Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Advisory Board will stick around for at least two more years, according to a Federal Register notice published last week. The advisory board is being renewed for a two-year period that began Jan. 14, according to the Jan. 21 notice, which said the action is taken under the Federal […]

Less than a week after moving to get ahead of allegations that its award of a multi-billion-dollar sites operations contract was tainted by conflicts of interest and impropriety, the National Nuclear Security Administration had made no sudden moves to restart the year-long competition to find the next manager of its two main nuclear-weapon manufacturing plants. […]

An audit of FirstEnergy Corp.’s additional charges to Ohio customers from 2017 to 2019 could not confirm that the money was used to improve the state’s power grid, as intended.  Nor could the audit prove that the money went to bribe the Ohio House’s former speaker and other state lawmakers, who rammed a controversial nuclear-related […]

Savannah River Remediation, the outgoing, Amentum-led liquid waste contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, took home about $43.8 million, or 98%, of a potential $44.6 million fee during fiscal 2021, according to a scorecard released by the agency this week. Savannah River Remediation (SRR), which includes Amentum, Bechtel, Jacobs […]

Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the prime in charge of the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, garnered an “excellent” scorecard from the feds and took home about $38.8 million, or 96%, of its potential fee for the last 10 months of fiscal 2021. Meanwhile, Battelle Savannah River Alliance, the new spinoff […]

Kathryn Huff is a step closer to removing ‘acting’ from her title as assistant secretary of the Department of Energy’s nuclear energy office, as the Joe Biden administration nominated her to take over the position full-time Wednesday. If confirmed by the Senate, Huff will take over the Office of Nuclear Energy’s (NE) head chair, which […]

Three of the Department of Energy’s national laboratories are participating in an international survey aimed at testing the long-term effectiveness of safety systems that could be used in the storage of high-level radioactive waste, according to a press release Tuesday. Lawrence Berkeley, Sandia and Los Alamos (LANL) National Laboratories are working alongside Swiss national rad […]

Civilian reactors in Tennessee notionally will sharply increase their output of tritium for U.S. nuclear weapons by the fall of 2024 to help the National Nuclear Security Administration produce its desired 2,800 grams of tritium annually during the government fiscal year that begins around that time, officials said Wednesday morning. If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission […]

The final numbers for December confirm 2021 was a bounce-back year of sorts for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, which disposed of 21 more shipments of transuranic waste than during its first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., received 20 shipments […]

The former head of the Department of Energy’s nuclear energy office is headed to the C-Suite of Westinghouse Electric, the company announced Tuesday. Rita Baranwal, assistant secretary for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) from July 2019 to January 2021, was appointed chief technology officer at Westinghouse, according to a press release dated Tuesday. In […]

A U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge was scheduled to hear oral arguments next month on whether Kentucky-based Swift & Staley is too large to qualify for the Department of Energy’s three-year, $160-million small business set-aside contract for Infrastructure Support Services at the Paducah Site in Kentucky. Judge Thompson Dietz planned to hear arguments Feb. […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security has nearly installed all the glove boxes for a new uranium purification process at the Y-12 National Security Complex and hot commissioning should start early next year, a spokesperson said recently. Site prime Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) put the electrorefining glove boxes and related equipment into Building 9215 last year, though installation […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s chief executive manager is retiring from the agency after nearly 40 years of service, the commission said in a press release last week. Annette Vietti-Cook, who became NRC’s secretary in 1982, is retiring from her role effective this spring, according to a press release dated Jan. 11. Brooke Clark, NRC’s deputy […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to address a perceived conflict of interest, raised by a Bechtel National-led team, about the agency’s November award of a potentially decade-long sites-management contract to a Fluor-led team, according to a letter from the Government Accountability Office. On Friday, at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) request, a source […]

Most staffers with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board don’t need to return to their pre-pandemic workplaces this month, a spokesperson with the federal safety watchdog said Tuesday morning. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) is no longer requiring a return to work on Jan. 24, as earlier scheduled, “but is giving the staff […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management plans to award new contracts this year at the Hanford Site in Washington state, the Moab uranium tailings site in Utah and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, the office said in its recent list of 2022 priorities. The biggest prize is the potential $45-billion, […]

Big nuclear weapons programs could be delayed if the government cannot agree on a 2022 budget and instead stretches last year’s budgets through the rest of the current fiscal year, the Air Force’s chief of staff said Wednesday in congressional testimony. Gen. C.Q. Brown, the Air Force chief of staff, said the service could lose […]

State and federal settlement talks about revamping the 2016 consent order for legacy cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico will continue into early April, according to a status report filed this month with a federal court. Representatives from the New Mexico Department of Environment (NMED) and DOE Office […]

The Tank-Side Cesium Removal project at the Hanford Site in Washington state, a key cog in the Department of Energy’s plan to begin bulk solidification of liquid radioactive waste there next year, could start up in January, according to a recent memo from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. “DOE Hanford is working with the […]

The Sandia National Laboratories have temporarily dropped a requirement that all employees be vaccinated against COVID-19, leaving only a pair of National Nuclear Security Administration-owned sites that require vaccination. While Sandia’s mandate is paused, “the discipline process for those employees who are unvaccinated, and processing of religious and medical accommodations are on hold,” a labs […]

To date, four Republicans have announced plans to run for Rep. Tom Reed’s (R-N.Y.) seat representing New York’s 23rd Congressional District, which includes the West Valley Demonstration Project, a nuclear site being cleaned up by the Department of Energy. After a former lobbyist accused the lawmaker of sexual harassment last March, Reed, who has served […]

Towing a popular line among industry and nuclear power advocates, executives at Exelon’s recently-named spin-off company Constellation said Wednesday that the federal government can’t achieve its climate objectives without giving nuclear energy a hand. “[I]f we bring in new renewables, and all they do is replace lost nuclear generation, we will be running in place,” […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will allow its employees to work remotely on a limited basis after the recent spike in omicron-variant COVID-19 cases, according to a recent memo from the agency’s operations department. NRC extended “additional flexibilities for project-based telework” to Feb. 26 from Jan. 15, according to a Jan. 6 memo to staff from […]

Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) wants Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm to provide details about a Department of Energy plan to bury certain nuclear waste, now at the Idaho National Laboratory, at the Nevada National Security Site. Titus said she was caught off guard by federal plans for the shipments from Idaho to the Nevada National […]

After the COVID-19 Omicron variant spread rapidly across the country this winter, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has decided to host an annual spring conference virtually this year, the agency announced Tuesday. Although NRC’s Regulatory Information Conference (RIC), scheduled for March 8-10, was initially supposed to be held as a hybrid event with some in-person attendance, […]