Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

John Howanitz will be promoted to president of Bechtel National’s nuclear, security and environmental global business effective Sept. 1, replacing the retiring Barbara Rusinko as the head of the Reston, Va.-based company’s nuclear business with the Department of Energy and other agencies worldwide. The company announced the impending change Wednesday in a press release.  Howanitz […]

Jill Hruby was scheduled for a 1:30 p.m. confirmation vote in the Senate Thursday that would install the ex-Sandia National Laboratories director as head of the National Nuclear Security Administration. Hruby would be the sixth Senate-confirmed administrator of the semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the part of the Department of Energy responsible for nuclear-weapons […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is dealing with a software error that forced some transuranic waste to be sent back to the Idaho National Laboratory in late May because of duplicate shipment data. Generation of duplicate package numbers “was an extremely rare occurrence that will be addressed by an […]

Norbert Doyle, a top acquisition executive at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, is taking a two-year posting as a faculty member at the National Defense University’s National War College in Washington, D.C. Although still an Office of Environmental Management (EM) employee, Doyle will serve as the DOE faculty chair at the National […]

An internal Department of Energy watchdog gave Consolidated Nuclear Security a public calling-out, but no other penalty, for letting an employee at the Pantex Plant in Texas work in radioactive areas for six months last year after the contractor realized the person had lost their dosimeter, according to a report published this week. The employee […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission distorted the state of New Mexico’s arguments against a proposed interim storage facility when it said that a district court didn’t have the authority to rule on a state lawsuit, according to a new court filing. Since the state isn’t looking to challenge a final agency decision under the Hobbs Act […]

An auxiliary manufacturing space, known as Kansas City East and Building 23, should be christened in the fall, the president of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s main non-nuclear parts maker said Tuesday. The headcount at the Kansas City National Security Campus (KCNSC) is “currently around 5,500 with plans growing to 6,000 here before the end […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was scheduled to vote Thursday morning on Department of Energy nominees for general counsel and two other posts. During the business meeting set for 9:30 a.m. Thursday, the committee planned to consider the nomination of Samuel Walsh to be DOE’s general counsel, Andrew Light to be assistant secretary […]

The House Appropriations Committee’s spending bill would provide the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio with more funds than the White House sought for community and regulatory support, including setting up a liaison to localities around the former gaseous diffusion plant, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) said Monday. The fiscal 2022 appropriations package for Energy […]

A fiery summer continues at the former Nevada Test Site, with another blaze reported in the southwest part of the site at Area 25 and 29, according to a press release. By Monday afternoon local time, the fire had spread across some 860 acres, compared with the 300 on which it was burning earlier in […]

Retired Navy Vice Admiral Fritz Roegge is the new president of Holtec’s government services subsidiary, the company announced Monday in a press release dominated by new hires for the Campden, N.J., company’s financial team. Now leading the finance silo is Kevin O’Rourke, the new vice president and chief financial officer. He replaces David LaRosa, who […]

Some prospective bidders for the Department of Energy’s potentially $3-billion, 10-year prime contract for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico are worried about the financial penalties the agreement prescribes for failing to finish a new ventilation system and other infrastructure projects, according to questions and answers published last week. The next Waste Isolation […]

The House Appropriations Committee’s proposed Department of Energy budget for fiscal year 2022 would slash funding for one of the potential disposal routes for surplus weapon-usable plutonium that has to be removed from South Carolina under terms of a record-setting legal settlement. The bill would deny $145 million in 2022 funding requested for the Versatile […]

Wednesday is the deadline for members of the House to submit amendments to a six-bill spending package that includes the House Appropriations Committee’s 2022 spending proposal for the Department of Energy, the chamber’s Rules Committee said. After the amendments are in, the Rules Committee plans to meet sometime next week to finalize the rules of […]

Here are some events related to defense- and civilian-nuclear matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week. 19 – Markup (CLOSED): Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee. Portions of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act that include Pentagon and DOE nuclear weapons programs. 20 – Virtual Forum: Hudson Institute. “Showdown at the IAEA: […]

House Appropriators didn’t go for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plan to trim the Inertial Confinement Fusion program’s budget by about $5 million in 2022 by using leftover 2021 funding to continue a portfolio of high energy density physics projects that can aid nuclear-weapons maintenance.  A bill approved Friday by the House Appropriations Committee would […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 26 shipments of transuranic waste during June, according to its public website. Eight were received from the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee but the rest traveled from the Idaho National Laboratory. During the first half of 2021 the underground disposal site had at […]

A state utilities regulator will look into water usage at a Pennsylvania nuclear plant undergoing decommissioning after an environmental watchdog group sounded the alarm, according to a recent email from the regulator. The Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission’s bureau of investigation and enforcement will review “certain uses of water” at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station’s […]

As part of a largely stay-the-course fiscal year 2022 budget, DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington state would get a little more money than requested for liquid waste cleanup while the National Nuclear Security Administration would get less money than requested for some smaller warhead and bomb development programs. The full House Appropriations Committee was scheduled […]

The Texas county slated to host a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel was scheduled to discuss the issue in a meeting Thursday and, according to one stakeholder, potentially resolve it. The Andrews County, Texas Commissioners’ Court will convene at 3:00 p.m. Central time “for a discussion and possible resolution” regarding Interim Storage […]

Since starting up in October, the Salt Waste Processing Facility at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has processed 1 million gallons of radioactive tank waste, plant builder Parson wrote this week in press release. The 140,000-square-foot Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) is the center of DOE plans to empty 36 […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission could grant licenses to a pair of proposed commercial interim storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel in the next six months, the commission’s chairman told Congress Wednesday. The NRC should make its final call on Interim Storage Partners’ proposed site in west Texas should in September, Christopher Hanson, the NRC chair, […]

Senior officials from the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, and the states of Oregon and Washington, were scheduled to discuss radioactive tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington today during a virtual meeting of a National Academies panel. The Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board of the National Academies was slated to hear […]

President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration is one of many political appointees for key national defense posts whose confirmation votes have been blocked in the Senate, multiple people have told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing.  Some of these people told the Monitor this week that Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) had held […]

With COVID-19 vaccines now widely available in the U.S., federal agencies including the Department of Energy are supposed to set plans by Monday to return personnel to offices. The White House Office of Management and Budget gave federal agencies until July 19 to “finalize their phased plans for reentry and post-reentry,” according to a June […]