Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

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 […]

The Department of Energy plans to extend North Wind Solutions’ transuranic waste processing work by up to 24 months at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, according to a recently-posted notice on a federal procurement website. The DOE issued its justification for issuing the extension, without a full and open competition, on Thursday. The federal […]

A bill pending in the Texas state legislature’s environment committee would ban the storage of high-level waste, including spent nuclear fuel, in the Lone Star State, its Republican sponsor said Monday The measure would “eliminate the need to conflate the phantom menace of high-level radioactive waste” with comparatively safe low-level waste and ensure that the […]

This week marks the end of a mandatory waiting window for the Texas A&M University’s Board of Regents to officially approve Katherine Banks, dean of the College of Engineering and vice chancellor of engineering and national laboratories, as the system’s next president. At deadline Tuesday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, the board of regents was […]

The Department of Energy has named Mark Bollinger as its new acting deputy manager for the Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico, which oversees the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Bollinger took over the No. 2 manager slot on March 14 at Carlsbad, reporting to manager Reinhard Knerr, according to a Twitter post last week from […]

Earnings improved at Centrus Energy Corp., the Bethesda, Md.,-based fuel broker and nuclear technology company, in both the fourth quarter and 2020 as a whole, according to financial results released late last week. In its Thursday press release, Centrus reported net income of $54.4 million for the 12 months ended Dec. 31, 2020 compared with […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the companies involved in the sale of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station have a little over three weeks to respond to an environmental group’s request to hold off on the transaction, according to an agency filing. The NRC, the FirstEnergy companies and the EnergySolutions subsidiary responsible for decommissioning the […]

The Senate is primed this week to confirm David Turk as the deputy secretary of energy after a procedural motion last week to end debate on the former Biden staffer and Obama administration official. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), the majority leader, filed cloture on Turk’s nomination Thursday, meaning the Senate had, starting then, a little […]

After a former lobbyist accused him of sexual harassment, Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), whose 23rd congressional district includes the West Valley Demonstration Project, will retire from the House of Representatives rather than run for re-election, the lawmaker announced via Twitter on Sunday. Reed further said he will not seek any political office in 2022. The […]

The story “False High Dose at Pantex This Year Caused by Lost Badge Near Linear Accelerator” (Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, March 18, 2021) should have said that the Nevada National Security Site analyzed a Pantex Plant employee’s dosimeter.