Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

A local wish list for speeding cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky headed the agenda as Paducah Chamber of Commerce representatives visited federal officials in Washington, D.C. yesterday and today. “During this two-day trip, we will meet with Members of Congress, federal officials and key federal agencies to share details on […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina spends much of its infrastructure money taking care of “aging, old systems” some of which are 70 years old, an agency official told the site’s Citizens Advisory Board Monday. David Bender, the DOE infrastructure services director at the federal complex along the Georgia state line, […]

The head of the United Steelworkers Local 1-689 at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio estimates more than half of his 939 union members at the uranium cleanup site have been vaccinated against COVID-19. The Steelworkers union local has asked DOE and its contractors at the former gaseous diffusion plant in Pike County, […]

The Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program to replace nuclear-tipped Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles should proceed as planned and the Joe Biden administration’s nuclear posture review will be “unlike any that went before it” because of China’s rise on the world stage, the chair of the Senate Armed Forces strategic forces subcommittee said Tuesday. Sen. […]

Nuclear energy and advanced nuclear technologies should be a “critical part” of a net-zero energy economy, the secretary of energy said Monday in Vienna at the U.N.’s big nuclear conference. “[T]oday, we see that transitioning to net-zero represents a great economic opportunity: a global clean energy market that will grow to at least 23 trillion […]

Here are some events related to defense- and civilian-nuclear matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week. September: 20: Meeting, House Rules Committee – National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2022; continuing resolution to extend fiscal year 2021 budget into the 2022 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The meeting will stream […]

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) has proposed amending the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act to delay rollout of next-generation intercontinental ballistic missiles and delete a requirement that the National Nuclear Security Administration produce 80 warhead cores annually by 2030. Garamendi filed the amendments to the annual must-pass defense-policy bill late last week. They are only two […]

The Department of Energy plans to hire a firm, Co-Physics., to provide emergency response support services for mixed transuranic waste storage at the Separations Process Research Unit in New York. The DOE Office of Environmental Management  Consolidated Business Center announced its intention to hire Co-Physics, which has provided radioactive materials support services in the Northeast […]

A North Wind Group company will continue to carry out the Portsmouth Infrastructure Support Services Contract work at the Department of Energy cleanup site in Ohio under a potential five-year, $135-million award announced late Friday. Idaho-based North Wind Dynamics was chosen as the bidder that would provide the best value to the government, DOE said […]

A state regulator didn’t violate environmental law when it signed off on the decommissioning of a California nuclear power plant, a judge ruled last week. In the ruling dated Sep. 13, Superior Court of California judge Mitchell Beckloff torpedoed the environmental watchdog Samuel Lawrence Foundation’s argument that the California Coastal Commission ignored its own regulations […]

States and tribal governments along haulage routes leading to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico could divvy up about $8.9-million in federal project grants during fiscal 2022, according to a recent notice. “The participating States, tribes, and the DOE will work to develop, coordinate, and implement activities in accident prevention, […]

The Secretary of Energy will head off to Europe next week to lead the U.S. delegation at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s General Conference, the Department of Energy announced Thursday. At the annual conference in Vienna, Austria, Secretary Jennifer Granholm will give a speech “underscoring the use of nuclear to combat climate change, advance medical […]

In an announcement with implications for a wide cross section of nuclear policy professionals and the nuclear industry, President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that Australia will acquire nuclear attack submarines — of origin and fuel type yet to be determined — as part of a new trilateral accord with the U.S. and the U.K. After […]

In a court case over an interim storage facility planned for New Mexico, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission tapped the judge’s shoulder Tuesday to let him know they had licensed a similar site just one state over. In a Tuesday court filing, NRC alerted the U.S. District Court for New Mexico to a license the agency […]

Oregon state officials are “cautiously” behind the U.S. Department of Energy’s effort to “prove out” technology to grout up to 2,000 gallons of low-activity tank waste at the Hanford Site in neighboring Washington and dispose of it outside of the Pacific Northwest. “Oregon has not previously issued public statements regarding the Test Bed Initiative,” Maxwell […]

A U.S. congressman representing the Texas county slated to host an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to walk back its approval of the site in a press release Tuesday. “The decision handed down by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license a new nuclear waste storage site in […]

The story “NRC Gives its Blessing to Interim Storage in Texas” (Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, September 14, 2021) should have said that the bill signed into law last week by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) only banned the storage of high-level nuclear waste.

A budget markup of the Joe Biden administration’s Build Back Better Act made its way through the House’s energy panel Tuesday, with the majority shaking off a couple of attempts by Republicans to get more nuclear energy in the mix. The energy subsection of Congress’s budget reconciliation recommendations passed on a 30-27 party-line vote during […]

In a move necessary to produce hundreds of kilograms of energy-dense, U.S.-origin uranium fuel for DOE, Centrus Energy Corp. extended a lease on Department of Energy buildings at the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio for three years, through 2025. The buildings support the 16-machine cascade Centrus, Bethesda, Md., is building for DOE under a $115 […]

The Army Corps of Engineers gave North Wind Portage the green light to continue its cleanup work at a former beryllium manufacturing plant in Ohio, a company spokesperson said Tuesday. North Wind, which was awarded the $82 million contract for the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) Luckey site on August 18, has received […]

A group of Maryland environmental activists Monday protested Congress’s proposed tax credits aimed at saving economically-troubled nuclear power plants, according to a press release. Activists from Beyond Nuclear and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) among others delivered letters Monday to Reps. Jamie Raskin and John Sarbanes (both D-Md.) during a “national day of […]

The Justice Department last week asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a 2020 ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding a state law making it easier for workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site to win compensation for work-related health problems. The move has prompted swift rebukes from the Washington […]

Recent federal employee forms show 90% of workers at the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board have been vaccinated against coronavirus infection, a spokesperson for the board said Tuesday. All Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) personnel have submitted the recently-required forms to attest to their COVID-19 vaccination status, said Tara Tadlock, associate director for board […]

Construction of a plant to treat mercury-laden water stemming from building demolition at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee is more than a third complete, an agency spokesperson said Tuesday. Construction of the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility by a joint venture of Louisiana-based APTIM and Idaho-based North Wind is about 35% […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s highest-ranking career executive is leaving the agency next month, according to a press release Monday. Margaret Doane, who currently serves as NRC’s executive director of operations, will leave her post effective Oct. 8, the agency said in a statement Monday. Doane is headed to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) where […]

After recording one of its busier months in more than a year, shipments of transuranic waste to the Department of Energy’s underground disposal site near Carlsbad, N.M., declined in August. Data available Monday on the DOE’s public website for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) show only seven shipments during August, with the most recent […]

The Department of Energy last week defended a 2020 update to a key nuclear safety management regulation but said the agency will work with a federal nuclear watchdog over its “technical concerns” with the final rule — including as it relates to aging nuclear facilities. The DOE “continues to conclude that its current regulatory framework, […]