Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

William Goldstein confirmed Tuesday he will retire as director of the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, as soon as the nation’s second nuclear-design facility finishes the potentially lengthy search for a replacement. Goldstein became the Livermore, Calif., lab’s 12th director on March 31, 2014. He joined the lab’s Physics Directorate in 1984 and […]

Although they withstood bid protests in April, winners of two multibillion-dollar contracts at the Hanford Site in Washington state still have not received Department of Energy notices to proceed to the jobs. Neither Hanford/s new support services contractor, nor the new contractor for cleanup of the Central Plateau, have gotten the go-ahead yet, an agency […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) three major production sites have returned to normal operations with maximum telework even as cases of COVID-19 rise again around the nation. This means many support services workers are back on-site at the nuclear-weapon facilities, even while people who can easily work remotely continue to do so. A spokesperson […]

Navarro Research and Engineering faces no challenges to Energy Department contract it won last month for a potential 10-year, $350 million contract to continue providing environmental services at the Nevada National Security Site. The Energy Department awarded the contract to the incumbent on June 17. The window for protest to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) […]

A House Appropriations panel on Monday followed through with its promise not to grant a $20-billion budget request for civilian nuclear weapons programs in a fiscal 2021 spending bill that would also forbid preparation for a nuclear yield-test, limit Pentagon influence on Department of Energy budgets, and potentially slow development of a proposed new nuclear […]

The Senate last week adopted language that would scale back, but not eliminate, some of the new oversight and influence the chamber’s Armed Services Committee proposed to give the Pentagon over civilian nuclear weapons budgets via the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). On Thursday, the Senate unanimously adopted an amendment from Sens. Maria […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is still investigating whether any of 15 employees working on plutonium-238 oxide were internally contaminated with the material last month after the apparent puncture of a glove-box glove. “Fifteen Laboratory workers are being evaluated for potential exposure. The area inside the Plutonium Facility where this occurred has […]

The Energy Department last week said it plans up to yearlong extensions to existing contracts at the Hanford Site in Washington state for management of underground tank waste and laboratory testing services. Washington River Protection Solutions’ (WRPS) long-term contract, now valued at about $7.8 billion, could be extended to Sept. 30, 2021, according to a […]

The House Appropriations Committee indicated Monday it plans to fund the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management at $7.46 million for fiscal 2021. The nuclear cleanup funding is roughly equal to the amount appropriated for fiscal 2020, which ends Sept. 30, and an increase of $1.4 billion from the request submitted in February by the […]

The Energy Department confirmed Monday that an employee of the prime contractor for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has died as a result of COVID-19. “I regret to inform you that we have lost a member of the SRNS [Savannah River Nuclear Solutions] team to a COVID-related death,” SRNS President and CEO Stuart […]

The commonwealth of Massachusetts’ court challenge to the transfer of the federal license for the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station is being dismissed with prejudice, which would prevent it from being refiled. The parties to the petition for review filed the dismissal agreement on June 30 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would receive its full budget request for the upcoming 2021 federal fiscal year via the House Appropriations energy and water development legislation unveiled Monday. That covers $849.9 million for the core operations at the federal regulator, plus just under $13.5 million for the NRC Inspector General’s Office. That would be good […]

The House Appropriations Committee appears ready to support the Department of Energy’s request for $27.5 million to help stand up a program for temporary storage of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants. The $49.6 billion energy and water appropriations legislation released Monday would provide that amount to cover DOE costs “necessary for nuclear waste disposal […]

A key part of the selection process for a new Idaho Cleanup Project contractor should happen in-person next month in Idaho Falls, according to the Department of Energy. Barring an uptick in COVID-19 cases near the Idaho National Laboratory, vendors vying for the $6.4 billion remediation award should be ready for oral presentations at the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) was tracking 13 new cases of COVID-19 across the civilian nuclear weapons enterprise last week ahead of the Independence Day holiday. The weekly count of active cases rose to 46 from 33 as of Thursday, a spokesperson for the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency told Weapons Complex […]

Management at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state confirmed two more cases of COVID-19 over the three-day July 4 holiday weekend. The online posts on the Energy Department website for the nuclear cleanup site did not provide any details on the infected individuals – such as whether they are federal employees or work […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in May spent $2,859 from its remaining Nuclear Waste Fund balance, breaking its streak of using next-to-nothing from the account intended to pay for the repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev. Since early 2019, the regulator had each month spent a few hundred dollars on unspecified program planning and support. It applied […]

The Navy portion of the House Armed Services Committee’s draft of the fiscal 2021 defense authorization bill approved Tuesday would add two vessels over the Senate version and argued a second attack submarine is needed to maintain the Columbia-class schedule. The final HASC markup recommends authorizing the first Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, two Arleigh Burke-class DDG-51 destroyers, one […]

Jacobs said Wednesday it started work in June on a four-year contract to provide technical services for the United Kingdom’s repository for low-level radioactive waste. The contract is valued at £9 million ($11.2 million), according to a release from LLW Repository Ltd. Work carried out under the repository infrastructure framework deal will include mechanical and […]

A Knoxville, Tenn.-based firm has landed a four-year, $4 million contract to provide business and administrative support to the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management at the Oak Ridge Site. The award to Management Solutions LLC, a woman-owned small business, was announced Tuesday by the Environmental Management office for the Tennessee facility. The contract will […]

BWX Technologies and the Virginia Department of Labor and Health are still investigating the circumstances that led to the death of a company worker in a sudden and brief fire two weeks ago at the company’s Lynchburg, Va., plant. “The flash fire occurred in an isolated area of the facility and no other personnel were […]

The head of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) said Tuesday he is optimistic his panel’s version of the next defense authorization bill will receive bipartisan support. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) predicted differences with the Senate on several key provisions, such as a new Indo-Pacific initiative, can be reconciled when the bill heads to conference. […]

About one-tenth of the 225,000 wearable personal respirator masks the Department of Energy’s semiautonomous nuclear weapons agency ordered in April had arrived at facilities as of Wednesday, and the rest are on their way. All of the masks ordered by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) from Atlanta-area small business American Dream Builders LLC have shipped […]

The cleanup contractor for the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee earned 94%, or $10.4 million, of a potential $11 million fee for its work during the six-month period ended March 31, the Energy Department said in a new performance scorecard. In the process, URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) earned kudos from the DOE Office of Environmental […]

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will not be published Thursday. The ExchangeMonitor will publish its weekly newsletters on Thursday, in observance of the Independence Day holiday. Look for the next issue of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing in your inbox on Monday, July 6.

The Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) this week appealed to the New Mexico Supreme Court in an effort to halt construction of a new underground shaft at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The case was filed with the state’s high court Monday after the New Mexico Court of Appeals on June […]

Nuclear spending debates in Congress often pit active weapons programs against the remediation of shuttered Manhattan Project and Cold War production sites, but this year’s proceeding has one defense-nuclear cleanup ally on guard against a provision she says could permanently subordinate legacy environmental programs to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). In a 10-minute floor […]