Vol. 33, No. 04 
COVID Numbers Fall at DOE EM, But Still High; Quicker Returns for Symptom-Free Hanford Staff
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Budget & Policy
High Court Candidate Has Experience with DOE Litigation
At least one prospective candidate for a vacancy in the U.S. Supreme Court has first-hand experience with litigation concerning the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons complex. National media, including The Washington Post and the Associated Press, have reported U.S. District Court Judge Julianna Michelle Childs of South Carolina is on the shortlist of those expected […]
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Uranium Enrichment & Fuel Cycle
Management and Technical Approach Will Count More on Feds’ DUF6 Selection
At industry’s recommendation, the Department of Energy now says a bidder’s technical and management approach will count more than past performance in a competition for the next depleted uranium hexafluoride and site support contract at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky. But the bidder’s key personnel remain the most important […]
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Transuranic Waste
SRS Moving Closer to First Shipments of Downblended Plutonium to WIPP
The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina should be ready to start shipping certain transuranic waste from downblended plutonium to its underground disposal site in New Mexico by the end of the summer, an agency official told the Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board Tuesday. The Savannah River Site (SRS) goal is […]
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High-Level & Tank Waste
Parsons Expects SWPF Back Up Soon; Prepares for Plant Handover
The Salt Waste Processing Facility, offline since late October at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, should resume operation within a couple of weeks, an executive with Parsons Corp., which built the plant told an advisory panel Tuesday. “We are shut down currently,” Mike Pittman, a Parsons vice president and project […]
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Budget & Policy
U.S. Judge in Texas Rules Against Vax Mandate for Federal Employees
On Jan. 21, a federal court in Texas temporarily blocked the Joe Biden administration’s requirement that federal employees be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of employment. In the decision, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Vincent Brown in the Southern District of Texas ruled against the administration’s vaccine policy, which stems from executive orders issued by […]
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Budget & Policy
Feds Cite Half-Billion in DOE COVID-19 Leave Costs as Reason for Contractor Vax Mandate
In addition to claiming more than 800,000 American lives, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused “massive economic disruptions in the public and private sector,” which bolsters the case for requiring most employees of federal contractors to be vaccinated, U.S. government attorneys said in a brief filed with the Eleventh U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta. The […]
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Budget & Policy
Federal Judge Who Blocked Contractor Vax Order Ignores ‘What If’ Scenario
A U.S. district judge in Georgia, who last month blocked the Joe Biden administration from enforcing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate aimed at government contractors, declined Jan. 21 to wade into issues surrounding contractors that on their own require workers to be inoculated. At the same time, U.S. District Judge Stan Baker in the Southern District […]
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Decommissioning
West Valley Contractor Sticking by Its Vax Mandate
Despite some court setbacks for federal vaccination orders, a top manager with the Department of Energy’s Jacobs-led cleanup contractor at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York said Wednesday his organization is sticking with its COVID-19 vaccination mandate. “We have actually chosen to maintain that mandate,” CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley’s president and general […]
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Budget & Policy
Cleanup Site Locals Want PILT Included in DOE’s Fiscal 2023 Fiscal Plan
Local governments and school boards are working with a Washington, D.C.-based interest group to ensure the two highly-contaminated nuclear sites in their areas receive Payments in Lieu of Taxes in the fiscal 2023 budget request the Joe Biden administration sends to Congress in several weeks. The locals, with support of the Energy Communities Alliance (ECA), […]
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Budget & Policy
DOE Didn’t Say ‘No’ to DNFSB in 2021, MOU Still in Works
The Department of Energy did not reject any information requests from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board for the six-months ending Dec. 31, the safety watchdog told Congress this month, which amounts to zero refusals during the first year of the Joe Biden administration. “The Board has no denials of access to information to report […]
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Decommissioning
North Wind Dynamics Set to Take Over Landlord Services at Portsmouth
North Wind Dynamics is poised to start a $135-million contract in charge of Infrastructure Services at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. North Wind is “currently in transition” and will officially become the services contractor on Feb. 18, a company spokesperson said via email Wednesday. A DOE contract chart updated last week shows […]
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Contracts & Procurement
DOE Unveils Website for Technical Assistance Procurements
The Department of Energy’s $7.5-billion nuclear cleanup office appears to be inching closer to a small business solicitation for Technical Assistance Contracts for three or more field sites, according to a procurement website that went online within the past week. The Office of Environmental Management (EM) previously said in a Dec. 27 notice to expect […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Wrap Up: SRS Stream Cleanup Planned, Contract Targets 20% for Small Biz; EM Panel Re-Upped
The Department of Energy’s prime contractor for the Savannah River Site has agreed to a plan with federal and South Carolina regulators for final cleanup of a 25-mile stretch of radiologically contaminated stream. The affected area includes the Lower Three Runs stream, which begins near the center of the federal complex near the Georgia line, […]