Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Lawyers representing a half-dozen employees at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee who refuse to take a COVID-19 vaccine are expected Tuesday to argue in federal court that contractor UT-Battelle could rely on options other than a vaccine mandate to protect workers during the pandemic. Had UT-Battelle (UTB), the joint venture […]

David Huizenga, the Department of Energy’s defense-nuclear do-it-all, is stepping aside as the National Nuclear Security Administration’s top career civil servant to become a senior advisor to the nuclear-weapons sub-agency’s administrator, initially focusing on negotiations to return the U.S. to the Iran Nuclear Deal, according to an internal email.  Huizenga will assume his new role […]

A group called the Silent Majority Foundation is planning a class action lawsuit on behalf of workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state refusing to comply with a federal mandate to be vaccinated against COVID-19, according to a Sunday online announcement. “The plan includes bringing a suit for a temporary restraining […]

A former Sandia National Laboratories employee’s maneuvering for a lighter prison sentence has the government wondering whether the ex-Sandian should receive any sentencing leniency at all, according to a Friday court filing. Joshua Cordova has acted “shamelessly” since reading a plea agreement with the government, claiming that tens of thousands of dollars worth personal items […]

One of the last major milestones before radiological operation can start at the long-awaited Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory is scheduled to begin this week. A 10-day “heat up” period is set to start Tuesday followed by a 50-day demonstration run of the plant, Brian English, a manager […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week: October 27: The West Valley Citizen Task Force meets via Zoom at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time. 28 – The Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board to meet. Contact seab@hq.doe.gov for registration information. Starts at 1:00 p.m. Eastern […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing decommissioning plans from the company set to take ownership of a Wisconsin nuclear power plant even as the state’s public service commission deliberates about the details of the plant’s sale, according to a recent agency filing. EnergySolutions, which is slated to take over the license for Kewaunee Power Station […]

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has granted the Small Business Administration Office of Hearings and Appeals 24 more days, until Nov. 12, to revisit on remand the issue of whether Swift & Staley is too big to qualify for a $160-million set-aside contract to provide landlord services at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site […]

The disarmament advocating Ploughshares Fund was set to host the speaker of the House, the chair of the House Armed Services Committee and the principal deputy national security advisor for a live, webcast podcast recording on Thursday. The event, Press the Button Live, was scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. Eastern time. Jon Finer, President […]

Employees of Department of Energy’s cleanup contractors at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio as well as the Idaho National Laboratory could be sacked if they fail to receive their final vaccination against COVID-19 by Dec. 1, as spelled out in recent documents. Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth workers who are not yet inoculated, or applied for a medical […]

Non-executive board chair John Fees will end a 43-year career with BWX Technologies and its predecessor companies on May 3, the Lynchburg, Va.-based naval nuclear reactor provider, fuel fabricator and defense-nuclear site-manager announced Wednesday in a regulatory filing. Fees, who has been the non-executive chairman since 2018, will retire after the company’s board of directors […]

After ordering a temporary halt to a few COVID-19 vaccine-related firings at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory last week, a federal judge was scheduled to hear arguments next week about whether to extend the firing moratorium, according to court papers. U.S. District Judge Charles Atchley in the Eastern District of Tennessee issued a temporary restraining […]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ prime contractor for decommissioning of the SM-1 reactor at Fort Belvoir Army base in Fairfax County, Va., is APTIM AECOM Decommissioning LLC (A2D), a joint venture of Aptim and Amentum. “Decom Work at Ft. Belvoir Reactor to Begin in November” [Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, Oct. 19, 2021].

Four Republicans in the House of Representatives want Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm to examine potential “unintended impacts” of staff losses at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, where some employees plan to leave the site rather than get a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination. The lawmakers’ question if DOE has thought through […]

An environmental watchdog group wants Pennsylvania’s environmental protection office to pressure an interstate regulator to step in on water use at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station, according to a request the group sent this week. Three Mile Island Alert asked the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Wednesday to petition the Susquehanna River Basin […]

The Secretary of State used a meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency to talk tough on Iran this week, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee approved a couple of nuclear-nonproliferation nominees at State. Secretary Anthony Blinken’s Monday meeting with Rafael Grossi, director general of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), happened […]

There “has been some uncertainty” in developing guidelines for Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff to request religious or medical exemptions from the Joe Biden administration’s federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate, an NRC official said at a virtual all-hands meeting Tuesday morning.  “I think we’re very close on the guidelines for the medical exemption,”  the agency’s newly appointed […]

Sister Megan Rice, a peace activist whose 2012 break-in to the Y-12 National Security Complex spurred an overhaul of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s physical security apparatus, died Oct. 10 at 91, her order said.  Rise was born in 1930 and joined the Society of Holy Child Jesus in 1947. After breaking into Y-12 at […]

A three-way partnership between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia to help the latter acquire nuclear-powered submarines “is not designed in any way to be exclusive,” the U.K. military’s highest-ranking uniformed officer said Tuesday.  The trilateral deal, called AUKUS, was “a first step in terms of industrial development between like-minded partners,” Gen. Sir […]

Mark Gilbertson, one of the top supervisors at the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch, is calling it a career at the end of the month, the agency said Tuesday. Gilbertson, currently associate principal deputy assistant secretary for regulatory and policy affairs, is retiring after 25 years at the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) […]

The former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is now part of a utility company’s board of directors, according to a press release Monday. Kristine Svinicki, who was the top regulator at NRC from 2017 to January, was elected to Southern Company’s board effective Sunday, the company said in a press release dated Monday. Svinicki […]

The Savannah River Site’s management contractor requires employees seeking a medical exemption from a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination to submit a certified form from their doctor, while those seeking a religious waiver might have to be interviewed and file supporting documents from a minister. That is according to Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) documents distributed to […]

After various problems hamstrung the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for most of August and September, the disposal facility only took in three shipments of transuranic waste last month, all of which arrived Sept. 30. A combination of problematic underground conditions and a brief uptick in COVID-19 cases prompted DOE […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is “targeting” fiscal year 2026 as the startup date for a new facility at the Savannah River Site that will process 34 metric tons of surplus weapon usable plutonium for disposal in New Mexico, an agency official told advisors to South Carolina’s governor on Monday. That’s two years earlier than […]

The Department of Energy now expects the Salt Waste Processing Facility built by Parsons at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina will treat roughly four million gallons, rather than six million gallons,  during its first full year of operation, an agency official told the state Nuclear Advisory Council Monday. Parsons finished hot commissioning of […]