Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

A Sept. 23 article in Weapons Complex Morning Briefing [“DNFSB Questions if Time Made Stranded Drums Safe for Travel”], should have identified a Sept. 8 letter to the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office as a letter requesting a report. The article relied upon an incorrect reference to the letter on the Defense Nuclear Facilities […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission promoted Daniel Dorman to director of operations, the agency wrote Tuesday in a press release. Dorman is assuming his new post effective Oct. 10, NRC said. The former deputy executive director of the commission’s reactor and preparedness programs is stepping up to replace Margaret Doane, who is leaving NRC Friday for […]

The Department of Energy’s advisory board for the Portsmouth Site in Ohio has postponed its meeting set for Thursday in Piketon, Ohio and will reschedule it at a later date, according to a statement Monday from the administrative contractor for the board. An email from EHI Consultants, on behalf of the advisory board cited two […]

A contractor for the Department of Energy has finished tearing down the last of 18 buildings at the Energy Technology Engineering Center within the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Simi Valley, Calif., the agency said Monday. The last of the buildings at the Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC), Sodium Pump Test Facility, came down Friday, […]

Air Force pilots in F-35A aircraft recently wrapped up the final two of 10 guided release tests to certify the jet to carry the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb, the Air Force said Monday in a press release. Two F-35A Lightning II aircraft, piloted by the The 422nd and 59th Test and Evaluation Squadrons, took off […]

The former head of the Advanced Research Projects Agency and the one-time number-two at the National Nuclear Security Administration will lead the latest incarnation of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the Department of Energy said Monday. Stanford University professor Arun Majumdar, once the head of the Joe Biden administration’s transition team for the Department […]

An updated version of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s guidance for preventing workplace sabotage and other insider threats at nuclear power plants should come out this month, the agency said Monday. NRC staff are “in the final steps” of revising the commission’s Insider Mitigation Program (IMP), an agency spokesperson told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing via email […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General has a busy fiscal 2022 schedule of audits and inspections planned for projects affecting the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management and the semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration. Last Thursday the DOE Office of Inspector General (OIG) published its work plan for the fiscal year that began Friday. […]

A two-year extension on highly enriched uranium exports for production of the Molybdenum-99 medical isotope is set to come to an end in January, but the National Nuclear Security Administration was preparing to take public comments starting Tuesday about extending those exports. Federal law effectively allows the Secretary of Energy to unilaterally extend exports of […]

The utility company in charge of two financially-struggling nuclear power plants in Illinois is reversing course on its shutdown plans after a state bailout in September gave the reactors a new lease on life. In Federal Register notices published Friday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved Exelon’s withdrawal of license amendments that would have let the […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week. 05 – Virtual event, Hudson Institute: The Iran Nuclear Showdown: What’s Next? 12 p.m. Eastern time. Non-government speakers. Register here.  05 – Virtual meeting: Nuclear Regulatory Commission Advisory Committee on the Medical Uses of Isotopes. 10 […]

Ty Blackford, who was CEO of the Jacobs subsidiary formerly in charge of cleanup at the Central Plateau of the Hanford Site in Washington state, is leading transition efforts for the Jacobs-led joint venture scheduled to take over remediation for the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory by Jan. 1. That is according to a […]

John Dorrian will retire from Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., on Dec. 31, after 27 years with the company, most recently as controller and chief accounting officer, the uranium fuel broker and enrichment technology developer announced in a recent regulatory filing. “It is anticipated that Mr. Dorrian will continue to provide transition services to the […]

A federal judge nixed a fishing expedition for a big tranche of data sought by people who live near the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site and who are trying to organize a class action lawsuit against eight current and former DOE contractors at the rural Ohio site. In a mid-September court filing,U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth […]

Although the looming threat of a shutdown appeared to have dissipated at deadline Thursday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it was prepared to keep the lights on for a bit if federal funds dried up because Congress and the White House could not agree on a budget for the 2022 fiscal year that starts after […]

Workers who secure a religious exemption to the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate will be barred from the lab and allowed only to go on vacation or take leave without pay until they quit their jobs or get vaccinated, according to an all-hands memo from lab Director Thomas Mason. “On October 15, staff […]

Todays’ computing, modeling and simulation tools, plus the National Ignition Facility that unlocks physics “not accessible in the laboratory,” have given nuclear-weapon stewards capabilities unimaginable almost 30 years ago, when the U.S. ceased explosive tests, the director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said Tuesday. “On all of those fronts, the capabilities we have in […]

The House and Senate are both expected to take votes today on a stopgap spending plan that could prevent federal government services from going dark at midnight, according to media reports. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) was quoted by USA Today as saying the upper chamber can act quickly to try and get a […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. is again receiving transuranic shipments after a combination of underground conditions and temporary staffing problems from COVID-19 halted disposal for a month. “Yes, shipments resumed,” a spokesman for Nuclear Waste Partnership, prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), said by email Wednesday. […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is planning to meet next week with the company in charge of decommissioning a New Jersey nuclear power plant to discuss several security violations at the site earlier this year. NRC was to host a pre-enforcement conference with Holtec International Oct. 6 to discuss an unspecified number of physical security violations […]

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson plans to file legal arguments with the U.S. Supreme Court by Nov. 15 responding to a U.S. Department of Justice petition to overturn a 2018 state law that made it easier for cleanup employees at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site to qualify for worker compensation. That’s according to Brionna […]

A bill introduced in Congress Tuesday would create a task force to evaluate a loophole in federal law that the measure’s sponsors say would enable consent-based siting for a federal nuclear waste storage facility, according to a press release. If it became law, the “Nuclear Waste Task Force Act,” unveiled Tuesday in the House by […]

A federal court last week gave anti-nuclear groups two more weeks to coordinate next steps in their lawsuit challenging a recently-licensed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Texas. The groups, which include Beyond Nuclear and the Sierra Club, now have until Oct. 12 to move forward in their case against the proposed Interim […]

With Congressional Republicans threatening to thwart a stopgap funding plan to keep the government running beyond Thursday, the Department of Energy and other agencies could be forced to suspend operations. The DOE declined comment Tuesday, directing inquiries to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, which did not immediately respond by Weapons Complex Morning […]

The minority leader of the South Carolina Senate on Tuesday made an opening bid in the statewide tug-of-war over hundreds of millions of dollars worth of federal money up for grabs from last year’s plutonium settlement with Columbia: $100 million for the state, $425 million for seven counties near the Savannah River Site. “That would […]

A bill introduced in Congress Tuesday would create a task force to evaluate a loophole in federal law that the measure’s sponsors say would enable consent-based siting for a federal nuclear waste storage facility, according to a press release. If it became law, the “Nuclear Waste Task Force Act,” unveiled Tuesday in the House by […]

The Department of Energy’s Environmental Assessments office is opening an investigation into the flooding of Los Alamos’ PF-4 plutonium facility earlier this year, an event precipitated by an untrained worker operating a wet vacuum.  DOE’s internal watchdog notified lab director Thomas Mason of the impending investigation in a Sept. 23 letter posted online recently.  In […]