Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Prospective bidders on the Department of Energy’s multibillion-dollar Hanford Integrated Tank Waste Disposition Contract in Washington state need not submit proposals before Christmas after all, thanks to an extension announced Friday. The deadline for submitting bid proposals on the potential $45-billion contract is being extended by 17 days to Jan. 6, 2022, rather than Dec. […]

Two years into the pandemic, the Department of Energy could see most of its federal employees return to their pre-COVID-19 work locations by mid-February, according to a Friday email message from agency leadership. The current “maximum telework” policy for DOE’s federal workforce will be phased out starting Jan. 18, Tarak Shah, chief of staff to […]

A federal district judge in South Carolina refused late Friday to issue a preliminary injunction blocking the COVID-19 vaccination mandate by the prime contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site. U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs ruled the 97 vaccine holdouts suing Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) “have not made a clear showing that […]

Niowave, Lansing, Mich., will get $13 million from the National Nuclear Security Administration, under a cooperative agreement, to support  domestic production of the Molybdenum-99 medical isotope, the agency announced Friday. This is the fourth and final round of congressionally mandated funding established by law in 2012 as part of the federal government’s efforts to establish […]

In a revised complaint that they hope will convince a federal judge to block expected firings arising from a COVID vaccine mandate at the Savannah River Site, employees who have not taken a vaccine argued that the site’s operations contractor effectively pressured two employees into resigning before the official deadline for getting the vaccine. The […]

The Department of Energy is hoping to give economically-troubled nuclear power plant operators a little certainty by speeding delivery of subsidies recently signed into law as part of this year’s bipartisan infrastructure plan, a DOE official said Wednesday at an industry conference. “[I]t can take a little while for tax credits to kick in, [so] […]

A compromise stopgap budget bill to avert a government shutdown would keep Department of Energy nuclear weapons and waste budgets at 2021 levels past Valentine’s Day and preserve a funding safety valve for uranium-enrichment cleanup. “Agreement has been reached on a Continuing Resolution,” House Appropriations Committee Chair Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Ct.) wrote in a statement […]

A Hanford-focused consulting firm was acquired by Deep Isolation, a California company developing a new method of spent nuclear fuel disposal.  Deep Isolation bought privately-owned, 23 year-old Freestone Environmental Services of Richland, Wash., the Berkeley, Calif., firm announced Tuesday. Deep Isolation declined to reveal the price. Freestone has 25 employees.  Deep Isolation plans to take […]

If California wants to talk about keeping its sole surviving nuclear power plant online, the Department of Energy would listen, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said Tuesday. During an interview with Reuters Tuesday, Granholm said that keeping the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in Avila Beach, Calif., open “may be something that [California] decide[s] to take […]

As the Nuclear Regulatory Commission navigates some internal controversy surrounding a recently-approved decommissioning rule, its oversight of plant dismantlement came under fire Wednesday at a hearing in the Senate. “[W]ith its recent approval of the proposed decommissioning rule, I fear the NRC now stands for not recognizing [public] concerns,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) at […]

The monthly pace of retirement notices among prime contractor employees during 2021 at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state is up sharply compared with last year, especially in recent months, according to the two most recent monthly reports by the site’s services contractor. “The Retirement Program has had a significant increase in […]

After senior and junior partners Fluor and Amentum, the new prime contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s main weapons production sites also includes Criterion Systems, General Atomics, and SOC, Fluor said Tuesday. Fluor, which has a 60% stake in new prime Nuclear Production One (NPOne), announced some more of the details of its winning […]

A coalition of environmental and citizens’ watchdog groups urged the Senate Finance Committee to drop millions of dollars in subsidies for nuclear energy from the budget reconciliation bill containing President Joe Biden’s signature domestic spending programs, according to a letter mailed this week. The roughly $35 billion in nuclear production tax credits proposed in the […]

In an interview Tuesday with the Exchange Monitor, the chair of the The Nuclear Regulatory Commission hit back against another commissioner’s charges that a long-awaited decommissioning rulemaking proved the agency’s regulatory capture. “[O]ne of the things that’s getting out there in the aether is that somehow the agency’s taken on kind of a laissez-faire approach […]

A Lexington, Ky.-based small business, EHI Consultants, on Tuesday was issued a 5-year, $4.5-million contract to continue providing support services for certain advisory boards to the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. The firm-fixed contract renewal for EHI to continue providing staff support for the citizen advisory boards at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio […]

A lawsuit over the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s vaccine mandate will go on at least a little longer, now that a federal judge has allowed the plaintiffs until Dec. 22 to file a response to the lab prime contractor’s motion to dismiss the case. UT-Battelle, a team of the University of Tennessee and Battelle, is […]

A federal judge in Eastern Washington will hear oral arguments by telephone Dec. 17 on whether to issue a temporary restraining order that would put the brakes on potential firings by Department of Energy contractors of guards and other employees at the Hanford Site who refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccination. U.S. District Judge Thomas […]

Out of perhaps 950-to-1,000 United Steelworkers members employed by various companies at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio between 10 and 15 are expected to be fired as a result of the COVID-19 vaccination mandate for federal contractors, a union official said Tuesday. It is always possible a couple of those heretofore […]

The Department of Energy cannot build an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel before building a permanent repository, but it can canvass potential host communities for an interim site, the agency’s top nuclear energy official said Tuesday. “Congress provided funding for DOE to move forward with establishing an interim storage program using its existing […]

The Senate on Tuesday unanimously confirmed Corey Hinderstein to be deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Security Administration. A think-tanker with a previous detail to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) under her belt, Hinderstein was on the Senate’s executive calendar for 40 days after clearing the Senate Armed Services […]

An ex-Sandia National Laboratories employee who racked up fraudulent charges of thousands of dollars or more on his company credit card is trying to stay out of prison, according to a sentencing memo filed before Thanksgiving. “If sentenced to pay a fine and be placed on probation for a period of five years, Mr. [Joshua] […]

Andrew Richards, chief of staff for the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, is leaving the agency after 10 years for a private-sector job, he told colleagues Monday. Richards’ last day was to be Tuesday, he said in an email viewed Tuesday by Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. He did not identify his new employer […]

A story in the Nov. 29 Weapons Complex Morning Briefing [“Oral Arguments Slated in Vaccination Mandate Suit Against SRNS”] should have said the hearing in the Savannah River Nuclear Solutions vaccination mandate case is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 30. 

A vaccine mandate by the Department of Energy’s management contractor at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina is tantamount to the contractor practicing medicine without a license, a lawyer for about 95 employees refusing to be inoculated against COVID-19 said in a legal filing Monday in federal court. Last week, on the day before […]

There won’t be any significant environmental or safety issues if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows Holtec International to dip into a Michigan nuclear plant’s decommissioning funds for nuclear waste management, the agency said recently. Granting Holtec an exemption to use Palisades Nuclear Generating Station’s decommissioning trust fund for spent fuel management and site restoration activities […]

The Department of Energy has given the green light to a group led by Virginia-based BWX Technologies to begin a 90-day transition to take over liquid waste management and other work included under the Integrated Mission Completion Contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, an agency spokesperson said Monday morning. The notice was […]

A team led by Fluor Corp., Irving, Texas, won the potentially 10-year, $28-billion contract to manage the National Nuclear Security Administration’s two big nuclear-weapon production facilities in Tennessee and Texas, multiple sources said Monday. The team beat out at least two other bids — one led by BWX Technologies and another led by Bechtel National […]