Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission hopes the two vacant seats on its executive committee won’t be gathering dust for too long, the agency’s head told Congress Wednesday. “I think we work best when we have a full complement,” said NRC chair Christopher Hanson while testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Wednesday afternoon. Currently the […]

Despite a shortfall so far compared with the agency’s goals for 2021, disposing of transuranic waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory continues to be a high priority for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a federal manager told the New Mexico Legislature’s Radioactive & Hazardous Materials Committee Wednesday. The federal agency had […]

The Department of Energy this week publicly released its long-delayed draft Record of Decision for a proposed new landfill to handle low-level radioactive waste from building demolition at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The 350-page draft on the Environmental Management Disposal Facility, dated June 22, now will undergo a 60-day review, by the Tennessee […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration said Tuesday it completed the first production unit of a refurbished submarine-launched nuclear warhead, setting the stage for a mass-production run that could begin early next year and which will fit the weapon with a new detonation system rated for 30 more years at sea. Workers at the Pantex Plant […]

Christopher Hanson was scheduled to testify Wednesday before a pair of House subcommittees about the Nuclear Regulatory’s 2022 budget request, power plant decommissioning and nuclear waste management. The joint hearing of the House Energy and Commerce energy subcommittee and climate change subcommittee was scheduled to air on the committee’s website at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time. […]

Another attempt by a nuclear watchdog to halt the sale of Three Mile Island “falls woefully short” of review guidelines set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the company in charge of the plant’s decommissioning said in a new filing. NRC should toss Three Mile Island Alert’s July 1 motion to reopen proceedings on the sale […]

There has been no big retirement spike among federal employees at the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office during the COVID-19 pandemic but officials who spoke at a virtual hearing Tuesday fear that could change.  The assessment was offered by William “Ike” White, acting assistant secretary for environmental management, in response to a question from […]

The Savannah River Site has been running a four-shift glove box operation at its main plutonium-disposal program in the site’s K-Area for a little more than a month now, a site spokesperson said Tuesday. The Aiken, S.C., site ratcheted up to four shifts from two on June 1, the spokesperson wrote in an email to […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is holding a long-anticipated virtual public hearing today on ongoing safety issues for tritium production and other work at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Witnesses listed on the agenda include the acting assistant secretary for the DOE Office of Environmental Management, William “Ike” White […]

The Joe Biden administration “may be moving” to start its inquiry into a possible host state for a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, the chair of the House’s energy spending panel said Monday. “I believe we provided enough authority in the bill for [a consent-based siting inquiry] to move forward …  and […]

The story “House Appropriators Propose Small Increase for Nuclear Weapons Cleanup” (Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, July 12, 2021) should have said that the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee’s fiscal year 2022 Department of Energy budget proposal would provide a little more funding than requested for nuclear weapons cleanup in fiscal year 2022. The […]

A coalition of more than 30 citizen groups, called the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, wants President Joe Biden to nominate a Department of Energy assistant secretary for environmental management committed to cleanup and environmental justice, according to a Monday letter. Whoever gets picked to run the $7-billion-plus DOE Office of Environmental Management must have a […]

The relatively flat National Nuclear Security Administration budget proposed by a House appropriations subcommittee on Monday “short changes” the national defense, the panel’s ranking Republican said Monday. The bill’s proposed “increase of less than 1% for the Weapons Activities does not even keep up with inflation,” Rep. Mike Simpson(Idaho), the ranking Republican on the House […]

Some 240 people were set to go on strike at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California over what the union called the management’s refusal to negotiate terms of a mandatory on-call policy for some craft workers. The Society of Professionals, Scientists and Engineers Local 11 – University Professional and Technical Employees, Communications Workers of […]

It only took the House Appropriations Committee’s Energy and Water subcommittee about 20 minutes Monday to bless an almost $7.8-billion fiscal 2022 budget proposal for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. Following a voice vote, the panel chaired by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) sent the proposal on to the full House Appropriations Committee […]

Although the Environmental Protection Agency is taking a fresh look at the facility, the draft Record of Decision on a proposed 2.2-million-cubic yard landfill for the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee is still expected later this month, a state spokeswoman said Friday. “Currently it is on schedule and no extensions have been […]

It is set to be another sizzling hot week at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state with daytime high temperatures hitting the triple digits today through Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service forecast for the area. “Hot and dry conditions will continue into the midweek with breezy conditions elevating fire weather […]

Nuclear weapons cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management would get a little more funding than requested for fiscal year 2022, if a House subcommittee’s recommended budget becomes law. DOE Environmental Management (EM) would get just under $7.8 billion from the fiscal year 2022 spending bill the House Appropriations energy and water […]

As expected, a draft 2022 spending bill from a House Appropriations panel has the requested $27.5 million to help the Department of Energy find a site for a federally owned consolidated interim waste storage site, and no money to turn Yucca Mountain into a permanent waste repository. The House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee’s […]

Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs would get almost exactly the funding they requested for fiscal year 2022, if the House’s first draft of the Department of Energy’s budget bill becomes law. The House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee released its draft 2022 energy and water appropriations act on Sunday and planned to mark up […]

In a long-awaited legal settlement over six years of mislabeled, radioactive waste shipments to Nevada, the Department of Energy agreed to tighten waste-inspection standards at nuclear weapon sites and overhaul its solid waste permit with the state by early next year, Carson City’s top environmental official said Wednesday. DOE will also have to revise the […]

The executive of a Texas county slated to host a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel said Wednesday that the county commission may vote to take a public stance on the project following a community meeting earlier this week. While the Andrews County, Texas Commissioners’ Court can vote to pen a letter of […]

Shipments of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant from National Nuclear Security Administration operations at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico were set to resume this week after being on hold since an ignition scare in February, according to the Department of Energy. “After a careful review of the drum event” […]

The Secretary of Energy did not deny any written requests for information from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in the six months ended June 30, the chair of the independent federal board reported recently to Congress. “The Board has no denials of access to information to report in the past six months,” Defense Nuclear […]

Fowler General Construction Inc. of Richland, Washington, received three Hanford contracts totaling almost $19 million from tank farms prime Washington River Protection Solutions. One $5.3 million contract is to construct a 17,600-square-foot office building at Hanford’s 222-S laboratory. The laboratory provides analytical support for the tank farms.  The other two contracts cover $13.5 million are […]

Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions, the Department of Energy contractor in charge of the 177 underground tanks of radioactive waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state, is looking for firms to do corrosion testing on double-shell tanks. Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) published a notice Wednesday on a federal procurement website seeking “expressions of […]