Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The federal government and the firm it hired to build a now-canceled plutonium recycling plant have one year to settle allegations that the contractor defrauded the Department of Energy, or the case will go before a jury later that year, according to a Wednesday court filing.  In 2019, The Justice Department alleged CB&I AREVA MOX […]

The Department of Energy announced Wednesday that the Savannah River Site in South Carolina is starting a “safe and deliberate process to resume operations” scaled back two months ago to curb the spread of COVID-19 among its workforce. In the same news release, the department said a 19th case of COVID-19 had been confirmed at […]

The Energy Department intends to keep security contractor Centerra Group on the job at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina into 2021, according to a Tuesday procurement notice. The current deal with Centerra ends Oct. 7, but now will be extended through Feb. 7, 2021. The Energy Department can also exercise two additional four-month […]

A longtime federal attorney was sworn in Wednesday as inspector general for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Robert Feitel succeeds Hubert Bell, who retired in December 2018 after 22 years in the position. As inspector general, Feitel now leads an office with a yearly budget of about $13 million and a mission to conduct audits and […]

There is about one month left on the temporary indemnity determination the Department of Energy allowed nuclear-weapon sites to add to their management and operations contracts after the COVID-19 pandemic forced mass telework in mid-March. The determination, which Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette issued on March 26, will lapse on June 30. The decision specified […]

Two runners-up for a potential $13 billion tank closure contract at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state filed protests Wednesday with the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Hanford Tank Closure Co. and Tank Closure Partnership LLC both objected to DOE’s May 14 award to Hanford Works Restoration, which is comprised of BWX Technologies, Fluor, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) could be ready to perform an underground nuclear-explosive test in a matter of months, a Pentagon official said Tuesday.  “I’ve heard NNSA administrators and lab directors in the past talk about a very quick test with limited diagnostics, though certainly diagnostics, within months,” said Drew Walter, who is performing […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee said Monday it plans from June 8 to 10 to hold individual subcommittee markups and a full panel markup of the fiscal 2021 defense authorization bill. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began spreading across the globe earlier this year, observers worried that social distancing guidelines that have altered normal working routines […]

Random tests for COVID-19 infection are now mandatory for personnel reporting to work at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, according to a recent note to personnel. Essentially, anyone on-site, including subcontractors, could be scheduled for a test by the lab’s Occupational Medicine department. “Participation in the testing program is mandatory […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is continuing preparations for bringing staff back to their offices amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a spokesman said Tuesday. Ninety-eight percent of the federal regulator’s personnel have been working remotely since March to help prevent the spread of novel coronavirus 2019. The agency’s “COVID Task Force continues to review plans for a […]

The Department of Energy indicated in a draft report issued Tuesday that vitrified low-activity waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state can be disposed of at the facility, rather than requiring transfer to another location. The agency will accept public comment through Sept. 26 on its draft Waste Incidental to Reprocessing Evaluation. The agency […]

The United Kingdom’s Sellafield nuclear site is resuming some cleanup operations and ramping up the number of on-site personnel, after two months of COVID-19 precautions. Site operator Sellafield Ltd. in late March reducing staffing inside the fence from over 8,000 to roughly 1,500 “key workers,” according to a May 22 update. It hopes by the […]

Bare-bones staffing for nuclear cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico won’t be lifted before May 31, a Department of Energy official said last week. The stay-at-home order from New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) remains in effect until that date, Thomas Johnson Jr., the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico received 47 shipments of transuranic waste during the first four months of 2020. That is down from 83 for the same period in 2019, according to the Energy Department’s public database for the waste disposal facility. In late March, WIPP reduced operations due to […]

The latest report that high-level U.S. officials have discussed a return to nuclear explosive testing stirred the usual sentiments of incredulity and puzzlement over the Memorial Day weekend, when some issue watchers wondered what such a development should or even could look like. The Washington Post reported Friday that a high-level White House official said […]

The Energy Department late Friday confirmed the 18th case of novel coronavirus 2019 infection among the workforce at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, adding that 13 employees have recovered and returned to work. The facility, located along the border with Georgia, accounts for more than half of the 28 confirmed cases of COVID-19 […]

One more person who works at Department of Energy headquarters in Washington, D.C., was confirmed to have COVID-19, but this person had not been in the Forrestal Building since mid-March, the agency said Friday. That brings the cumulative total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at DOE headquarters in the Washington region to at least 13, […]

The Senate confirmed Kenneth Braithwaite as the next secretary of the Navy via voice vote on May 21. Braithwaite, who previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Norway, succeeds acting Secretary Thomas Modly, who resigned in April amid criticism of his removal of the commander of the aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt, Capt. Brett Crozier. Army Undersecretary […]

A worker at the Savannah River Site this month settled his federal personal injury lawsuit against the Energy Department’s operations contractor for the South Carolina facility. Henry Bradley, employed by another contractor at Savannah River, in November 2018 filed the $75,000 suit in U.S. District Court in South Carolina against site manager Savannah River Nuclear […]

It’s a good-news, bad-news week regarding the 225,000 Chinese-made personal respirators the National Nuclear Security Administration ordered to protect employees and contractors from COVID-19. The good news is they’re still coming. The bad news is that they will arrive at a 70% price premium, compared to what the agency thought it would pay. The semiautonomous […]

The nominee for the No. 2 position at the Department of Energy on Wednesday affirmed the Trump administration’s intention to move ahead with a program for interim storage of nuclear waste rather than continuing to press for disposal under Yucca Mountain in Nevada. “Let me be very clear about this. The president has been very […]

Tim Griffin, executive director of the Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based Energy, Technology, and Environmental Business Association for nearly five years, has left to take another job. Griffin’s last day was May 8 at the trade group that represents about 170 firms and individuals doing business with the Energy Department or its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration […]

The Energy Department has reached a deal with the state of California to tear down and remove 10 contaminated buildings at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) in Ventura County. Eliminating decaying buildings within the Radioactive Materials Handling Facility Complex should avoid a release of hazardous substances and minimize risk to the public in the […]

The Air Force contract to build more than 600 new commercial engines to power the aging, nuclear-capable B-52 bomber through the 2050s will run 17 years with six years of firm money, according to a solicitation released Tuesday.  The service’s Commercial Engine Replacement Program calls for 608 new commercial engines, plus additional spare engines and […]

Nuclear Fuel Services has not tracked any new cases of COVID-19 among its workforce since an outbreak in mid-April sickened multiple people at its Erwin, Tenn., uranium-processing plant, a spokesperson said Thursday morning. The BWX Technologies subsidiary “has had no new cases of COVID-19 among our employees,” the spokesperson said by email. “Those affected are […]

The Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) suspended most of its nuclear operations in late March because of COVID-19, but expansion of the site’s underground subcritical testing laboratory came back online in the first week of April. Expanding the existing U1a Complex as part of the U1a Complex Enhancements Project (UCEP) is central to plans to […]

Precautions are being taken to protect returning employees at Department of Energy nuclear cleanup sites from COVID-19, Undersecretary of Energy Mark Menezes said Wednesday. “We are moving to reopen some of the facilities” overseen by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, Menezes told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee during his nomination hearing to become […]