Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The Senate Armed Service Committee’s version of the fiscal 2024 defense authorization bill includes $24.1 billion for nuclear defense programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration, almost exactly in line with a House committee’s version of the bill.  The Senate Armed Services Committee on Friday said its version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) […]

Despite occasional glitches, a $1.4-billion plant to solidify liquid sodium-bearing radioactive waste at the Idaho National Laboratory has processed 21,000 gallons during its first two-and-a-half months of regular operations, the Department of Energy said Friday. Since starting radiological operations April 11, the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) has had “intermittent pauses to perform various pre-planned […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission could be down to four commissioners come Friday, when Commissioner Jeffrey Baran’s term will expire and the Senate out of town until July 10. Baran’s nomination remained on the Senate’s executive calendar as of Monday, but lawmakers returned home Thursday for their annual July 4 recess and were not scheduled to […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. 28: Meeting: The Department of Energy Environmental Management Citizens Advisory Board for Northern New Mexico and its Citizens Advisory Board’s Consent Order subcommittee will hold a virtual meeting starting at 12 p.m. Mountain Time. To obtain […]

Randall Hendrickson, a former senior executive with the U.S. federal government, is now a vice president for Atkins Nuclear Secured in Canada, an Atkins spokesperson confirmed by email. Hendrickson joined Atkins in late April and is at the Chalk River location of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories as a vice president for business management, the Atkins spokesperson […]

The House Armed Services Committee on Thursday approved its version of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which includes allowing the Department of Energy to spend up to $7.5 billion on Defense Environmental cleanup. The committee approved the bill early Thursday after a long markup and debate that began on Wednesday. Defense Environmental is the […]

Early Thursday, a House committee approved a bill to cap National Nuclear Security Administration spending in 2024 at about $23.8 billion and blocked a plan to repeal legal deadlines to make new nuclear weapon cores. The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) would also approve $70 million to fund development of a sea-launched variant of […]

New York’s governor had yet to decide whether she would sign a bill, passed Monday by the state legislature, that would punish anyone who discharges irradiated water into the Hudson River. The bill, S06893, passed the General Assembly 101-44 on the first day of a special session of the bicameral legislature’s lower chamber, where Democrats […]

Brad Smith has replaced Kim Lebak as president and general manager of the legacy waste cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Lebak is heading back to Huntington Ingalls Industries, the corporate parent of the team’s lead partner. Lebak shared the news herself in letters on June 5 and June […]

The House Armed Services Committee was set Wednesday to begin its annual marathon markup of the bill that sets spending ceilings and defense policies for the coming fiscal year. Committee debate of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was to begin at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time on Capitol Hill in Washington in room 2118 […]

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 […]