Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

International Isotopes’ failure to adequately address the 2018 breach of a radioactive source at its Idaho headquarters contributed to a similar, larger event months later in Seattle, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Following a routine inspection earlier this year, the agency on Monday cited the Idaho Falls-based nuclear medicine company with apparent violations of […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act would allow $100 million more in the primary funding tranche for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management than requested by the Donald Trump administration. The legislation would authorize $5.1 billion for defense environmental cleanup for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory got whacked with some $300,000 in fines this month for failing to notify the New Mexico state government about eight off-site waste shipments in 2017 and 2018. The eight shipments, comprising 18 containers, happened while contractor Los Alamos National Security was still in charge of the northern New Mexico nuclear-weapons […]

The Department of Defense would get more control over the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons budget under the Senate version of the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which was unveiled Tuesday. The Senate Armed Services Committee filed the text of the bill, which sets funding limits and policy for defense programs, late in […]

Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) said Tuesday she wants the next Department of Energy budget bill to prohibit spending that contributes in any way to nuclear-explosive tests. Titus made the request during the House Appropriations Committee’s annual member day hearing, which gives congresspeople a few minutes to publicly discuss measures they want in the various appropriations […]

The Energy Department is lagging behind schedule for deactivation and demolition of the C-400 complex at the Paducah Site in Kentucky, the DOE Inspector General’s Office said in an audit report released Tuesday. The 134,000-square-foot C-400 building was chiefly employed to clean equipment used in uranium enrichment at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. A […]

Perma-Fix Environmental Services said Friday it has secured a $7 million contract for cleanup operations at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. The award covers “remediation, demolition and waste management services,” according to a press release from the Atlanta-based waste management company. The release did not offer additional details. Perma-Fix referred questions seeking specifics […]

The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has confirmed six more cases of COVID-19 since Thursday, while the Hanford Site in Washington state on Sunday reported another case among its workforce. The Savannah River Site operations office website now lists a total of 42 cases of COVID-19 among roughly 11,000 personnel. Twenty-eight of […]

Radioactive contamination is more widespread than first thought along a road outside the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, according to the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED). The area is part of a tract of land, which includes the site of a planned housing development, transferred from LANL to Los Alamos County […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday locked in its fee collection levels for the current federal fiscal year. The agency collects 90% of its annual budget through annual and service fees, with the rest appropriated by Congress. Lawmakers set the NRC’s budget at $855.6 million for fiscal 2021, which ends on Sept. 30, according to […]

The Energy Department contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., earned 83%, or $14.3 million, of a potential $17.3 million fee for its work during fiscal 2019. The DOE fee scorecard for the period from Oct. 1, 2018, through Sept. 30, 2019, was recently posted online for Nuclear Waste Partnership, a joint […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) ordered 2,000 custom lapel pins at a cost of about $5.45 each from Medalcraft Mint, of Green Bay, Wis., to mark the agency’s 20th anniversary. Congress partially split the semiautonomous NNSA off from the broader Department of Energy two decades ago, over the objections of the Bill Clinton administration. […]

The Navy on Monday awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat an $869 million modification for continued Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) procurement work, with an added price option for the first two submarines that would increase the total contract value to $9.5 billion. Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition James Geurts told reporters during a […]

The House Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces subcommittee on Monday approved the nuclear-weapons parts of the chamber’s fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act. The brief markup sets the stage for the full committee to consider the legislation on July 1. It took only about 15 minutes, without debate or amendments, for the panel to advance […]

The labor group representing some 1,450 workers at the Department of Energy’s Y-12 National Security Complex last week struck a new five-year labor deal with the Tennessee site’s Bechtel National-led manager. Members of the Atomic Trades and Labor Council (ATLC), an umbrella organization covering between 15 and 20 individual unions, ratified the agreement June 18. […]

A story in the Monday edition of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing should have said the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico on June 15 entered Phase 2 of the Energy Department’s remobilization following on-site staffing drawdowns in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Energy Department expects by mid-August to issue a request for proposals (RFP) for treatment of low-level and mixed-level radioactive wastes, according to procurement documents published Thursday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management said an RFP should be issued within 15 to 60 days of the June 18 notice. The agency plans to issue one […]

Democrats and Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee want the president to get more hands-on practice with nuclear command and control, according to a provision in the chamber’s annual defense policy bill. According to aides on the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, the lower chamber’s version of the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization […]

As he attempts to fend off a primary challenge from a young congressman, Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) has belted out a salvo of arms control legislation, including a new bill last week that would make it U.S. policy to extend the New START nuclear treaty with Russia. Markey filed the Hastening Arms Limitation Talks (HALT) […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has again pushed back the deadline for the public to comment on its draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for Holtec International’s planned spent fuel storage facility in New Mexico. The 60-day extension now allows comments though Sept. 22. The previous deadline was July 22, which was already a 60-day extension from […]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is taking bids for cleanup of the radioactively contaminated Luckey Site in Ohio under the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP). The small business set-aside award would have a five-year base term and an option for another five years, according to the request for proposals issued on June […]

There were seven confirmed new cases of COVID-19 across the U.S. civilian nuclear weapons complex last week, a spokesperson for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Friday. That makes for a total of 119 cases since confirmation in January of the first U.S. case of the viral disease, which is caused by the novel […]

The Energy Department said Friday that a third worker at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., has tested positive for COVID-19. The employee of WIPP management and operations contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership “became ill earlier this week and was tested by WIPP Health Services on Wednesday,” the Energy Department announced on its social […]

A House Armed Services Committee panel is worried the top executive post at the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management is becoming too much of a revolving door. The strategic forces subcommittee on Sunday released its 56-page mark for the House’s 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The document calls for the Government Accountability Office […]

Oak Ridge-Tenn.-based Isotek Systems has inked a $254 million contract modification with the Energy Department to continue disposing of uranium-233 (U-233) through 2024 at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Isotek has overseen the inventory of U-233 since October 2003, removing the material from Oak Ridge National Laboratory Building 3019. This contract modification authorizes $254 […]

The Department of Energy is close to finalizing revisions to the federal regulation governing nuclear safety management, according to a letter the agency recently sent to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). The federal government’s independent nuclear health-and-safety watchdog received the draft final document on June 9, DOE said two days afterward in a letter […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security in 2017 took a paycheck’s worth of pay from certain employees at Department of Enegy’s Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, three employees alleged in a federal lawsuit. The short happened after the Bechtel National-led site management contractor shifted to a biweekly pay schedule in 2015 from a monthly pay schedule, according […]