Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

If it became law, the White House’s 2023 budget proposal for the Department of Energy’s nuclear power portfolio would include an increase in nuclear fuel cycle research, according to a budget document published Tuesday. Of the roughly $422 million proposed for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) fuel cycle research and development program, around $20 […]

Two decommissioning companies engaged in legal sparring over the proposed sale of a Wisconsin nuclear power plant are debating whether a state commission should be able to rule on the financial terms of the transaction, recent documents show. In a Monday filing with the Wisconsin Public Service Commission (WPSC), EnergySolutions pushed back on competitor NorthStar’s […]

After a probe, the Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General could not substantiate claims of cheating and other problems with Bechtel’s substance abuse program at the Waste Treatment Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state. “Specifically, we found that management had taken several actions to address drug-related concerns,” the Office of Inspector General […]

The story “NRC Decom Budget Request Up Slightly for 2023,” [Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, March 29, 2022], should have said that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s total funding for fiscal 2022 was $887.7 million.

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Office of Counterterrorism and Counterproliferation, or NA-80, recently embarked on the second and final phase of a refresh for its Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST) air fleet: planes and helicopters the agency uses domestically to gather data about potential or suspected nuclear accidents, incidents and — in a worst […]

While the Joe Biden administration’s 2023 budget request would trim spending at the Hanford Site in Washington state relative to the omnibus 2022 budget passed in early March, other major cleanup sites would get year-over-year increases if Congress enacts the request. According to a Department of Energy budget in brief published Tuesday, the Richland Operations […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration has requested a roughly 60% increase in fiscal year 2023 for the part of its budget that funds the rebuilding of critical nuclear-weapons production infrastructure including plutonium pits, a Department of Energy document published Tuesday shows. The semiautonomous DOE nuclear-weapons agency seeks some $4.6 billion for Production Modernization in fiscal […]

If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s budget request for the 2023 fiscal year is approved by Congress, the agency’s nuclear decommissioning oversight activities would get a small increase, according to budget justification documents published Monday. NRC’s request for its decommissioning and low-level waste segment was around $24 million for fiscal 2023, according to budget tables the […]

Centrus Energy was to have its new enrichment cascade for high assay low-enriched uranium ready to start up by Thursday, according to recent regulatory filings by the Bethesda, Md., company. The uranium fuel broker and enrichment technology developer appended a letter contract with the Department of Energy to its latest 10-K filing with the Securities […]

While the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state would receive a haircut under the fiscal 2023 budget request rolled out Monday by President Joe Biden’s administration, a citizen group leader expects Congress will beef up the cleanup appropriation for the former plutonium production facility. Funding for the Richland Operations Office would be $818 […]

The new liquid waste contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is taking over the Salt Waste Processing Facility, an agency spokesperson confirmed Monday. The transition to BWX Technologies-led Savannah River Mission Completion from Parsons Government Services, which built and started up the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF), is beginning […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons budget would get a small bump for fiscal year 2023 while its nuclear waste budgets would fall a little year-over-year, under a White House budget proposal released Monday. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would receive about $21.5 billion for fiscal year 2023, some $750 million more than the […]

The Department of Energy is looking for someone within the agency to run the Office of Nuclear Energy’s spent nuclear fuel programs, according to an internal job listing obtained Friday by Exchange Monitor. According to the posting, DOE is hiring a 120-day detail for the Senior Executive Service (SES) position of assistant secretary for spent […]

The Joe Biden administration was scheduled to release preliminary details about its fiscal year 2023 budget request on Monday, including top-line requests for defense and civilian nuclear programs at the Department of Energy. The annual budget rollout marks the start of the spring and summer negotiating season between the White House and Congress. Lawmakers traditionally […]

As of March 9, 427 intermodal containers filled with radiologically-contaminated soil or debris had been shipped to EnergySolutions from the Balance of Site Facilities cleanup at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York, a contractor representative told the West Valley Citizen Task Force meeting last week. Kelly Wooley, deputy general manager for the West […]

A Hanford occupational health contractor agreed to pay almost $3 million in restitution and penalties for false financial statements that enabled it to obtain a COVID-related loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration, which was later forgiven. The loan ended up in the personal bank accounts of the owners of HPMCorp., Holly and Grover Cleveland […]

Anne Marie White, the last Senate-confirmed assistant secretary for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, is opening a new distillery in her hometown in Michigan. White and Scott Anderson, another longtime hand on the old DOE weapons complex, will soon open “The Honorable Distillery” in a renovated movie theater in downtown Marquette, Mich., […]

A regulatory domino fell Thursday at the plant where Westinghouse fabricates tritium producing burnable absorber rods for the National Nuclear Security Administration, clearing the way for cleanup of contaminated disposal lagoons on the South Carolina property. On Thursday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued an exemption to commission regulations clearing U.S. Ecology to accept waste from […]

Members of the Hanford Advisory Board said Wednesday they should have a voice in the Department of Energy’s plans to diversify the panel that provides policy recommendations on cleanup of the Hanford Site in Washington state. During an online meeting of the Hanford Advisory Board (HAB), many members said they want to provide input on […]

The federal government must prioritize changing U.S. nuclear waste law as it eyes a spent fuel storage solution, a community stakeholders group said during a panel discussion Wednesday. Amending the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) is “one of the things that needs to happen” before the federal government can move forward on interim storage, Kara […]

Department of Energy and Washington state Department of Ecology managers reassured the Hanford Advisory Board Wednesday their agencies remain interested in the Test Bed Initiative to grout 2,000 gallons of low-activity tank waste that would be shipped out of state. Brian Vance, the DOE’s manager for the Hanford Site, expects the Nuclear Regulation Commission to […]

Public input about the Department of Energy’s proposed consent-based siting process for a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel could be published by March 31, an agency official said Wednesday. A full collection of responses DOE received as part of its November request for information (RFI) should be available “by the end of […]

After a recent hearing on the proposed sale of a Wisconsin nuclear power plant, decommissioning hopeful NorthStar renewed calls last week for the state to reject the transaction, according to public filings. EnergySolutions’ proposal to purchase Kewaunee Power Station from Dominion Energy “may be the worst proposal ever put before” the Wisconsin Public Service Commission […]

New Mexico’s attorney general moved his fight against commercial interim storage to an appeals court after a District Court threw out his first challenge to the site in early March, according to recent court documents. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has until May 9 to respond to state Attorney General Hector Balderas’s most recent arguments against […]

UCOR, the Amentum-Jacobs partnership in charge of remediation at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, earned 98% of total potential fee or $24.7 million, during a seven-month period ended Oct. 31, according to a scorecard released this week. The contractor, being succeeded by a joint venture made up of Amentum, Jacobs and […]