Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

New Mexico’s state Senate Conservation Committee adjourned Tuesday without debating proposed legislation that would create a “radioactive waste consultation task force,” but the body is set to reconvene Thursday to tackle the issue.   The bill is one of 14 on the committee’s schedule this week. The body voted on only two of those 14 measures […]

A standard box of transuranic waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, stuck at a commercial site in Texas since 2014, has been approved for shipment to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. When that waste box is shipped there will be 74 remaining at Waste Control Specialists, Brian McGovern, […]

The Department of Energy and the prime contractor for the Waste isolation Pilot Plant on Sunday completed an early test of the long-idle 700-C fan, expected to augment underground airflow pending completion of a major new ventilation system.  Construction of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System, meant to increase airflow to 540,000 cubic feet per […]

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) will leave the Senate Armed Services Committee and join the chamber’s Appropriations Committee, keeping intact an important legislative shield for nuclear sites in the Land of Enchantment. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) the majority leader, announced the committee assignments for the Democratic-controlled 117th Congress Tuesday on a call with the Senate’s Democratic […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has now confirmed a total of 243 cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in the United States a little more than a year ago while the Hanford Site in Washington state is up to about 645 cases during the same period. That is […]

The New START nuclear arms-control treaty is officially extended through Feb. 5, 2026, giving the U.S. time to pursue more arms control agreements with Russia, and possibly with China, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Wednesday in a press release. “The United States will use the time provided by a five-year extension of the New […]

The. Public Utilities Commission of Ohio on Tuesday unanimously agreed to block FirstEnergy Corp. from collecting a virtually guaranteed profit of at least $102 million each year, to which the corporation was entitled under a controversial nuclear power bailout law passed in 2019.  Approval came swiftly after the Ohio Attorney General’s office and FirstEnergy on […]

A review of nuclear modernization is among the top items for Kathleen Hicks, if the Senate confirms her as Deputy Secretary of Defense. Hicks, 50, has been involved on the inside and outside of the Pentagon since 1993, most recently as a senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). She […]

A group of environmentalists stopped trying to convince a federal judge to stop construction of the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., according to a recent court filing in a three year-old lawsuit. The plaintiffs — the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, and the […]

Los Alamos County, N.M., is awaiting the New Mexico Environment Department’s reaction to a Department of Energy plan for cleanup of contaminated land just outside the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Harry Burgess, county manager said by phone Monday. The DOE and legacy cleanup contractor Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos submitted the plan on Dec. 21 […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission won’t reconsider a minerals company’s objections to the licensing of Interim Storage Partners’ proposed consolidated interim storage site in West Texas, according to a recent agency filing. According to Friday’s filing, the commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board threw out the most recent of three motions filed last year by Fasken […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology kicked off a 45-day comment period Monday on proposed changes to its permit for the Waste Treatment Plant being built by Bechtel at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site. The state is inviting public comment until March 17 on the closure plan for the $17-billion facility designed to convert […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was scheduled to vote Wednesday on whether to approve Jennifer Granhom’s nomination to be President Joe Biden’s first secretary of energy. If the committee approves the nomination — and Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), still the chair, expressed great reservation about supporting the Biden administration energy and climate policies […]

January 2021 came and went without an announcement from the National Nuclear Security Administration about the technology it prefers to use to build the next U.S. uranium enrichment facility.  The semiautonomous Department of Energy Nuclear weapon-weapon steward has a choice between the AC100 technology developed by Centrus Energy Corp. of Rockville, Md., and a smaller […]

The Department of Energy is about 85% finished shoring up the three sagging underground waste structures around the Plutonium Finishing Plant at the Hanford Site, a Department of Energy spokesperson at the former plutonium production site said Friday. “We have finished stabilizing the largest structure, the Z-9 crib, and the settling tank, Z-361,” the spokesperson […]

New Mexico’s state Senate will discuss a new bill Tuesday that would create a “radioactive waste consultation task force” to negotiate waste disposal siting with the federal government. The New Mexico Senate’s Conservation Committee will hear the bill, introduced by state Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D) on Jan. 19, and vote later on whether to send […]

Before leaving office with the rest of the Donald Trump administration, then-Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette asked a federal nuclear safety board for a 60-day extension to produce a report on concerns about transuranic waste handling at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. In the letter dated Jan. 19, and posted last week on […]

Here are some public events related to defense- and civilian-nuclear matters that the ExchangeMonitor staff is tracking this week. February 04 Nuclear Diplomacy: Biden’s Middle East Aspirations. Virtual event. Carnegi Middle East Center. 5 p.m. – 6 p.m. Eastern.  05 Nuclear Policy and Posture in the Biden Administration. Virtual event. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. […]

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was to announce on Thursday the new director of the younger U.S. nuclear weapons design laboratory, according to a press release. William Goldstein, the current director, announced last year that he would retire after six years in the top spot and 36 at the San Francisco Bay Area lab.  Livermore’s […]

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists kept their metaphorical Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight on Wednesday, citing development of hypersonic weapons, missile defense systems and dual-use weapons-delivery systems over the past 12 months, the dove-ish, Chicago-based group said during its annual clock unveiling. “By our estimation, the potential for the world to stumble into […]

Jennifer Granholm, President Joe Biden’s pick for secretary of energy, vowed Wednesday that cleaning up the Hanford Site would be a top priority if she is confirmed by the Senate. “You have my assurance that this is going to be a priority,” Granholm, the former Michigan governor, said in response to questioning from Sen. Ron […]

The Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility being built at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee is roughly 25% complete and construction should be finished by the end of 2022, an agency spokesperson said by email Wednesday. A joint venture of APTIM and North Wind Construction was awarded the contract to build the […]

Moscow on Wednesday approved an official request by the U.S. to extend the New START nuclear arms control treaty with the Russian federation for five years, media reported. The U.S. officially proposed an extension on Tuesday after the Joe Biden administration telegraphed the move last week. “On behalf of the United States of America, the […]

Ohio State Sen. Mark Romanchuk (R) has introduced a bill to nullify part of a controversial law that, according to the state’s attorney general, would allow FirstEnergy Corp. to reap more than $100 million in profit from financially troubled nuclear power plants operated by a former subsidiary. The company is allowed to collect the money […]