Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

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 […]

A panel of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said last week it need not hear oral arguments in order to make a ruling in a case involving the Department of Energy’s COVID-19 vaccination policy at the Hanford Site in Washington state. “The court is of the unanimous opinion that […]

After delaying the decision late last month, a Senate committee was scheduled Wednesday to decide whether to recommend Jeffrey Baran for another five years as a commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee had planned to vote on Baran’s renomination during a May 31 business meeting but did not, […]

Members of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee are proposing to withhold funding for retirement of the W76-2 warhead unless the military and National Nuclear Security Administration can prove there is no need for the lower-yield submarine-launched weapon. The proposal is included in the subcommittee’s markup of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), […]

California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control could start taking public comments as early as this fall on groundwater cleanup for the Department of Energy’s area of the sprawling Santa Susana Field Laboratory, according to a report released Thursday. The California Agency on Thursday issued its long-awaited Final Program Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) for the 2,850-acre […]

Last week’s breach of the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine threatens the stability of the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest, by draining a critical source of coolant water, the International Atomic Energy Agency said last weekend.  The breach of the dam early on June 6 caused a rapid drop in the water levels of […]

The Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce, which takes an active interest in the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in McCracken County, Ky., has been awarded a $2-million grant to study future use of the agency’s gaseous diffusion plant. The $2-million financial assistance act, consistent with the fiscal 2023 federal budget, will go toward community studies […]

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories have successfully performed a second joint abnormal thermal environment test for the W80-4 Life Extension Program, the labs recently announced.  Carried out April 5 at Sandia’s Cross Wind Test Facility in New Mexico, this abnormal thermal environment test, or ATE-2, was a fast-heat, fully engulfing system-level fuel […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. 11-14: Annual Meeting, American Nuclear Society. Marriott Indianapolis Downtown. Indianapolis, Ind. Those who wish to attend may register online. 13: Conference: Energy, Technology and Environmental Business Association (ETEBA) 2023 Savannah River Federal Business Opportunities Forum. Crowne […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV — Spurred by audience members and a moderator, a pair of radioactive-waste-disposal professionals critiqued the nearly 40 year-old U.S. low-level radioactive waste compacts here on Wednesday. “There’s no continuity here between the compacts,” John McCormick, founder and vice president of Bionomics, Inc., Oak Ridge, Tenn., said here at the Exchange Monitor’s annual RadWaste […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted one-time approval for the Department of Energy to return a problem container of transuranic waste with expired paperwork to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant parking lot in New Mexico. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission authorized the return in a June 2 letter […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Information Management has plans to establish a $6.4 million information technology center to consolidate two existing facilities in the Washington, D.C. area.  The NNSA began modernizing its information technology (IT) facilities with its fiscal year 2022 budget in order to establish data center space and “increase capacity for […]

Washington and Oregon officials agreed Tuesday that concrete-like grout could be used instead of glass to solidify a significant portion of Hanford’s radioactive liquid waste, as long as the grouted waste is taken off-site. Suzanne Dahl, tank waste manager for the Washington Ecology Department and Matt Hendrickson, her counterpart at the Oregon Department of Energy, […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV. — The manager of the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad, N.M., field office expects the major new ventilation system for the transuranic waste disposal site could start up sometime in 2024. “Preliminary commissioning” work on the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System should start this calendar year, said Mark Bollinger, who heads the Carlsbad Field […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV. — By June 30, the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office expects to provide the Texas attorney general with a “detailed schedule” for retrieving boxes of transuranic waste stranded at a private disposal site in Andrews County for nearly a decade. In a May 10 letter to Phillip Ledbetter, managing enforcement lawyer with […]