Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

While it is hardly a secret that Department of Energy weapons complex sites are badly in need of fresh blood to compensate for a wave of retirements, a recent analysis by a contractor group quantifies the scope of the situation. The Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG), which holds its annual meeting in Washington, D.C., later […]

Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions is exploring the idea of using the shuttered Kewaunee Nuclear Generating Station in Wisconsin and some of its other decommissioning sites as potential locations for future new nuclear power sites. “We are in the early phases of exploring the use of EnergySolutions -owned former nuclear sites such as Kewaunee,” for new […]

The Department of Energy last week gave feedback to contractors on its expectations for a national small business procurement for nuclear cleanup, a solicitation where bids are now due July 10. In the latest batch of questions and answers for the Small Business Nationwide Deactivation, Decommissioning and Removal procurement, DOE’s cleanup office fielded inquiries on […]

Employees suing Consolidated Nuclear Security over allegedly withheld wages responded late last week to the company’s request that a court throw the case out, again arguing that the contractor shorted them a paycheck in 2017.  Plaintiffs James Myers, James Young and Douglas Messerli have so far been unsuccessful in certifying a class action lawsuit on […]

The Department of Energy favors continued reliance on Mother Nature, with monitoring and other steps, to clean up groundwater within large chunks of the former uranium enrichment property at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, a federal advisory committee heard last Wednesday. Largely leaving the contamination alone and checking it regularly to “attenuate” or reduce […]

New York state lawmakers were set to convene for a special session on Tuesday that will include consideration of a bill prohibiting discharge of irradiated wastewater into the Hudson River. The bill, S06893, would make it “unlawful to discharge any radiological substance into the Hudson River in connection with the decommissioning of a nuclear power […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 28 shipments of transuranic waste during May, according to its website. Twenty shipments during the month came from the Idaho National Laboratory, four from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, three from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and one […]

The Department of Energy is wagging its enforcement finger at Honeywell, which manages five of its nuclear security sites, for conducting firearms training for security personnel in sweltering heat at the Kansas City National Security Campus.  On May 11, 2022, when it was 85 degrees outside, Honeywell conducted outdoor firearms training and qualification activities at […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. June 21 – House Armed Services Committee. Full committee markup of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2118. Washington. Streamed online on the comittee’s website. 10 a.m.  21-22 – Energy […]

Georgia-based NAC International, a provider of nuclear fuel services and  products, said Monday it has bought Niagara Energy Products, which will become a Canadian subsidiary of NAC. Niagara Energy Products, based in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, supplies nuclear containers and pressure boundary components for the nuclear energy, defense, natural resource extraction industries and Industrial markets […]

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will not be published on Monday in observance of the Juneteenth holiday. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Tuesday, June 20, 2023.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has given the go-ahead for Centrus to demonstrate production of high assay low-enriched uranium at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Regional Administrator Laura Dudes on June 12 wrote Mathew Snider, general manager of American Centrifuge Operating, to officially authorize the introduction of uranium […]

Some House Democrats told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a hearing Wednesday that development of new nuclear power plants should be yoked to development of a permanent nuclear waste storage facility. In the same hearing of the House Energy and Commerce energy, climate and grid security subcommittee, another Democrat, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), urged the […]

A House Appropriations panel wants to give the federal government’s independent safety watchdog for nuclear weapon sites almost as much money as the White House requested, a bill published Wednesday shows. On Wednesday, the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee chaired by Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn), released its draft budget plan Wednesday that would […]

A House Appropriations panel led by a lawmaker with a local interest in the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee would keep nuclear cleanup spending roughly $8.3 billion in fiscal 2024, according to a draft budget bill released Wednesday. That is about flat compared with the 2023 appropriation, and while numbers don’t change […]

Civilian nuclear weapons programs would get a little more funding than requested in fiscal year 2024 if a budget bill released Wednesday by a House panel becomes law. The House Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water’s version of the fiscal 2024 spending bill provides $48.8 billion for the Department of Energy (DOE), $133 million more […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would receive its requested budget for fiscal year 2024, under a Republican-authored spending bill unveiled Wednesday in the House. The civilian nuclear power and waste regulator would get about $979.2 million for the budget year beginning Oct. 1 if the bill, written by the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee, […]

By the thinnest partisan margin, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday confirmed Jeffrey Baran for another term as a commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In a business meeting, the Democrat-controlled committee voted 10-9 on party lines to send Baran’s nomination to the Senate floor for a final vote. The full Senate […]

Christopher Leichtweis, the president and CEO of Idaho Falls-based North Wind Group, plans to leave the company by the end of the year, the company announced Tuesday. Leichtweis, who has led the Department of Energy contractor since 2013, will remain on through Dec. 31, “to ensure a smooth and orderly transition,” North Wind said in […]

All five commissioners of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were set to appear Wednesday for an oversight hearing before a House subcommittee. The hearing, “Oversight of NRC: Ensuring Efficient and Predictable Nuclear Safety Regulation for a Prosperous America,” was scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Eastern time before the House Energy and Commerce energy, climate and grid security […]

The Department of Energy’s $45-billion liquid waste contract awarded in April for the Hanford Site in Washington state “was improper and is set aside,” a federal judge said in a public one-page document Tuesday. “Performance of the contract is enjoined,” U.S.  Court of Federal Claims Judge Marian Blank Horn said of the Integrated Tanks Contract […]

A House committee’s first draft of an annual defense policy bill would increase funding for plutonium pit production, a controversial sea-launched cruise missile warhead and other nuclear weapons modernization programs.  While House Armed Services subcommittees, including the strategic forces subcommittee, were debating their versions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Tuesday, the full […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has not been aggressive enough in cleaning up a hexavalent chromium plume within the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the head of the New Mexico Environment Department said last week. DOE and its contractors “have denied New Mexicans and tribal members timely and effective clean-up of hexavalent chromium […]

The five remaining plaintiffs who sued, and then seemingly settled, a lawsuit over the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s COVID-19 vaccination policy decided to stick with suing the lab. “The parties wish to report to the Court that they were unable to resolve this case through mediation,” and will resume active litigation, lawyers for the lab […]

The New York state legislature could return to Albany for a special session, during which the body’s state Assembly could take up a bill passed by the state Senate that would ban discharge of irradiated water into the Hudson River.  The local Albany Times Union reported over the weekend that lawmakers in the Assembly could […]

A federal judge on Monday abruptly dismissed a losing bidder’s lawsuit over a $45-billion Department of Energy contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state. According to an online notice, an “order of dismissal” was issued under seal by U.S.  Court of Federal Claims Judge Marian Blank Horn in a bid protest brought by an […]