Budget & Policy

After state lawmakers broke up his district, Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), the chair of the Armed Forces panel that writes the first drafts of nuclear-weapon policy each year, will retire from Congress when his term ends in January 2023, he said this week. “There’s no way, at least for me in this election cycle, but […]

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 […]

Progressive leading lights in both houses of Congress led a letter-writing campaign urging President Joe Biden this week to use his imminent Nuclear Posture Review to cancel deployed and planned low-yield nukes. Canceling the planned low-yield, sea-launched nuclear-tipped cruise missile and shelving the W76-2 low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead “would further signal that the United […]

At least one prospective candidate for a vacancy in the U.S. Supreme Court has first-hand experience with litigation concerning the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons complex. National media, including The Washington Post and the Associated Press, have reported U.S. District Court Judge Julianna Michelle Childs of South Carolina is on the shortlist of those expected […]

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 […]

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 […]

After state lawmakers broke up his district, Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), the chair of the Armed Forces panel that writes the first drafts of nuclear-weapon policy each year, will retire from Congress when his term ends in January 2023, he said Tuesday. “There’s no way, at least for me in this election cycle, but there […]

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 Friday 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 of […]

The story “NRC Secretary Vietti-Cook to Retire, Former Deputy Counsel Clark Stepping In” [Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, Jan. 18, 2021], should have said that former Nuclear Regulatory Commission secretary Annette Vietti-Cook joined the agency in 1982 as a project manager.

After the omicron variant of COVID-19 delayed plans to return many workers to their offices, telework remained allowable and well-utilized for eligible employees across the civilian nuclear weapons complex last week, spokespersons said. As during the previous two years of the ongoing pandemic, policies were most liberal at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) nuclear-weapons […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week: January: 25: Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board. Meeting. 9 a.m. Eastern Time at Aiken, S.C. Municipal Building. Hybrid in-person and virtual, steaming on YouTube.  25: Secretary of Energy Advisory Board. Meeting. 9:30 a.m. Eastern time. […]

On Friday, 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 Biden […]

The Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Advisory Board will stick around for at least two more years, according to a Federal Register notice published last week. The advisory board is being renewed for a two-year period that began Jan. 14, according to the Jan. 21 notice, which said the action is taken under the Federal […]

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission team tasked with reviewing the agency’s environmental justice efforts plans soon to submit its recommendations to the commissioners, a spokesperson said this week. NRC’s environmental justice task force, spearheaded by head of the agency’s operating reactor licensing division, Gregory Suber, is “busy drafting its recommendations in a staff paper,” a spokesperson […]

Kathryn Huff is a step closer to removing ‘acting’ from her title as assistant secretary of the Department of Energy’s nuclear energy office, as the Joe Biden administration nominated her to take over the position full-time this week. If confirmed by the Senate, Huff will take over the Office of Nuclear Energy’s (NE) head chair, […]

An article in the Jan. 14 Weapons Complex Monitor [“Tank-side Cesium Removal at Hanford Tracking January Startup”] should have said that subcontractor AVANTech designed the Tank-Side Cesium Removal project at the Hanford Site in Washington state. An article in the same edition, [“Settlement Talks Extended Until April in NMED-DOE Suit Over Los Alamos Cleanup”] should […]

Most staffers with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board don’t need to return to their pre-pandemic workplaces this month, a spokesperson with the federal safety watchdog said Tuesday morning. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) is no longer requiring a return to work on Jan. 24, as earlier scheduled, “but is giving the staff […]

The former head of the Department of Energy’s nuclear energy office is headed to the C-Suite of Westinghouse Electric, the company announced Tuesday. Rita Baranwal, assistant secretary for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) from July 2019 to January 2021, was appointed chief technology officer at Westinghouse, according to a press release dated Tuesday. In […]

This week, some 292 plaintiffs, many working in security at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington, filed a new complaint in their federal lawsuit opposing government vaccine mandates. But attorneys for the federal government replied the same day with a motion to dismiss the new complaint, saying it is little better than the […]

Most staffers with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board don’t need to return to their pre-pandemic workplaces this month, a spokesperson with the federal safety watchdog said this week. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) is no longer requiring a return to work on Jan. 24, as earlier scheduled, “but is giving the staff the […]

An audit of FirstEnergy Corp.’s additional charges to Ohio customers from 2017 to 2019 could not confirm that the money was used to improve the state’s power grid, as intended.  Nor could the audit prove that the money went to bribe the Ohio House’s former speaker and other state lawmakers, who rammed a controversial nuclear-related […]

Kathryn Huff is a step closer to removing ‘acting’ from her title as assistant secretary of the Department of Energy’s nuclear energy office, as the Joe Biden administration nominated her to take over the position full-time Wednesday. If confirmed by the Senate, Huff will take over the Office of Nuclear Energy’s (NE) head chair, which […]

Most staffers with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board don’t need to return to their pre-pandemic workplaces this month, a spokesperson with the federal safety watchdog said Tuesday morning. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) is no longer requiring a return to work on Jan. 24, as earlier scheduled, “but is giving the staff […]

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will not publish today, Monday, Jan. 17, 2022, in observance of the birthday of Martin Luther King., Jr. Look for the next issue in your inbox tomorrow, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022.

The White House this week officially nominated Marvin Adams to succeed Charles Verdon as the top weapons official at National Nuclear Security Administration headquarters in Washington, according to a press release. The White House sent Adams’ nomination to the Senate nearly a month after announcing its intention to make him the next deputy administrator for defense […]

With the omicron variant of COVID-19 driving a national spike in cases, the National Nuclear Security Administration reported a record number of active infections across the nuclear security enterprise on Friday. There were 1,265 active cases across the enterprise as of Friday, a spokesperson at National Nuclear Security Security (NNSA) headquarters wrote in an email. […]

The U.S. Supreme Court this week agreed to hear the Department of Justice’s challenges to a Washington state law that made it easier for cleanup workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site to claim compensation for certain occupational illnesses. The highest court in the land, an independent branch of the federal government, said Monday […]

With a spike in COVID-19 cases, top management at the Department of Energy plans to go “the extra mile” by stretching out its phased return to onsite work for employees and contractors by an additional month, according to a Thursday email. “We are delaying our increased return to the workplace schedule by one month,” Tarak […]

Sam Brinton will join the Department of Energy’s nuclear power office as the agency’s second-in-command of nuclear waste issues, the nuclear-waste policy expert and current global political director for Deep Isolation announced this week. Brinton, who currently serves as global political affairs director at aspirant nuclear-waste services company Deep Isolation, will become the Office of […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will allow its employees to work remotely on a limited basis after the recent spike in omicron-variant COVID-19 cases, according to a recent memo from the agency’s operations department. NRC extended “additional flexibilities for project-based telework” to Feb. 26 from Jan. 15, according to a Jan. 6 memo to staff from […]