergency operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a financial report released Monday. While the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) kept running without money from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security […]

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told the CBS’s news program “Face the Nation” Sunday he is “a big admirer” of U.S. District Court Judge Michelle Childs and believes the U.S. Supreme Court could benefit from someone, like the federal court judge from South Carolina, outside the usual Ivy League feeder system. “I can’t think of a […]

A bill introduced in New Mexico’s state legislature last week, and backed by the governor, aims to block a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel by banning the storage of high-level nuclear waste and spent fuel in the Land of Enchantment. If it became law, Senate Bill (SB) 54, introduced Jan. 19 by […]

On Jan. 21, a federal court in Texas temporarily blocked the Joe Biden administration’s requirement that federal employees be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of employment. In the decision, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Vincent Brown in the Southern District of Texas ruled against the administration’s vaccine policy, which stems from executive orders issued by […]

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory this week promoted a new article in Nature that detailed some of the foundational work at the National Ignition Facility over the last two years that paved the way for August’s record-setting energy output at the facility, the California weapons lab wrote in a press release. Achieving a burning plasma […]

A U.S. district judge in Georgia, who last month blocked the Joe Biden administration from enforcing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate aimed at government contractors, declined Jan. 21 to wade into issues surrounding contractors that on their own require workers to be inoculated. At the same time, U.S. District Judge Stan Baker in the Southern District […]

In addition to claiming more than 800,000 American lives, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused “massive economic disruptions in the public and private sector,” which bolsters the case for requiring most employees of federal contractors to be vaccinated, U.S. government attorneys said in a brief filed with the Eleventh U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta. The […]

Despite some court setbacks for federal vaccination orders, a top manager with the Department of Energy’s Jacobs-led cleanup contractor at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York said Wednesday his organization is sticking with its COVID-19 vaccination mandate. “We have actually chosen to maintain that mandate,” CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley’s president and general […]

Local governments and school boards are working with a Washington, D.C.-based interest group to ensure the two highly-contaminated nuclear sites in their areas receive Payments in Lieu of Taxes in the fiscal 2023 budget request the Joe Biden administration sends to Congress in several weeks. The locals, with support of the Energy Communities Alliance (ECA), […]

Hundreds of federal and contract workers at the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup wing continue to test positive weekly, but at least for this week, the figures have retreated from their recent peak. There were 560 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among members of the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM), a spokesperson wrote Thursday in […]

The Department of Energy did not reject any information requests from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board for the six-months ending Dec. 31, the safety watchdog told Congress this month, which amounts to zero refusals during the first year of the Joe Biden administration. “The Board has no denials of access to information to report […]