Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

After multiple incidents and two recordable injuries this spring, the prime contractor has tried a “safety stand-down” for both surface and underground work at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, according to a safety board report. Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, made up of Bechtel and subcontractor Los Alamos Technical Associates, […]

The Department of Energy is turning to longtime federal hand Candice Robertson to oversee the Office of Environmental Management after President Joe Biden announced plans to nominate William (Ike) White to a federal nuclear safety board. The personnel move was announced Tuesday morning in a “colleagues” email to stakeholders from Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. […]

In a shift, Sam Brown, who seeks the U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), on Saturday said he opposed storing radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain. Yucca Mountain “should not, and will not, be revived as a nuclear waste repository,” reads a post dated May 25 on Brown’s account at the website X. […]

When pressed during a Senate hearing to say when the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state might be cleaned up, William (Ike) White, longtime DOE Environmental Management acting boss, said a “best-case” might be 2060. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who chairs the Senate Armed Forces Committee’s Strategic Forces subcommittee, appeared surprised by White’s […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Radiological Security and the European Commission’s Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs spoke at last week’s International Conference on Nuclear Security on securing radioactive sources, according to a joint press release. The joint statement between the two powers highlighted the need to prevent the use of radioactive […]

A bi-partisan, bi-cameral package of nuclear policy reforms that sailed through the House in May has stalled in the Senate, where at least one lawmaker has not consented to pass the bill without a roll call vote. As of Tuesday, no senator had publicly declared opposition to the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for […]

Here are some events related to civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. May: 29-30: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: Expert Panel Review of Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation of  Accident Tolerant Fuel Concepts. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Energy Science Center – 1005 Platinum  Room 3340 Stevens Drive, Richland, Wash. Agenda online. […]

The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday voted to keep legally binding  pit-production dates that the National Nuclear Security Administration does not believe it will meet. It was one of the few debates about nuclear weapons during Wednesday’s 12-hour markup of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, which the committee passed by 57-1 at about […]

The Battelle-led prime of the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory is shopping for a subcontractor to collect and ship sand contaminated with mercury to a Veolia waste facility in Gum Springs, Ark., from the Upton, N.Y., lab, according to a solicitation posted online Tuesday. Questions about the work are due by June 5 and […]

Early Wednesday, lawmakers approved an amendment to study use of a Nunn-McCurdy-type oversight process for the National Nuclear Security Administration.  In an uncontroversial en bloc amendment package to the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Rep. John Garamendi (R-Ca.) proposed that the Nunn-McCurdy Act requirement to keep Congress appraised of major spikes in project costs […]

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who has used his seat on the House Appropriations Committee to support funding for the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, has again won the GOP nomination to represent the state’s 2nd Congressional district. Simpson received over half the votes cast in Tuesday’s Republican primary, defeating two GOP challengers, the Idaho […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board wants the Department of Energy to brief it by mid-July on the new underground ventilation system being installed at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) Chair Joyce Connery requested a briefing on the continuous air monitoring system for the Safety Significant […]

Final cleanup of the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina should occur by fiscal 2065, an agency representative told the Citizens Advisory Board for the 310-square mile Tuesday. The 2065 timeline for final remediation, which matches the date listed in the fiscal 2025 budget justification for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, differs […]

Parsons Government Services has won a round before a federal contract board in a case alleging the Department of Energy owes it a $6 million incentive fee after deployment of the Salt Waste Processing Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The Civilian Board of Contract Appeals on May 10 dismissed DOE’s contention […]

Nuclear Waste Services recently put out the equivalent of a request for information for companies interested in building a deep geologic repository for nuclear waste in the United Kingdom. The repository, which Nuclear Waste Services calls a Geologic Disposal Facility, could be built under a future contract worth up to $1.6 billion over 10 or […]

A group of plaintiffs who claim they were wrongly fired by the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup contractor at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee after seeking religious exemptions from COVID-19 vaccination, are trying mediation to settle their lawsuit. The sides should know this week whether a settlement is in the cards, court papers show. […]

The House Armed Services Committee will mark up the National Defense Authorization Act on Wednesday, the same day the Senate Armed Services Committee plans a late hearing on the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons budget. The full-committee markup was scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Eastern time in the Rayburn House Office Building, room 2118. The Senate […]

A Department of Energy contractor at the West Valley Demonstration Project in western New York could send another shipment of legacy waste containers to Waste Control Specialists in Texas this summer, a DOE spokesperson said Monday. DOE announced in a press release last week that eight legacy waste containers, each weighing about 94,000 pounds, were […]

On Friday, the Missouri House passed a bill offering tax breaks to expand the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear-weapons-parts plant in Kansas City. “This is a huge economic benefit for Kansas City,” Rep. Chris Brown (R-Kansas City), who sponsored the bill alongside then-state-Sen. Greg Razer (D-Jackson County), told the Kansas City Star on Friday. The […]

The Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility in South Carolina is still falling short of Department of Energy production goals but that’s partly due to downtime at another waste facility, an advisory board heard Monday. The Salt Waste Processing Facility has processed 1.3 million gallons so far in 2024 and a total of 8.7 […]

The Department of Energy in June plans to solicit bids on a decade-long contract for acquiring domestic low-enriched uranium, the agency said recently in a procurement note. There would be multiple awards for the 10-year, $3.4 billion, indefinitely-quantity, indefinite-delivery deal, the agency wrote last week in a synopsis of its proposed solicitation. The agency did […]

After President Biden’s national security adviser met with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman this weekend, the Saudi foreign ministry said Sunday the Kingdom was close to finalizing a security deal with the U.S.  Official statements by the White House and the Kingdom did not say what the two sides discussed, but media, citing […]

Dallas-based Jacobs is hiring Venk Nathamuni, to be its new chief financial officer starting June 3, the international engineering and services company said in a press release. Nathamuni, who has more than 15 years of senior financial and management experience, will replace interim chief financial officer (CFO) Kevin Berryman. Berryman, a special adviser to Jacobs […]

Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian on Sunday died in a helicopter crash in northwest Iran, Iranian state media reported. The fatal crash happened about a month after Iran’s drone-and-missile attack against Israel and only weeks after the head of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy visited Iran in an attempt […]

A federal judge in eastern Washington has scheduled a September 2025 jury trial in the Department of Justice’s case accusing a Leidos-led joint venture of false billing for fire prevention work at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site. Barring settlement or good cause for delay, U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian plans to commence the trial […]