ARLINGTON, VA —The acting boss of the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, a top manager from the agency’s Office of Nuclear Energy and key congressional representatives were to kick off the National Cleanup Workshop here Tuesday.
The workshop is hosted annually by the Energy Communities Alliance in cooperation with DOE and the Energy Facility Contractors Group.
In addition to talks from executives with DOE prime contractors around the weapons complex and local government officials, members of congress will deliver their take on the likelihood of a continuing resolution to keep the federal government running beyond the end of fiscal 2022 on Sept. 30.
House of Representatives members on the agenda are Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), whose district includes the Hanford Site, as well as Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) who represents much of the area around the Oak Ridge Site and Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.), whose state is home to the Nevada National Security Site.
All three lawmakers are members of the House Appropriations Committee.
The Tuesday morning sessions were to begin with a remediation update by William (Ike) White, senior adviser for the Environmental Management office. White is now the longest serving head of Environmental Management in the history of the department having served more than three years.
A briefing on upcoming procurement plans was to be provided by Angela Watmore, who heads acquisition and project management at the cleanup office.
In addition, Sam Brinton, deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition at the Office of Nuclear Energy, will be on hand merely a day after DOE announced $16 million worth of grant funding in its consent-based interim storage effort.
Facial masks are apt to be rare at this two-day gathering as DOE has dropped most COVID-19-related precautions from the past two years and is no longer collecting vaccination data on employees, contractors and visitors to its sites.
