Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Lynchburg, Va., -based BWX Technologies said Wednesday it has promoted Ronald (Chip) Whitford, Jr., to a senior vice president post succeeding Thomas McCabe, who will retire from the nuclear company this summer. Effective this week, Whitford is now senior vice president, general counsel, chief compliance officer and corporate secretary, BWXT said in a press release. […]

The 118th Congress that began Tuesday was set to bring with it a few changes to Congressional representation for the states, regions and cities hosting Department of Energy nuclear-weapon sites. In the Senate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), an author with no political experience and an avowed ally of former President Donald Trump (R) succeeded the […]

In a majority opinion, a panel of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found President Joe Biden overstepped his authority by using the Procurement Act to require virtually all federal contract workers be vaccinated against COVID-19. “The President asks this Court to ratify an exercise of proprietary authority that would […]

The fiscal 2023 omnibus budget that the 117th Congress passed just before adjourning before Christmas includes $20 million for replacement of a middle school that closed in May 2019 due to concern over radiological contamination from the Department of Energy’s adjacent Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio. The $20 million toward replacement of the Zahns Corner […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to award Converdyn a five-year, sole-source contract to convert triuranium octoxide into uranium hexafluoride as part of a new federal uranium stockpiling program. Converdyn, a Metropolis, Ill., partnership of Honeywell and General atomics, operates the only U.S.-based conversion facility capable of turning triuranium octoxide into uranium hexafluoride, the National […]

Jacobs-led Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership won 69% of its discretionary fee for cleanup work at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky during fiscal 2022, an improvement from its performance in fiscal 2021. Overall the contractor claimed 80% of its total potential award fee for 2022, according to an agency scorecard dated Dec. 28. […]

Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services earned 93% of its overall fee and roughly three-quarters of its subjective fee during fiscal 2022 under its depleted uranium hexafluoride contract at gaseous diffusion plants in Ohio and Kentucky, the Department of Energy said. The contractor won $1.7 million out of a potential $2.3 million or 74% of its subjective […]

The Department of Energy’s Fluor-led cleanup contractor for the Portsmouth Site in Ohio pocketed 93%, or $14 million, of $15 million in overall available fees in the second half of fiscal 2022, according to a scorecard released by the agency Dec. 28. Fluor‐BWXT Portsmouth took home all of the available $10.54 million in performance-based fees […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. 05: Meeting: The Portsmouth Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board meets at 6 p.m. Eastern Time.

The legacy cleanup contractor at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico won 70% of its subjective fee and 77% of its overall fee during fiscal 2022. Newport News Nuclear BWXT (N3B) won about $7.2 million out of a potential $9.3 million for the 12-month period ended Sept. 30. The DOE […]

Nuclear services company Holtec International unveiled Tuesday its newest device for dismantling nuclear reactor components, which is already in use at a shuttered New York nuclear power plant, according to a press release. Holtec’s “innovative segmentation technology,” dubbed HI-CUT in the company’s Tuesday press release, is designed to “improve the efficacy of dismantling radiation-hardened and […]

The Department of Energy was set to fine Sandia National Laboratories more than $200,000 for allowing unauthorized electronic equipment into secure areas of the lab’s main campus in Albuquerque, N.M., two years ago, the agency said Friday. The agency’s Office of Enterprise Assessments hit lab prime National Engineering and Technology Solutions of Sandia (NTESS) with […]

As planned, C. Michael Petters will end his time with Huntington Ingalls Industries on Dec. 31, sweeping away one of the final vestiges of the company’s past as Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding. Petters joined the company then known as Newport News shipbuilding in 1987, eventually rising to become president of Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding and president of […]

Congress passed and President Joe Biden (D) on Friday signed an appropriations bill that sets the Department of Energy’s fiscal year 2023 budget at $46.2 billion and provides year-over-year raises for nuclear weapons and nuclear-weapons cleanup programs that exceed the White House’s request. The bill also provides close to the requested funding for civilian nuclear […]

Idaho Environmental Coalition won 86% of its subjective fee and 94% of its total potential fee for five months of cleanup work in 2022 at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, including preparing a nuclear waste treatment plant for startup. Idaho Environmental Coalition, which took over from Fluor Idaho on the Idaho Cleanup Project […]

The company decommissioning a shuttered Vermont nuclear power plant ran slightly afoul of federal guidelines for such facilities, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a recent letter. A November inspection at Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station revealed a regulations violation of “very low security significance,” NRC told plant operator NorthStar in its letter, dated Dec. […]

The New Mexico Environment Department on Tuesday kicked off a 60-day comment period on a 10-year permit renewal for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, with the state fighting the federal government’s attempt to keep the mine’s closure date open-ended. The DOE has said it needs the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) to […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission met recently with Holtec International to discuss the agency’s concerns about the company’s proposed use of a shuttered New York nuclear power plant’s dedicated decommissioning fund, a regulatory filing shows. According to a summary of NRC’s Nov. 2 call with Holtec, published Monday, the nuclear services company gave the agency a […]

A Veolia affiliate has started operating its new GeoMelt vitrification facility in Andrews County, Texas that will be used to convert certain low-level radioactive wastes into a solid glass form, according to a Tuesday press release. In June, Veolia Nuclear Solutions Federal Service formally dedicated the GeoMelt facility at the Waste Control Specialists site in […]

The Nevada National Security Site plans to allow subcritical experiment packages back onto the hoist leading to the U1a underground experimental complex in the spring, a site spokesperson said Wednesday. After an active desert monsoon season in August and September, the Nevada site discovered some muck at the bottom of the entrance shaft to the […]

The long-running, closed-door talks between Washington state and federal agencies over future cleanup of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site are continuing, a Washington state Department of Ecology spokesman said Tuesday. “Holistic negotiations are still ongoing,” Ryan Miller, communications manager for Ecology said in a Tuesday email response to an Exchange Monitor inquiry. “The parties […]

Right in time for Christmas, the National Nuclear Security Administration put Nuclear Fuel Services under contract to produce uranium metal for nuclear weapons programs, according to a procurement note published Monday. The agency’s announcement Monday moves Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS), a BWX Technologies subsidiary in Erwin, Tenn., into new work on the sole-source contract the […]

The outgoing prime contractor for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., earned 66% of its subjective fee and about 72% of its total potential fee for its work during fiscal 2022, according to a fee scorecard released Tuesday. In a Dec. 20 letter to Nuclear Waste Partnership’s president and project […]

Thanks to emergency funding from Congress, the Department of Energy’s civilian nuclear power program will get about what the White House asked for in 2023 under a proposed spending plan unveiled by congressional appropriators early Tuesday morning. Under usual 2023 appropriations, DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) should get around $1.5 billion from the spending […]