Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

Leaving Department of Energy contractors in charge of auditing costs ultimately paid by the government has created something of a “fox-guarding-the-henhouse problem,” the DOE’s Office of Inspector General said recently. As a result, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) wants DOE to hire dozens of independent federal auditors to overcome shortcomings in the “cooperative audit” […]

The Nuclear Energy Institute, the Energy Communities Alliance and six other groups Monday urged Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm to set up a Nuclear Waste Management office to oversee both civilian- and defense-nuclear waste. The federal government “has effectively failed to pursue a nuclear waste program for over a decade,” according to the letter. “We […]

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Kairos Power are cooperating to develop a low-power test reactor at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The government-owned electric utility, which holds an early site permit for a small modular reactor from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, will provide Kairos Power with engineering, operating and licensing […]

Having lost its appeal before a Small Business Administration panel and hoping to retain a $160-million Department of Energy infrastructure support contract for the Paducah Site awarded in December, Swift & Staley has taken its case to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington. At issue is whether the company was small enough to […]

The Department of Energy and the Washington state Department of Ecology have been involved in so-called “holistic” talks with the aid of a federal mediator since June 2020, the parties told a federal court Friday. With a confidentiality deal in place, publicly the parties have said little, other than that talks are ongoing, with the […]

The Department of Energy is making plans for replacement of the emergency operations center at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina by late 2028, according to one of the procurement documents published last week. Last week DOE issued its draft request for proposals for the Savannah River Site Operations Acquisition, a contract which could […]

The Justice Department has formally closed out its fraud case against Mission Support Alliance, the joint venture that formally provided landlord services at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, according to a settlement filed last week with a federal court in Washington state. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson of the Eastern District […]

The number of confirmed active cases of COVID-19 at the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup worksites had as of Thursday declined to 106 from 132 last week, but the Hanford Site in Washington state is warning workers not to grow complacent. The figure for the entire DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) complex, provided by […]

The Department of Energy is making plans for replacement of the emergency operations center at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina by late 2028, according to one of the procurement documents published last week. Last week DOE issued its draft request for proposals for the Savannah River Site Operations Acquisition, a contract which could […]

A program-independent review found the cost-floor for building the National Nuclear Security Administration’s planned, multibillion-dollar pit factory at the Los Alamos National Laboratory will be slightly higher than the official estimate, though the ceiling might be a little lower. The Los Alamos Plutonium Pit Production Project (LAP4) and supporting infrastructure should cost between $2.93 billion […]

Teresa Robbins replaced Geoff Beausoleil as manager of the National Nuclear Security Administration field office responsible for the Pantex Plant and the Y-12 National Security Site, according to the government’s nuclear health-and-safety watchdog. Robbins, one of Beausoleil’s two deputies at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Production Office, was set to take over May 1. […]

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), whose district includes the Savannah River Site, on Monday asked the House Appropriations Committee to provide a total of $695 million in fiscal year 2022 for plutonium pit production at the Aiken, S.C. site: some $255 million more than the 2021 pit budget. The increase would entirely go toward construction of […]

In May the Department of Energy expects to begin a 60-day public comment period on modifying dangerous waste permit for the Hanford Site in Washington state to allow disposal of mixed low-level waste in one of its main landfills, according to a notice published Monday by the state. The proposed permit change addresses Hanford’s Integrated […]

To date 21 individuals employed at Department of Energy nuclear cleanup worksites have died as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, a federal spokesperson said this week. The DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) spokesperson provided the fatality figure Thursday in response to an inquiry from Weapons Complex Monitor. Since the United States started tracking […]

The number of second-dose vaccines administered at the Pantex Plant in Texas and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee doubled this week with over 4,000 employees fully vaccinated across both sites, as the number of jabs continues to increase across the rest of the nuclear security enterprise,  NNSA’s Washington headquarters was tracking 232 active […]

President Joe Biden on Thursday announced plans to nominate Geraldine Richmond as undersecretary for science at the Department of Energy. Richmond is currently a presidential chair in science and professor of chemistry at the University of Oregon, according to the White House press release. Richmond’s research focuses on the molecular characteristics of water surfaces, which […]

The Department of Energy this week published the highly-anticipated draft solicitation for a potential 10-year, $21.5-billion management and operations contract for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The draft request for proposals (RFP) was published Wednesday on a federal procurement website to solicit questions and comments from prospective bidders by 4 p.m. Eastern time […]

The Department of Energy said Thursday a single-shell underground radioactive waste tank at its Hanford Site in Washington state is probably leaking at the rate of about 3.5 gallons daily. The DOE concluded the B-109 tank is leaking after monthly monitoring “detected a small drop in the level of liquid in the tank, and a […]

The Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration this week appointed two new deputy managers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory field office in New Mexico. Jason Saenz will be the new deputy manager for technical operations and Paula “Erika” Wisdom will be the deputy manager for business, security and missions as a new […]

BY MATTHEW BEINART President Joe Biden announced this week he is nominating Frank Kendall, a former top acquisition official at the Pentagon, as the next secretary of the Air Force and Heidi Shyu, the Army’s former lead acquisition executive, to be the next undersecretary of defense for Research and Engineering. Both nominations were announced Tuesday […]

The Department of Energy this week published the highly-anticipated draft solicitation for a potential 10-year, $21.5-billion management and operations contract for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The draft request for proposals (RFP) was published Wednesday on a federal procurement website to solicit questions and comments from prospective bidders by 4 p.m. Eastern time […]

A week after a coalition of citizen groups threatened to sue without more environmental vetting, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration approved the first critical decision toward ramping up pit production at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Wednesday said it has approved Critical Decision […]

Kansas City, Mo.-based Burns & McDonnell recently named Willie Clark as its federal strategy director, the company announced this week. For the previous almost nine years, Clark had been the giant engineering corporation’s federal business development manager, according to the company’s Wednesday news release. He held positions with the National Nuclear Security Administration from 1987 […]

President Joe Biden this week formally sent to the Senate Frank Rose’s nomination to be principal deputy administrator for the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration. Last week  Biden announced his intention to nominate Rose to the No. 2 slot at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons […]

The Department of Energy Wednesday published the highly-anticipated draft solicitation for a potential 10-year, $21.5-billion management and operations contract for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The draft request for proposals (RFP) was published on a federal procurement website to solicit questions and comments from prospective bidders by 4 p.m. Eastern time on May […]

President Joe Biden on Tuesday formally sent to the Senate Frank Rose’s nomination to be principal deputy administrator for the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration. Last Thursday Biden announced his intention to nominate Rose to the No. 2 slot at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons […]

The Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration said Monday it has disposed of more than 100 “legacy” facilities at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee and the Pantex Plant in Texas. “For years now, we’ve been strategically removing legacy equipment and materials, packaging and shipping contaminated waste, and demolishing outdated facilities,” Jim […]

The Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration plans to extend by four months an existing deal with a small business that provides technical support and analysis. In a procurement notice published Friday, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said its current three-year-and-a-half year deal with Vector Resources, Inc., which is worth about $3 […]

Here are some public events related to defense- and civilian-nuclear matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week: April: 26: POLITICO Playbook will host a virtual interview with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to discuss the Biden administration’s infrastructure and climate plan. Register here for access to the virtual panel scheduled for 11 a.m. […]

The Department of Energy’s decision to issue a sole-source contract for construction of a nuclear cleanup research center in South Carolina to an affiliate of North Wind Group is justified in part because it helps the agency meet its annual obligation to small businesses, according to a recent procurement notice. The contract for construction of […]