Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

More than 10 months ago the Department of Energy published its final solicitation for a new $6.4-billion Idaho Cleanup Project contract with a 10-year ordering period and industry sources are keeping watch. Bid proposals for the environmental work around the Idaho National Laboratory were due last July. The two incumbents, Fluor Idaho has the five-year, […]

An article in Tuesday’s Weapons Complex Morning Briefing [“Better Guidance Urged for Interim Storage of Spent Fuel at Hanford”] should have reported that an Amentum-led group has managed Central Plateau cleanup since Jan. 25, 2021. 

There are three new federal field office managers and one new deputy field office manager across the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear security enterprise, according to a recent dear-colleagues letter from acting agency administrator Charles Verdon. Also, Verdon said, two longtime civil servants will retire from National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) headquarters in Washington at […]

Like so many other federal workplaces during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board continues to have most of its staff working from home, according to the agency’s Annual Report to Congress. “The Board has proven its effectiveness while in maximum telework posture, despite the unexpected challenges of adapting work practices to remote […]

An oil company opposing the licensing of an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in west Texas won’t get a private meeting with the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency said last week. Since Fasken Oil and Ranch, Ltd. is involved in ongoing commission proceedings, it would sacrifice the agency’s impartiality for […]

It is time for the Department of Energy to focus on ensuring two aging facilities for interim storage of spent nuclear fuel at the Hanford Site in Washington state remain safe beyond the current 40-year design life, according to a recent DOE report. The agency’s Office of Enterprise Assessments, in the report issued last month, […]

Amir Vexler, president of Orano USA’s nuclear fuel services subsidiary, became CEO of the company this week, according to a press release. In addition to his new role as the company’s top manager, Vexler will continue to serve as president of TN Americas, Orano’s subsidiary company that handles spent fuel management and transportation, the Monday […]

More than a year after announcing its plans to keep incumbent cleanup contractor Fluor-BWXT on the job at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, the Department of Energy has executed a potential $690-million extension that could run until late March 2023. The final agreement, announced today by the two partners, took effect March 29 and includes […]

A panel made up of local stakeholders is set to meet for the first time this week to discuss the decommissioning of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station. The Community Advisory Panel (CAP) — organized by TMI-2 Solutions, the EnergySolutions subsidiary responsible for dismantling Three Mile Island — will meet virtually on Wednesday. They’ll meet […]

Palantir, the intelligence community software vendor with a name ripped from the pages of The Lord of the Rings, has notched its first contract with the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Denver-based company said Monday. Palantir’s pact to serve as the software platform for the agency’s Safety Analytics, Forecasting, and Evaluation Reporting (SAFER) project is […]

U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), whose district includes the Hanford Site, wants Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm to continue a controversial policy change from the Donald Trump administration that declared certain radioactive waste now categorized as high-level may not need to go to a deep underground disposal site. In a March 30 letter to Granholm, […]

Here are some public events related to defense- and civilian-nuclear matters that the ExchangeMonitor staff is tracking this week: April 05 – April 09 – The Biden administration’s skinny budget did not show up last week as hoped, but it may appear this week, media reported. The federal spending proposal for fiscal year 2022 will […]

The lure of getting a piece of the potential $26.5-billion Hanford Integrated Tank Disposition Contract (ITDC) at the former plutonium production complex in Washington state attracted a crowd of nearly 90 tire-kickers to virtual meetings held last week by the Department of Energy. DOE spread out the meetings over three days, Tuesday through Thursday, to […]

Don’t expect the Department of Energy to roll out its final solicitation for the potential $26.5-billion Integrated Tank Disposition Contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state before August, officials said Tuesday during a virtual briefing for potential bidders. Hanford’s site manager, Brian Vance and many of his lieutenants at the DOE Office of Environmental […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission won’t reverse its decision to deny requests for a public hearing on the sale of Indian Point Energy, the agency’s chairman told the leader of the U.S. Senate last week. NRC Chair Christopher Hanson “does not have the authority to unilaterally modify” the full commission’s ruling, he wrote in a March […]

The Government Accountability Office shot down a bid protest from a small business that missed out, by around $100,000, on a security contract for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Albuquerque site. Losing bidder ISS Action, Jamaica, NY., one of seven small businesses that bucked for the work, protested the award to locals Montech Inc., Albuquerque, […]

A lawsuit filed by the disgruntled ex-chief financial officer of the Nevada National Security Site’s prime contractor remained in mediation this week, with both the company and its chief executive again denying that the former finance chief was fired for protected whistleblowing. In the latest filings in the case, Mark Martinez, chief executive officer of […]

Two key Congressional Democrats from Washington state, Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Adam Smith, are proposing to make it easier for cleanup workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site and elsewhere to claim medical benefits after being exposed to toxic substances. The lawmakers last week proposed the Toxic Exposure Safety Act of 2021. Murray, […]

The story “DOE Plans to Extend Incumbent DUF6 Contractor” (Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, March 30, 2021) should have said that Atkins is the lead partner on Mid-America Conversion Services. 

The Department of Energy’s nuclear energy office is looking for small businesses to advise them on issues surrounding the advanced nuclear fuel cycle. The Office of Nuclear Energy needs advisory services from small businesses to help the agency address some of the challenges of “scaling up new nuclear reactor and fuel cycle technologies from laboratory-scale […]

In an online forum Tuesday, Sen. John Tester (D-Mont.) vowed to use his appropriations gavel to keep the Air Force’s next-generation nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile “on track,” while a former senior pentagon official said congressional support for the program was broad but not deep. Tester delivered recorded remarks to an audience of just under 100 […]

A proposed consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in New Mexico would violate the law and place an unfair burden on the state, its attorney general argued in a federal suit this week. If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses Holtec International’s proposed interim storage site, it will run afoul of the 1982 Nuclear […]

About 18 months after the Department of Energy put up for sale 52 old railcars used to ship contaminated soil, Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions bought the equipment for $350,000. The 100-ton railcars, now located at Savannah River Site in South Carolina, were used in cleanup both there and at DOE’s Fernald Closure Project outside Cincinnati, […]

The Department of Energy said Tuesday it is justified in extending the current Swift & Staley landlord services agreement at the Paducah Site in Kentucky for up to six months while the Small Business Administration decides whether the company is too big to receive a follow-on contract for the work. DOE awarded the extension, worth […]

Earnings rose at Perma-Fix, Atlanta, in 2020, with growth in the hazardous waste company’s Services Segment offsetting a pandemic-driven reduction in waste receipts at the federally focused Treatment Segment. For the full year, company wide net income was around $2.8 million, or $0.23 a share, up from some $2.2 million, or $0.19 a share, in […]