Contractor executives and government officials from the Energy Department’s major nuclear cleanup sites descend on Washington, D.C., this week for meetings public and private, as Congress begins work on a short-term spending deal to keep the federal government open beyond Sept. 30.
The action begins today in Alexandria, Va., with the 2016 National Cleanup Workshop: a two-day convention focused on DOE’s legacy nuclear cleanup mission. The meeting is hosted by the Washington-based local-interest group Energy Communities Alliance, in cooperation with DOE and the Las Vegas-based, industry-led Energy Facility Contractors Group.
Wednesday morning, DOE’s top nuclear cleanup official, Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Monica Regalbuto, will provide an update on remediation priorities across the agency’s defense nuclear complex. In the afternoon, Ralph Holland, EM’s deputy assistant secretary for acquisition and project management, will freshen the office’s procurement outlook with a glimpse at business opportunities to come in fiscal 2017 and beyond.
At 5 p.m., the party moves to the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill, where the House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus will welcome back Regalbuto for an evening presentation, followed by a widely attended reception with lawmakers, staff, and contractors.
On Thursday, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s energy and water subcommittee that writes DOE’s annual spending bills, will address workshop attendees back in Alexandria. The House’s version of DOE’s 2017 budget, which Simpson helped shepherd through the lower chamber, died a messy death on the House floor in May.
Simpson in April told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing he was unconcerned that the Senate’s version of DOE’s 2017 budget bill — which the full upper chamber has already approved — provided less money than the House wanted for DOE’s Idaho Site and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M.
On Friday, with the Cleanup Workshop wrapped up, Environmental Management officials, their contractors, and their would-be contractors will retreat to Washington for a closed-door procurement workshop from 9 a.m. to noon in Rooms 5E-069 and 5E-081 at DOE headquarters.
Holland will lead the meeting, which DOE is holding to “help solicit industry feedback as EM prepares for upcoming acquisitions,” according to an EM notice posted online last month.
The event “is closed to the press,” Michael Nartker of EM’s Office of External Affairs, wrote in an August reply to a Weapons Complex Morning Briefing query about the meeting.
Meanwhile, the Senate was scheduled to press on today with its effort to pass a stopgap spending bill this week and avert a government shutdown when the 2016 fiscal year ends Oct. 1.
After a closed luncheon Tuesday on Capitol Hill, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the majority leader, told reporters that “discussions continue on the continuing resolution” to temporarily extend the 2016 federal budget, according to a CQ transcript of the press conference. McConnell said the Senate would consider the continuing resolution, as the stopgap bill is known, sometime after the body concludes debate on another bill that deals with water conservation and development projects handled by the Army Corps of Engineers.
“We’re going to try to wrap up the [Water Resources Development Act] bill tomorrow,” McConnell said Tuesday.
Politico reported Monday the stopgap bill would extend 2016 spending levels to Dec. 9.
