Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The House of Representatives approved the final version of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act with a veto-proof margin Tuesday evening, sending the bill and its new nuclear waste and weapons policies to the Senate. The House passed the bill 300-135 , with every member voting. Among other things, the measure would require the Department […]

The advisory board to the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state meets today at 9 a.m. Pacific Time and will hear updates on Tri-Party Agreement cleanup plans. Brian Vance, manager of DOE’s Richland Operations Office and Office of River Protection at the former plutonium production facility, is among the speakers scheduled to address […]

The U.S. and Slovenia, still weighing construction of its second civilian nuclear reactor, signed a memorandum of understanding concerning strategic civilian nuclear cooperation, the State Department announced Tuesday. The memorandum will “strengthen and expand strategic ties between the United States and a partner country by providing a framework for cooperation on civil nuclear issues and […]

NextEra Energy’s application to extend its license at the Point Beach Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 2 has been made publicly available on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission website.  “The NRC staff is reviewing the application to determine if it has sufficient information to complete the agency’s extensive safety and environmental reviews,” the commission said in […]

Bid proposals for the new Infrastructure Support Services Contract at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio are due by 4 p.m. Eastern Time Thursday. Portsmouth Mission Alliance, a team made up of an affiliate of Idaho-based North Wind Group and Swift & Staley, holds the current $117-million business that began in March 2016 […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold a meeting today to discuss the transfer of the Michigan-based Palisades nuclear plant license from Entergy Corp. to Holtec Intl. for decommissioning.  Palisades is scheduled to shut down on May 31, 2022: a couple years later than the original shutdown date of 2018. The companies agreed to the sale […]

After reviewing its options, cleanup contractor Fluor Idaho has decided to pay the $580,700 civil penalty issued by the Department of Energy over an April 2018 explosion at the Idaho National Laboratory where four 55-gallon drums overheated and blew off their lids spewing radioactive sludge. “Fluor Idaho chose not to contest the findings” in the […]

The Department of Energy has picked up a six-month option keeping North Wind Portage on the job as the technical assistance contractor at the Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico until June 2021. The basic contract and associated task orders were extended six months from Dec. 4, last Friday, to June 3, 2021, a spokesperson […]

The Department of Energy and other federal agencies will operate under their 2021 budgets for at least another week beyond Friday , if a short-term continuing resolution slated for a House vote on Wednesday becomes law. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) announced the impending vote on Twitter Monday afternoon. The current stopgap bill, passed […]

Dr. Fred Dilger, a staunch Yucca Mountain critic, has been named Executive Director of Nevada’s Agency for Nuclear Projects by Gov. Steve Sisolak.  “Dr. Dilger has been at the forefront in our State’s efforts in nuclear waste policy and in halting the Yucca Mountain Project,” Sisolak tweeted Monday evening.  Nevada’s Agency for Nuclear Projects/Nuclear Waste […]

Even in a government where Democrats will control the White House and at least one chamber of Congress, political consensus appears to favor continuing the nuclear modernization program the Barack Obama administration started in 2016, the head of the House Armed Services Committee said Monday. “Any effort to change that is running into very strong […]

Here are some public events related to defense- and civilian-nuclear matters that the ExchangeMonitor staff is tracking ahead of the winter holidays. December 08 – Center for Strategic and International Studies. A Conversation With Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), House Armed Services Chair. Virtual. 12:00 p.m. – 1:0 p.m. Eastern time. Registration is free. 09-10 – Center […]

Twelve more employees at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state reported to management that they have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to an online notice posted Friday. The latest batch of positive tests showed up on the employee alerts section of a DOE emergency operations website at Hanford operated by the […]

Orano signed a deal with a subsidiary South Korea’s largest nuclear power plant operator to support its nuclear dismantling activities.  Paris-based Orano and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP), a subsidiary of the Korea Electric Power Corporation, signed the deal Friday in Gyeongju, Korea, according to a press release. Through the deal, Orano will have […]

The Oregon Department of Energy is studying updated rules governing transport and disposal of radioactive materials within the state, which could potentially sock violators with millions of dollars in fines. The state department’s Energy Facility Siting Council has been working on tightening Oregon’s radioactive waste rules since May, according to a slide presentation put together […]

A must-pass bill that would authorize even more than the requested funding for Department of Energy nuclear weapons and waste programs could get its first vote in the House today or Tuesday and clear the Senate later this week, a congressional aid said. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) would authorize DOE’s National Nuclear Security […]

The Department of Energy says it will be up to the winner of the Carlsbad Technical Assistance Contract to train its own employees and the cost will be borne by the new contractor. That is one of the takeaways from a package of questions and answers published Wednesday by DOE on the potential $100-million small […]

The current $44-million Carlsbad Technical Assistance Contract is set to expire this week for a North Wind subsidiary at the Department of Energy field office in New Mexico. The DOE can exercise an option to keep North Wind Portage on board through June 3, 2021 while the Office of Environmental Management continues to look for […]

A document obtained by Weapons Complex Morning Briefing indicates the Department of Energy’s environmental contractor at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio has confirmed at least 73 cases of COVID-19 so far during the pandemic, with three of those reported in recent days. The document summarizes COVID-19 data compiled through Tuesday by Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth, the decommissioning […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday greenlighted the transfer of Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 license to EnergySolutions subsidiary TMI-2 Solutions from FirstEnergy Companies for decommissioning.  Three Mile Island’s Unit 2, located 10 miles from Pennsylvania’s capital city of Harrisburg, shut down in 1979 after its core partially melted down in the biggest accident in […]

Russia would still do a deal with the Donald Trump Administration to extend the New START nuclear arms-control treaty, but a five year extension would be best, because negotiating a follow-on treaty will be very difficult, the Russian ambassador said Wednesday in a webcast hosted by a D.C. think tank. “If anybody can call me […]

In a special session of the Ohio legislature on Wednesday, one lawmaker defended his proposal to delay, rather than outright repeal, a rate increase levied by a controversial, corruption-stained nuclear power-plant bailout passed in 2019. Another hearing will be held Thursday after the regular session. Rep. Jim Hoops’ (R) bill HB 798, unlike competing proposals […]

The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Committee approved its bi-partisan American Nuclear Infrastructure Act of 2020 at a Wednesday business meeting. If passed, a tall order, with less than a month remaining in the 116th Congress, the American Nuclear Infrastructure Act of 2020 (ANIA) would by January 2022 require the Department of Energy […]

The personnel churn in the Donald Trump administration’s nuclear-weapons enterprise and Joe Biden’s election as President of the United States highlight the urgency of giving the administrator of the National nuclear Security Administration a fixed term, members of a National Academies panel said Wednesday. “At the moment we not only have secretary and deputy secretary […]

Leaving 110 stranded drums of potentially combustible transuranic waste from the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory at a commercial waste facility in Texas for two more years poses no significant risk, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday. The commission issued its finding Tuesday in the Federal Register, responding to an August request from […]

The head of the committee tasked with reviewing legislation to repeal a controversial Ohio nuclear bailout law, House Bill 6, will hold a hearing Wednesday on a bill that would put the bailout on hold but won’t necessarily repeal it.  Rep. Jim Hoops’ (R) proposed HB 798 wouldn’t overwrite HB 6, but would instead delay […]