Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The chairman’s mark for the House of Representatives’ fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) would add about $700 million to the top line for the Trump administration’s $5 billion request for defense environmental cleanup operations managed by the Department of Energy. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) released his mark over the […]

More National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) employees may return to work in Washington, D.C.-area headquarters buildings today at the start of Phase 2 of the Department of Energy’s return-to-work plan for federal personnel. There are about 1,000 NNSA employees at the Forrestal Building in downtown D.C., and the Germantown Building in nearby suburban Maryland. They […]

Half of the 1,800-person cleanup workforce at the Idaho National Laboratory is back on-site after months of reduced operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to contractor Fluor Idaho. An additional 30% are still teleworking, a company spokesperson said by email Thursday. The Fluor Idaho representative did not immediately say if the rest are collecting paid […]

To settle a 2018 lawsuit over storage of plutonium, the Department of Energy tentatively agreed not to send more of the weapon-usable material to Nevada, the state said Friday. Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford announced the development in a press release summarizing the unpublished settlement between the Silver State and DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration […]

Like death and taxes, the federal regulatory process continues amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as evidenced by Centrus Energy’s submission of a license application to enrich a 19.75% enriched uranium fuel. The Bethesda, Md.-based company is building a new 16-machine cascade based on its AC100M technology at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio. The […]

A day after the National Nuclear Security Administration announced it would not pick up the remaining options on the existing management deal for its Y-12 and Pantex sites, the Government Accountability Office urged the agency to study whether the outgoing contractor’s cost-saving methods could work at other nuclear-weapon sites. Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) in 2014 […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday reported out two nominations to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) via voice vote. The nominations of serving DNFSB member Joyce Connery and new nominee Thomas Summers now advance to the full Senate. No date has been set for a floor vote. Connery joined the board in […]

Centerra Group, the incumbent provider of paramilitary security at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, has withdrawn a Government Accountability Office (GAO) protest over procurement of a follow-on contract. Centerra filed the protest May 8, but then withdrew it on June 9, according to a notice posted on the GAO website. The […]

A coalition of environmental organizations on Wednesday petitioned a federal appeals court to overturn a Nuclear Regulatory Commission decision against challenges to a proposed consolidated interim used nuclear fuel installation in New Mexico. On April 23, the commission rejected nearly all appeals from several organizations to a 2019 decision by an NRC Atomic Safety and […]

The story “Pentagon Would Get More Control of NNSA Budget Under Senate Committee’s NDAA,” (Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, June 24, 2020) should have included links and attribution to outside reporting about the Department of Energy’s internal budget debate for the 2021 fiscal year. The story was updated to clarify the timeline of events during those […]

Another worker at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state tested posted for COVID-19 this week, bringing the total number of cases to 17 at the former plutonium production complex. The individual works at the Waste Treatment Plant being built by Bechtel, according to the Energy Department website that provides updates on COVID-19. Access […]

The Department of Energy will not pick up the remaining options on Bechtel National-led Consolidated Nuclear Security’s contract to manage the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee and Pantex Plant in Texas, which now will expire after Sept. 30, 2021. Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) will leave three years’ worth of options on the table. The […]

A draft federal environmental impact statement (EIS) for a proposed used nuclear fuel storage site in New Mexico only looks at the next 40 years, and does not sufficiently consider that the radioactive material might remain there long past that point, opponents of the project argued Tuesday. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a public meeting […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has formally accepted for review an Energy Department proposal to dispose of vitrified low-activity waste inside the fence at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Energy Department on April 23 filed its draft Waste Incidental to Reprocessing (WIR) evaluation with the NRC, which in this case is serving as […]

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) has terminated one of the primary contracts for remediation of radioactive contamination at Port Hope, Ontario. As of June 30, Ottawa-based Milestone Environmental Contracting will no longer be in charge of cleanup of Port Hope Harbor and the Center Pier under the Port Hope Area Initiative, according to a press release […]

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. […]