Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Ex-government officials on Tuesday urged the Senate Armed Services Committee to support continued modernization of U.S. nuclear weapons and production infrastructure in the face of a rising China and a hostile Russia.  Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chair of the committee that sets policy for defense agencies including the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said the […]

California’s last operating nuclear power plant, slated for closure until recently, produced nearly a tenth of California’s total electricity supply last year, the government’s independent energy auditor said Monday. Diablo Canyon Power Plant generated more than 16,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity, around 8%, of California’s 2021 electricity reserves, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a […]

The Department of Energy and the state of Tennessee have agreed to devote $42 million to address natural resource damages around the 32,000-acre Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, according to a recently-published assessment. The state and federal agencies that serve as the trustees for natural resources at the Oak Ridge Site have agreed in principle […]

FirstEnergy CEO Steven Strah retired without warning at roughly the same time that an internal management review related to the corporation’s 2019 bribery scandal was completed. The company provided no information on the timing of the retirement. In a press release Sept. 15 FirstEnergy said John W. Somerhalder II, chairman of FirstEnergy’s board of directors, […]

The Department of Energy has suspended centralized collection of weekly COVID-19 summary information from its labs, plants, and nuclear cleanup sites, a spokesperson with the agency’s Office of Environmental Management said Monday. “Most DOE locations are at a low COVID-19 transmission rate in accordance with CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] Community Levels,” the […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was scheduled this week to host a public meeting to discuss decommissioning plans for a recently-shuttered nuclear power plant in Michigan, according to the agency’s schedule. The NRC meeting, which will be held in-person Thursday at Lake Michigan College in South Haven, Mich., will allow members of the public to comment […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration removed a tranche of weapon useable plutonium from the Nevada National Security Site after a roughly three-year layover, Nevada’s senior U.S. Senator said Friday. The nuclear weapons agency moved the plutonium to the test site in 2018 after the state of South Carolina successfully sued the government for keeping the […]

A lawsuit over mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee is apparently being revived after plaintiffs and the defendant prime contractor failed to agree on final details of a settlement proposal put forward in June. After agreeing June 8 to a draft settlement agreement from mediator Chad […]

The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers expects to solicit bids by the end of October for a small business to build a viewing platform next to a museum at the old K-25 gaseous diffusion plant grounds at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The Nashville District of the US Army Corps of […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. 20: Hearing, Senate Armed Services Committee. Hearing, “To receive testimony on United States Nuclear Strategy and Policy.” Witnesses are former government officials. Hart Senate Office Building, room SH-216. 9:30 a.m. Eastern time. Streaming online.  22: Decommissioning […]

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 […]