Budget & Policy

A nationwide injunction against contractor vaccine mandates should not apply to the management and operations contractor at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Fluor-led team said in Monday court filing. Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) is a privately-held employer, the company said in a filing with the U.S. District Court in South Carolina, […]

During the weeks beginning Monday, Dec. 20, 2021 and Monday, Dec. 27, 2021, Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will publish only on Tuesday and Thursday, in observance of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Morning Briefing will resume its regular publishing schedule on Monday, Jan. 3, 2022.

The Senate this week passed the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), approving a larger-than-requested budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) that would not phase in until Congress reconciles competing appropriations bills produced by the full House and the Senate Appropriations Committee, neither of which provides the amount authorized by the […]

Wheels Down at Harry Reid International: Las Vegas Airport Renamed for Yucca-Slaying Senator Starting this week, travelers arriving in Las Vegas will land at an airport named for the U.S. senator arguably responsible for the demise of the nation’s only potential nuclear waste repository. During a Tuesday ceremony at the airport formerly known as McCarran, […]

Nearly all staff members at the nation’s top nuclear power regulator have been vaccinated against COVID-19, a spokesperson said this week. 2,684 of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s 2,836 employees, around 95%, are fully vaxxed as of Wednesday, an agency spokesperson told RadWaste Monitor via email.NRC doesn’t track booster shots and isn’t required to, the spokesperson […]

Following a nationwide injunction blocking contractors for the Department of Energy and other agencies from ordering workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to keep their jobs, several other vaccine lawsuits against specific DOE sites are shifting to federal appeals courts, legal filings this week show. In the matter of the nationwide injunction, the Justice Department […]

More than 90% of the federal employees and contract workers at the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch have now been vaccinated against COVID-19, with more than 2,000 apparently still not taking the shot. “The vast majority of our [Environmental Management] EM workforce is vaccinated,” a spokesperson for the DOE Office of Environmental Management said […]

With about a month to go before the Department of Energy planned return-to-work, about 60% of a 10,000-strong workforce at the Hanford Site in Washington state was on premises each day, site manager Brian Vance told the Hanford Advisory Board this week. While the DOE on Dec. 3 rolled out a plan to get most […]

More than 90% of the workers for CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley were vaccinated prior to a Dec. 8 deadline set by the contractor at the West Valley Demonstration Project site in New York state, deputy general manager Kelly Wooley told an online Citizen Task Force meeting Wednesday night.  As a result, federal court orders […]

The story “Top EM Official Expects Hanford Tank-Side Cesium Removal Startup in January” [Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, Dec. 14, 2021] should have said the Tank-Side Cesium Removal project was built by subcontractor AVANtech and installed by contractor Washington River Protection Solutions.

The story “NRC Approves Palisades, Big Rock Point Sales, Enviro’s Challenge Deep-Sixed,” Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, Dec. 15, 2021 (first published online Dec. 14, 2021), should have said that multiple hearing requests on the Palisades and Big Rock Point nuclear plants are still pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

More than 90% of the federal employees and contract workers at the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch have now been vaccinated against COVID-19, with more than 2,000 apparently still not taking the shot. “The vast majority of our [Environmental Management] EM workforce is vaccinated,” a spokesperson for the DOE Office of Environmental Management said […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week: 13 – Environmental Management Advisory Board: Virtual meeting via Zoom. 1 p.m. Eastern Time. Anyone wishing to attend should register by 5 p.m. Dec. 6 by emailing Alyssa.Harris@em.doe.gov.  15-16 – The Hanford Advisory Board:  online Meeting starting at […]

With a federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate suspended at the site, employees put on unpaid leave because they would not take the vaccine were scheduled to return to work Monday at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a lab spokesperson told the Exchange Monitor. “To comply with the federal court order and the state’s suspension of its […]

A federal judge in Georgia this week blocked the Joe Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for contractors, almost exactly three months after Biden issued an executive order requiring shots for workers doing the government’s business. Most prime contractors at Department of Energy defense-nuclear sites had had their contracts modified to include a vaccine mandate well […]

Two years into the pandemic, the Department of Energy could see most of its federal employees return to their pre-COVID-19 work locations by mid-February, according to a Dec. 3 email message from agency leadership. The current “maximum telework” policy for DOE’s federal workforce will be phased out starting Jan. 18, Tarak Shah, chief of staff […]

The Department of Energy’s recently-rebooted search for a federal interim storage site to store spent nuclear fuel is one step in the right direction, one of Congress’s foremost advocates for nuclear-waste management said in a recent op-ed. DOE’s Nov. 30 Request for Information (RFI) about using a consent-based process to site a federal interim facility […]

Although federal attempts to site an interim storage facility for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel have yet to succeed, the Department of Energy’s current nuclear power chief thinks that things will shake out differently this time, she said this week. “[T]here is something very different now than there has been in the past,” Kathryn Huff, […]

Sources said the management and operations contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s two big nuclear-weapons production sites suspended its employee COVID-19 vaccine mandate this week after a federal judge in Georgia blocked the Joe Biden administration’s mandate for all federal contractors. A pair of other nuclear-weapon sites, however, said they would keep mandates in […]

ALEXANDRIA, VA. – Department of Energy officials kicked off the National Cleanup Workshop here this week by praising the Office of Environmental Management and its contract workers for continuing remediation of nuclear site remediation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, in a pre-recorded message, thanked Environmental Management (EM) workers for “going into […]

A compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act, passed Tuesday by the House and awaiting a vote in the Senate at deadline Friday, would authorize funding for Department of Energy nuclear waste programs at the requested level for fiscal year 2022. In the bill, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management would get the requested $6.84 […]

A compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act, passed Tuesday by the House and awaiting a vote in the Senate, would authorize funding for Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs at or above the requested level for fiscal year 2022. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), DOE’s semi-autonomous nuclear-weapons agency, would get $20.3 billion: […]

ALEXANDRIA, VA.—During a Thursday address to the National Cleanup Workshop here, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) touched upon everything from Congress averting a government shutdown to the need for a new disposal site for nuclear debris at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. “We are either going to pass a budget or get a year-long CR […]

Although federal attempts to site an interim storage facility for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel have yet to succeed, the Department of Energy’s current nuclear power chief thinks that things will shake out differently this time. “[T]here is something very different now than there has been in the past,” Kathryn Huff, DOE’s assistant secretary for […]

A compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act, passed Tuesday by the House and awaiting a vote in the Senate, would authorize funding for Department of Energy nuclear waste and weapons programs at or above the requested level for fiscal year 2022. In the bill, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management would get the requested […]

The Department of Energy’s recently-rebooted search for a federal interim storage site to store spent nuclear fuel is one step in the right direction, one of Congress’s foremost advocates for nuclear-waste management said in an op-ed Sunday. DOE’s Nov. 30 Request for Information (RFI) about using a consent-based process to site a federal interim facility […]

The National Nuclear Safety Administration announced Monday Corey Hinderstein was sworn in as deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration.      The Senate unanimously confirmed Hinderstein Nov. 30. The swearing in was announced by National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) administrator Jill Hruby in a press release. “I would also like to […]

Two years into the pandemic, the Department of Energy could see most of its federal employees return to their pre-COVID-19 work locations by mid-February, according to a Friday email message from agency leadership. The current “maximum telework” policy for DOE’s federal workforce will be phased out starting Jan. 18, Tarak Shah, chief of staff to […]

President Joe Biden signed on Friday compromise stopgap budget bill to avert a government shutdown and keep Department of Energy nuclear weapons and waste budgets at 2021 levels past Valentine’s Day and preserve a funding safety valve for uranium-enrichment cleanup. The Senate voted 69-to-28 Thursday evening to approve the continuing budget resolution to keep the […]

A compromise stopgap budget bill signed Friday averted a government shutdown and kept Department of Energy nuclear weapons and waste budgets at 2021 levels past Valentine’s Day. President Joe Biden signed the measure Friday after the House and Senate swiftly passed it on Thursday. In the Senate 19 Republicans crossed party lines to approve the […]