Budget & Policy

A compromise stopgap budget bill passed Congress Thursday 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 federal government […]

The Department of Energy cannot build an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel before building a permanent repository, but it can canvass potential host communities for an interim site, the agency’s top nuclear energy official said this week. “Congress provided funding for DOE to move forward with establishing an interim storage program using its […]

The story “NRC Chair Torches Colleague’s Categorization of Decom Rule as ‘Laissez Faire’ Regulation” (Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, November 30, 2021) should have said that Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensees must submit a post-shutdown decommissioning activities report within two years after their reactors cease operations.

A compromise stopgap budget bill to avert a government shutdown would 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. “Agreement has been reached on a Continuing Resolution,” House Appropriations Committee Chair Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Ct.) wrote in a statement […]

A coalition of environmental and citizens’ watchdog groups urged the Senate Finance Committee to drop millions of dollars in subsidies for nuclear energy from the budget reconciliation bill containing President Joe Biden’s signature domestic spending programs, according to a letter mailed this week. The roughly $35 billion in nuclear production tax credits proposed in the […]

Weapons Complex Monitor, RadWaste Monitor and Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor will not publish on Nov. 26 in observance of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will not publish Nov. 25 in observance of the U.S. Thanksgiving Holiday. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Monday, Nov. 29.

Even if they succeed, the Joe Biden administration’s plans to revamp the way the government selects a spot for the interim storage of spent nuclear fuel will require a change to federal law, the Department of Energy’s inspector general wrote last week. “The [Fiscal year 2021] budget request included funds to begin development of interim […]

National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Jill Hruby continued her tour of the nuclear security enterprise this week, with the joint Pentagon-Department of Energy Nuclear Weapons Council riding along, the agency tweeted. Hruby, sworn in in July, has been checking in with each of the NNSA’s big plants and sites throughout the summer and the […]

The Department of Energy has until March or so to hammer out the details of a tax credits program for financially-troubled nuclear power plants after President Joe Biden signed a long-awaited infrastructure package into law this week. The bipartisan bill, which opens up around $6 billion in federal funding over a five-year period to provide […]

With the Senate set to debate its version of the National Defense Authorization Act this week in Washington — the measure would authorize $20 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration compared with $19.7 billion requested — here’s a look at some of the defense-nuclear amendments proposed for the bill. One the Senate passes its […]

In 2020, Dan Brouillette, then-President Donald Trump’s second energy secretary, allegedly violated the Hatch Act — the law that prevents public servants from campaigning for or supporting candidates for office, the special counsel said in a report this week.  Brouillette and 12 other Trump administration officials were implicated in the findings published Tuesday. According to […]

It will be weeks or maybe even early 2022 before the Department of Energy shares more details about how it will auction off $6 billion worth of credits to struggling nuclear power plants over the next five years, a DOE official said Wednesday. “It’ll really be a little while before we have the details of […]

A story in Wednesday’s Weapons Complex Morning Briefing (“D&D Project for Pits at PF-4 Targeted for 2025 Wrap”) should have said that the Los Alamos National Laboratory plans in fiscal year 2025 to complete decontamination and decommissioning at PF-4 to support the facility’s planned plutonium pit production mission.

After weeks of intra-party squabbling, a trillion dollar infrastructure package, with nuclear power subsidies intact, made it through the House Friday night and was awaiting President Joe Biden’s signature at deadline. The measure, which passed on a 228-206 vote in the House Friday night, is good news for financially-troubled nuclear plants. The version of the […]

Happy Friday, nuke-watchers. With the Decommissioning Strategy Forum a wrap, here are some updates from the civilian nuclear power world that RadWaste Monitor was tracking this week from our conference hub outside of Las Vegas: Industry Holding on for a Hero in Congress for Spent Fuel Solutions SUMMERLIN, NEV. — The nuclear industry needs someone […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV. — The Department of Energy’s plan to conduct market research about siting a federal interim spent fuel storage facility might amount to nothing if industry and spent fuel host communities do not raise a ruckus around it, a trade group executive said this week at the annual Decommissioning Strategy Forum. Although a Department […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV — When it comes to getting spent nuclear fuel away from former power plant sites, the industry is “doing the wrong thing” to pressure the federal government to take action, a utility executive said here this week. “[W]e really need to engage our governors and host communities more effectively to urge the federal […]

Happy Friday, nuke-watchers. With the Decommissioning Strategy Forum a wrap, here are some updates from the civilian nuclear power world that RadWaste Monitor was tracking this week from our conference hub outside of Las Vegas: Industry Holding on for a Hero in Congress for Spent Fuel Solutions SUMMERLIN, NEV. — The nuclear industry needs someone […]

The Government Accountability Office says in a recent report the Department of Energy should better evaluate and prioritize research and development needs across the weapons complex, rather than relying so much on individual field offices and national labs. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) also said in the report released Thursday that DOE’s assistant secretary for […]

The Government Accountability Office says in a recent report the Department of Energy should better evaluate and prioritize research and development needs across the weapons complex, rather than relying so much on individual field offices and national labs. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) also said in the report released Thursday that DOE’s assistant secretary for […]

There was no word by deadline Friday on the fate of a federal preliminary injunction request that seeks to prevent the Department of Energy contractor running the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee from placing a small group of COVID-19 vaccine refusers on unpaid leave. There were no new records on the case posted online […]

Environmental groups from California, New Mexico and South Carolina are fighting to keep their lawsuit to slow plutonium-pit production from being thrown out of court and claimed this week that Congress’ mandate to produce pits does not prevent further environmental review of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s planned pit complex. “[T]his lawsuit involves more than […]

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) has introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to prevent unvaccinated federal workers and contractors from being fired if they provide proof of COVID–19 antibodies. Newhouse, whose congressional district includes the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, announced the introduction of the Options Over Terminations Act Tuesday. “Federal employees who have opted […]

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) has introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to prevent unvaccinated federal workers and contractors from being fired if they provide proof of COVID–19 antibodies. Newhouse, whose congressional district includes the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, announced the introduction of the Options Over Terminations Act Tuesday. “Federal employees who […]

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) has introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to prevent unvaccinated federal workers and contractors from being fired if they provide proof of COVID–19 antibodies. Newhouse, whose congressional district includes the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, announced the introduction of the Options Over Terminations Act Tuesday. “Federal employees who […]

Environmentalist groups from California, New Mexico and South Carolina are fighting to keep their lawsuit to slow plutonium-pit production from being thrown out of court and claimed this week that Congress’ mandate to produce pits does not prevent further environmental review of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s planned pit complex.  “[T]his lawsuit involves more than […]

A hearing was to continue this morning in a federal courtroom in Knoxville, Tenn., over a preliminary injunction requested by a half-dozen employees at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory who seek to avoid being placed on unpaid leave for refusal to take a vaccine against COVID-19. The hearing began yesterday in the […]

The Fluor-led management contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said Wednesday in federal court that employees who refuse to comply with a federal order to become vaccinated against COVID-19 can simply seek work elsewhere. Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) filed a motion asking the U.S. District Court to throw […]

The Department of Energy will solicit more public input this fall on plans for a new low-level waste landfill, the Environmental Management Disposal Facility project, at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, before issuing an updated draft of its record of decision in December, according to an agency spokesperson. The DOE Office of Environmental Management […]