Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Lack of communications between the Sandia National Laboratories and the Kansas City National Security Campus resulted in some improperly manufactured flex cables, and separately in the Missouri manufacturing facility accepting other flex cables that failed  post-manufacturing tests, the Department of Energy’s inspector general reported recently. Someone who tipped off the IG in 2019 about the […]

The Department of Energy plans to retain a Atkins-led joint venture that runs depleted uranium conversion at former gaseous diffusion plants in Ohio and Kentucky for 14 more months, until March 31, 2023, in part to help a defense project stay on track. The DOE announced its intention to extend the contract for Mid-America Conversion […]

A special congressional election is set for June 1 in New Mexico to fill the vacancy in the district that includes the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories facilities in Albuquerque. The open seat was created March 16 when then-Rep. Debra Haaland (D) resigned to become President Joe Biden’s secretary of interior after being confirmed […]

The Department of Energy is meeting its commitment to keep the Idaho National Laboratory as the top-priority shipper to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico but still needs to get cracking on other directives from a 2019 update to the key legal settlement between Boise and the federal government, the state said. The […]

Locating a permanent repository for nuclear waste is “not a crisis,” and the government should be deliberate about community engagement throughout the process, a couple former Department of Energy nuclear leaders said during a discussion last week. Still, the federal government needs to get serious about developing a strategy for the more than 80,000 tons […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration was scheduled to host its latest online job fair on Wednesday, the semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency said. The civilian weapons steward has 3,000 openings across the nuclear-security enterprise, according to the press release about the agency’s latest hiring drive. Anyone interested in the jobs, which are mostly contractor […]

Bosses at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., are shooting for a sharp uptick in monthly transuranic waste shipments to the underground salt mine after an ongoing maintenance outage wraps up in April, according to a recent update to a federal safety board. After seeing shipments drop to about four […]

Here are some public events related to defense- and civilian-nuclear matters that the ExchangeMonitor staff is tracking this week: March 29 – April 2 – Media reported that the Biden administration will release its so-called “skinny budget” proposal for fiscal year 2022 this week. The slimmed down version of the annual federal budget ask will include […]

A federal safety review for a proposed interim storage site for spent nuclear fuel won’t be ready by the previously scheduled date, according to a recent document published by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The safety evaluation report for Holtec International’s proposed consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) was originally supposed to be finished in May but […]

A former director of the Sandia National Laboratories has floated toward the top of the Joe Biden administration’s list of candidates to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration and its roughly $20-billion-a-year civilian nuclear weapons program, according to a source familiar with the administration’s thinking. Jill Hruby led Sandia for about two years in the […]

Deciding where nuclear cleanup fits in the pecking order within President Joe Biden’s Department of Energy will likely be determined by the just-confirmed deputy secretary David Turk, the acting boss at the Office of Environmental Management said Wednesday. The assessment was offered by William (Ike) White, acting assistant secretary for the Office of Environmental Management […]

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Wednesday said that the U.S. and its allies must strengthen their militaries, improve readiness and maintain an effective nuclear deterrent as part of efforts to modernize alliances and respond to changing threats, China and Russia. U.S. nuclear forces, Blinken told an audience at NATO headquarters in Belgium, must be […]

A California Democrat is taking another shot at legislation that would create the framework for a federal interim storage program for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel inventory. Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Ca.) reintroduced the Storage and Transportation of Residual and Excess (STORE) Nuclear Fuel Act this week, according to a Tuesday press release . The measure […]

Certain indoor close quarters work at the West Valley Demonstration Project remains on hold until infection rates in Western New York drop, a manager with the Jacobs-led contractor said Wednesday during an online meeting of the Citizen Task Force for the cleanup site. The area of Western New York where the state-owned West Valley Demonstration […]

Weeks after Republican nuke hawks panned his performance at a nomination hearing, the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday voted 13-13, along party lines, to advance Colin Kahl’s nomination for the Pentagon’s top policy job. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will now have to make a motion to discharge Kahl’s nomination to bring a […]

The Senate confirmed David Turk to be deputy secretary of energy on Tuesday, voting 98-2 to install the former Obama official and Biden staffer as the Department of Energy’s No. 2.  Only Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) voted no. Turk had not been sworn in at DOE as of deadline Thursday for […]

A bill to ban storage of high-level nuclear waste in Texas passed in a state House committee Wednesday, setting it up for a floor vote. The measure, proposed by state Rep. Brooks Landgraf (R), passed in the Texas House Environmental Regulation Committee on a 6-2 vote. Landgraf chairs the committee. The panel reported the bill […]

Fasken Land and Minerals, Ltd. didn’t prove that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board erred when it rejected the company’s complaint about Waste Control Specialists’ proposed interim storage facility, so the NRC should let the rejection stick, commission staff said Monday. Fasken’s appeal is the latest in a series of objections to […]

The total civil penalties imposed by the state of Idaho against the Department of Energy for failing to treat sodium-bearing waste at the Idaho National Laboratory now exceeds $10 million, a state official said this week. As of March 31, the assessed penalty will hit $10,062,000, Natalie Creed, hazardous waste bureau chief for the Idaho […]

Anyone who wants to testify about or provide technical comments on the planned new utility shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant during a hearing scheduled for May 17 should let the New Mexico Environment Department know by May 3, the state agency said.  Late last week, the New Mexico Environment Department filed a formal […]

The impending closures of four nuclear power plants across the country could “give away years of progress” in decarbonizing the U.S. energy sector, the head of the industry’s biggest trade group said Tuesday. “Our climate plans can’t work if we go backwards by shuttering our nuclear plants, but that’s exactly the possibility we face,” said […]

The Department of Energy is gathering information on firms interested in providing support services to the Tribal Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee, an organization of 20 federally-recognized tribes touched by shipments of nuclear waste. The request for information notice was posted Tuesday on a federal procurement website by DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy’s Office of Integrated […]

Nuclear weapons are one of a trilogy of high-spend programs likely to affect defense spending decisions for years, the chair of a House Appropriations panel said Tuesday in an online hearing. “Cyber security, nuclear modernization and overseas contingency operations funding sound like they’re three unrelated topics,” Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), chair of the House Appropriations […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is independent from the Biden administration’s energy goals, but that shouldn’t “be an impediment to innovation and deployment,” the agency’s chairman said at an industry summit Tuesday. The NRC’s regulatory independence is a critical element of ensuring public trust, Christopher Hanson said during his opening remarks to the U.S. Nuclear Industry […]

FirstEnergy Corp. told the Ohio state government the company should not have to refund $30 million collected from Ohio ratepayers under scandal-tainted legislation passed in 2019 to support two financially struggling nuclear reactors.  FirstEnergy says it should be able to keep the money because the law, which guarantees the company a profit of $102 million […]

Following a protest by a rival bidder with the Government Accountability Office, the Department of Energy is taking a second look at the $1-billion security contract it awarded last month to a joint venture led by Securitas CIS for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. A notice posted on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) […]

Non-nuclear weapons programs should be prepared to pay the bills for the nuclear programs, if it comes to that, Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), one of the biggest nuclear weapons stakeholders left on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Monday. “Nuclear deterrence is the number one mission of the Department of Defense,” Fischer said in an […]