Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Orano TN said Wednesday it has promoted a vice president to the newly established position of chief commercial officer. Roger Maggi assumed the role this month after more than two years as vice president for aging management systems at the nuclear logistics subsidiary of Orano USA, according to his LinkedIn profile. “I want to thank […]

Another worker at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has tested positive for infection by novel coronavirus 2019, contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership said Tuesday. The site management prime confirmed the new case in a social media post on both Facebook and Twitter. The individual became ill July 11 and was subsequently […]

The lawyer for a disgraced former Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist who pleaded guilty to lying about his involvement with a Chinese talent-recruiting program said his client should not be sentenced to prison on the technical grounds that his deception did not amount to perjury, which under federal sentencing guidelines could carry harsher penalties than […]

The Energy Department said this week that demolition of 10 buildings is underway at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County, Calif. Teardown of a guard station marks the start of demolition of 10 deteriorating buildings at the Radioactive Materials Handling Facility (RMHF) complex agreed to in May by DOE and the state of […]

A pair of buildings at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico mostly reopened Tuesday after deep cleanings that followed one confirmed case of COVID-19 among regular facilities users. The one-day closure affected Building 983, which hosts the Z Pulsed Power Facility high-energy density physics operation, and Building MO321, an office trailer. Building 983’s High […]

Lockheed Martin on Tuesday posted double-digit percentage gains to its top and bottom lines in the second quarter, driven by strong operating results across its business segments. The company raised guidance for sales, earnings and cash for 2020. Lockheed Martin was able to shrug off negative impacts from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which it said […]

NAC International will provide the canisters that would hold radioactive waste in storage or disposal through Deep Isolation’s planned “horizontal borehole” approach, the two companies announced Wednesday. In a press release, Berkeley, Calif.-based Deep Isolation said it had sealed an extended cooperation deal with NAC, a spent nuclear fuel management specialist headquartered in Peachtree Corners, […]

The reactor pressure vessel for the decommissioned Unit 1 at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California has reached its final destination for disposal, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The federal agency noted the July 14 milestone in a report issued Monday from its latest inspection of the three retired reactors at […]

Huntington Ingalls Industries said Tuesday its operations for the Department of Energy would not be affected by the newly announced merging of two business groups. The corporate parent of Newport News Shipbuilding is combining two business lines within its Technical Solutions division: The previous Fleet Support and Mission Driven Innovative Solutions (MDIS) groups are becoming […]

Marshall Billingslea’s bid to become the Trump Administration’s top nuclear arms negotiator may not have been knocked off easy street yet, but it certainly encountered some potholes in his confirmation hearing Tuesday, where the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s top Democrat said the nominee is stained by his support of torture and is generally unfit for […]

The Ohio Legislature’s speaker of the House and four others have been charged with funneling roughly $60 million in bribes and illegal contributions to a three-year secret campaign to subsidize two financially struggling nuclear power plants in the state. House Speaker Larry Householder (R), a political adviser, and three lobbyists face federal charges of racketeering […]

The House approved its version of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act with a bipartisan vote Tuesday, supporting the Trump administration’s requested funding for nuclear-weapon operations at the Department of Energy. However, President Donald Trump threatened to veto the measure, over provisions including production of plutonium warhead cores and removing Confederate iconography from government property. The vote […]

The White House on Tuesday nominated a former staff member at the Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board (DNFSB) to become a member of the panel. Matthew Moury has since June 2017 served as Energy Department associate undersecretary for environment, health, safety, and security. His nomination to the DNFSB will be considered first by the Senate […]

Low-level radioactive waste that was being carried in a railcar that caught fire in June near Chicago is now being transported by truck to Tennessee, according to the Illinois Emergency Management Agency (IEMA). Transport of 42 intermodal containers started last week and is expected to wrap up this week, IEMA spokeswoman Rebecca Clark said by […]

Bruce Blair, the missileer turned nonproliferation scholar and activist, died Sunday following a sudden illness, Global Zero, the advocacy organization he co-founded in 2007, announced Monday.  The Global Zero statement did not specify the cause of death, nor identify any survivors for Blair — a prolific writer and advocate for nuclear arms-minimization who often warned […]

The Energy Department plans to extend a sole-source contract with Atkins for research on vitrification at the Waste Treatment Plant being built at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The DOE Office of River Protection at Hanford said in July 14 procurement notice it intends to keep using the SNC-Lavalin Group subsidiary for testing of […]

The House and Senate are set for a bicameral conference debate about federal nuclear weapons policy, after the lower chamber on Monday approved legislative language that would prohibit nuclear tests and put the secretary of energy on the Nuclear Weapons Council. Both provisions were amendments to the House’s annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which […]

The congressman representing the district surrounding the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state is facing off with five challengers in an Aug. 4 primary for which voting by mail has already started. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) has represented the 4th Congressional District in central Washington since January 2015. As a member of House Appropriations […]

Air Force Brig. Gen. Stacy Jo Huser has joined the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) as principal assistant deputy administrator for military application in the Office of Defense Programs, where she will oversee weapons modernization and testing, and serve as the military’s point of contact for these civilian-run programs. Huser will run “stockpile management activities, […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday said it would give stakeholders another three months to comment on a potential update to rules for disposal of very low-level radioactive waste. The new deadline to submit input on the proposed interpretive rule is Oct. 21, according to a tweet from the federal agency. The previous deadline had […]

The Energy Department has agreed to a contract extension lasting as long as two years for the incumbent remediation vendor at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced Monday it will exercise a one-year extension to keep URS/CH2M Hill Oak Ridge (UCOR) on the job thorough July 2021. That […]

After some logistical and regulatory road bumps, an Atlanta-area small business has shipped nearly a quarter-million respirator masks to U.S. nuclear weapons sites, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). “All 225,000 masks have been shipped and are in transit to their respective NNSA facilities,” a spokesperson for the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapon […]

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) on Friday submitted a long list of concerns about a proposed Nuclear Regulatory Commission rule interpretation that could make it easier to ship “very low-level” radioactive waste to landfills. “The NRC’s proposed interpretive rule could create administrative, enforcement, and compliance challenges for both regulators and the regulated community,” […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) last week finalized environmental paperwork that completes a court-ordered re-review of earthquake risks at the Uranium Processing Facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn. — but environmental groups with a live lawsuit over the plan are complaining that the agency’s second look was not adequate. The finalized supplement analysis, published July […]

A Kentucky man in 2015 illegally managed transport and disposal of technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material (TENORM) waste, a federal grand jury charged on Thursday. Cory David Hoskins, of West Liberty, Ky., faces a total of 27 criminal counts: five for fraud and the remainder for violation of hazardous materials law and regulations. Hoskins […]

The Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state confirmed three additional novel coronavirus 2019 infections over the weekend, with the latest reported Sunday. The new cases were disclosed on DOE’s website for Hanford. They bring the total COVID-19 cases at the former plutonium production complex to 31, based on an informal count. The Hanford Site […]