Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

During a federal appeals court hearing Tuesday on mandatory COVID-19 vaccination for most federal employees, the Department of Justice attorney said a federal district judge was wrong to shut down the policy spawned by a September 2021 executive order just as an administrative board was about to start ruling on requests for exemptions.  Charles Scarborough, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration still awaits the all-clear from the Pentagon to begin mass refurbishment of its arsenal of B61 gravity bombs and W88 submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead, an agency spokesperson said Wednesday. The agency finished proof-of-concept versions of the refurbished weapons last year and had planned to begin mass production of the refurbed […]

Department of Energy contractor Parsons Corp. has been awarded a potential five-year contract worth up to $160 million for enterprise construction management services for DOE and its semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, the company said last week. The contract is a blanket purchase agreement with a one-year base period with four single-year options, the company […]

Cleanup contractor Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) last week began excavating corrugated metal pipes containing radioactive waste buried at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, a spokesperson confirmed Tuesday. Retrieval of the corrugated metal pipes began Sept. 8 as part of a project that could last into March 2024, the spokesperson said […]

Nuclear services company Orano Federal Services and environmental services contractor Spectra Tech created a joint-venture company to pursue small business set-aside contracts, the two said in a joint press release. The new joint venture, dubbed Spectrano, will “leverage its history of performance at federal sites across the country,” Orano said in the Wednesday release. The […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission planned to hold a predecisional enforcement conference at agency headquarters in Rockville, Md., on Sept. 22 as part of a continuing investigation of a fatal fire BWX Technologies’ Lynchburg, Va., facility in 2020. The commission announced the planned meeting in a notice dated Monday and posted online. No one from BWX […]

A draft site-wide environmental impact statement for the Los Alamos National Laboratory should appear in the summer or fall of 2023, the National Nuclear Security Administration said Tuesday in the first of two scheduled public scoping meetings about the extensive environmental review of the nuclear weapons lab. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency planned […]

The Department of Energy may notify the first awardees in its multi-billion-dollar nuclear plant bailout in early fall, an agency spokesperson said Tuesday. DOE, which stopped accepting applications Sep. 6 for its roughly $6 billion civil nuclear credits program, “will announce any conditional awards as soon as 30 days after the deadline,” an agency spokesperson […]

The second and larger of two nearly round-the-clock mining projects in Nevada to expand the main U.S. zero-yield, nuclear-weapon test site should wrap up in 2026, the National Nuclear Security Administration said this week. The agency approved the final design for the U1a Complex Enhancement Project (UCEP) 20 subproject June 23, about a week before […]

The state of New Mexico was scheduled to present its case against a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel to a panel of judges before Thanksgiving, court documents show. Santa Fe’s lawsuit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which aims to block two proposed private interim storage sites in New Mexico and Texas, is […]

The South Carolina factory that serves as one of the pillars of U.S. nuclear weapons maintenance received a 40-year license extension from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency said Monday. The Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility, whose main business is making uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors, was cleared to operate through Sept. 12, 2062. […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received at least 23 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during August, according to the public website. That’s far more than the seven received at the underground salt mine during August 2021. The increased number of shipments during the past month means the Waste Isolation […]

The West Valley Demonstration Project, a nuclear cleanup site 35 miles south of Buffalo, N.Y., will again have a congressional member in the House of Representatives effective Tuesday, albeit a short timer. Republican Joe Sempolinski will be sworn in Tuesday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to represent the 23rd congressional district of New York, […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday proposed a series of amendments to its regulations for packaging and transporting radioactive material, which the agency said would bring its oversight in line with international standards. The proposed changes, which NRC announced in a Federal Register notice Monday, are aimed at “harmonization with the International Atomic Energy Agency […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. September 13: En banc hearing, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.  Feds for Medical Freedom, Et Al. v. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Et Al. (case concerning President Joe Biden’s mandate that federal employers receive […]

The governor of Michigan late last week announced that the company in charge of decommissioning a recently-shuttered nuclear power plant had applied for a federal bailout to restart the facility, according to a press release. Holtec International, which officially took ownership of Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in June from former operator Entergy, has submitted a […]

The entire Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is poised to hear oral arguments Tuesday on whether President Joe Biden’s administration exceeded its authority by requiring that most federal employees get vaccinated against COVID-19. The Fifth Circuit has a livestream link where the public can listen to the hearing in real time although the livestream […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Legacy Management, long-term custodian of 101 previously contaminated sites cleaned up by other federal entities, expects to see its portfolio nearly double over time, a top administrator said last week. The Office of Legacy Management will take charge of 20 more sites over the next five years, Jay Glascock, […]

ARLIGNTON, VA — Though some in the U.S. government feel Russia will rely increasingly on non-conventional and nuclear arms, including tactical nuclear weapons, that does not make a case for continuing development of a low-yield, sea-launched nuclear cruise missile, a Pentagon official said here Wednesday. The sea-launched nuclear cruise missile (SLCM-N), with its W80-4 variant […]

Two megadollar Department of Energy nuclear cleanup contracts, together potentially worth more than $50 billion, could be awarded by early 2023, a top Office of Environmental Management procurement executive told a gathering in Santa Fe, N.M., Wednesday. The Integrated Tank Disposition Contract for the Hanford Site in Washington state and the Decontamination and Decommissioning Contract […]

More than a year after President Joe Biden announced the effort, much of the Department of Energy’s weapons complex is struggling to understand the particulars of the Justice40 Initiative if comments Wednesday by nuclear cleanup advisory board chairs are any indication. In broad terms, Justice40 was set up by Biden’s July 2021 Executive Order 14008, […]

Richard Tighe will be the president and chief executive officer of the Bectel-led Consolidated Nuclear Security, prime contractor of the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., the company announced Wednesday. Tighe replaces Bill Tindall, who retired in July. Gene Sievers, Gene Sievers, site manager for Y-12, […]

The owner of California’ last operating nuclear power plant last week bid for a chunk of federal bailout cash to help the facility’s twin reactors running, a utility spokesperson said Wednesday. Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) on Friday applied for a portion of the $6 billion in civilian nuclear power credits administered by the federal […]

The Senate may not pass its big defense policy bill before voters decide who controls Congress in November’s midterm elections, the head of the chamber’s Armed Services Committee said Wednesday at an industry conference. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) is “pushing hard” to get the chamber’s 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed before lawmakers bill […]

In one of its first public field hearings since before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board will review operations at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico this November. During a Nov. 16 session in Santa Fe, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) will look into both […]