Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

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 […]

Reinhard Knerr, a director at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office (PPPO), will in mid-July become the new permanent manager for the agency’s Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico. Knerr is currently federal project director for conversion of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky. His […]

Nora Khalil is leaving the National Nuclear Security Administration to become the lead Republican staffer on the Senate Appropriations panel that writes the agency’s annual budget bill each year,  a source familiar with the move said. Khalil is now the agency’s associate administrator for external affairs. She will replace Adam DeMella, who is leaving Sen. […]

The Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state has confirmed another case of COVID-19 among its workforce, which would be its 14th and the first reported since Friday. In addition, DOE’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina has confirmed its 36th case. Twenty-three of those workers have recovered and returned to work. The notices […]

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will not be published Thursday. The ExchangeMonitor will publish its weekly newsletters on Thursday, in observance of the Juneteenth holiday Friday. Look for the next issue of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing in your inbox on Monday, June 22.

EnergySolutions hopes this year to receive a state license to finally begin accepting large amounts of depleted uranium at its radioactive waste disposal facility in Clive, Utah. That would mark the end of a regulatory process that has stretched for more than a decade. State legislation enacted in March 2018 set three requirements for the […]

A virtual public meeting on fiscal 2022 budget priorities for the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state is scheduled for 3 p.m. Pacific time today. The meeting is being organized by the three signatories to the 1989 Tri-Party Agreement that governs environmental remediation at the former plutonium production complex: Washington state, DOE, and the […]

Department of Energy contractor Strategic Management Solutions Inc. (SMSI) has hired industry veteran Matthew Nuckols for the newly created position of executive vice president. A civil engineer, Nuckols has 25 years of project and program management experience at sites within the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management and semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) complexes, […]

After it leaked to the media that the Senate’s fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) had a sliver of funding for nuclear-explosive test readiness, the five Democrats of Nevada’s congressional delegation released a letter to the White House condemning any return to testing. “With no stated justification to resume testing, we unequivocally oppose any […]

Lockheed Martin on Monday completed its planned leadership transition, with James Taiclet entering as its new president and CEO. He succeeds Marillyn Hewson, who remains with the company as executive chairman. Taiclet, 60, will continue to serve on the company’s board, which he joined in 2018. Before leading Lockheed Martin, Taiclet was chairman, president, and CEO […]

Nuclear industry journeyman John Meyers has been hired to run point on TechSource’s business with the Department of Energy and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration. The Los Alamos, N.M., company in May hired Meyers as vice president for federal nuclear programs, making him the “principal officer for all National Nuclear Security Administration and Department of […]

A story in Monday’s Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, NNSA Closes Out Westinghouse Excess Uranium Contract, should have said BWX Technologies subsidiary Nuclear Fuel Services has a contract with the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Fluor is paying over $1.1 million in separation agreements to two recently departed executives, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Executive Vice President for Systems and Supply Chain Ray Barnard is being paid a lump sump of $620,000, and Executive Vice President, Energy and Chemicals—Business Development and Strategy Jose Bustamante is […]