Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday told senators on March 5 industry is ready for and able to build two Virginia-class attack submarines (SSNs) in fiscal 2021, while the administration’s budget request funded only one. The Navy is under a Block V multiyear procurement contract that covers nine vessels with an option for a 10th. […]

Prospective bidders for the Energy Department’s potential five-year, $250-million support services contract at the Paducah Site in Kentucky should plan for a 60-day transition from the incumbent. In 30 pages of answers to contractor questions, posted March 5 on the procurement website for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, the agency noted that some references in […]

Someone at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California was exposed to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that broke out in 2019, local media reported last week. A Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) employee exposed to someone with the disease is now self-monitoring at home, along with more than a dozen other […]

While the Department of Energy is not yet restricting travel inside the United States in response to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), it is encouraging offices to “begin reducing non-essential domestic travel, as appropriate,” according to a Friday memo. “We will look at this issue and provide additional guidance as needed,” the agency […]

A working group of staff at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has recommended downshifting the standard schedule for inspections of spent reactor fuel storage pads from roughly every two years to three years. That was the No. 1 recommendation in the draft final version of Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) Inspection Enhancement Initiative, issued Friday. […]

The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) has raised a long list of concerns about a draft of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s environmental impact statement for a planned used nuclear fuel storage facility in the state. Even as Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) and other state leaders have objected to the project from energy technology company […]

The liquid waste management contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina will pay more than $267,000 to a former employee in attorney’s fees, after already paying nearly $1.8 million in her discrimination lawsuit. Savannah River Remediation (SRR) did not file any objections or responses to Adrienne Saulsberry’s Feb. 6 motion […]

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on Thursday chastised Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette for the deep budget cuts in fiscal 2021 proposed by the White House for the Hanford Site in Washington state. The former plutonium-producing site, considered the nation’s most complex nuclear cleanup, would see its total spending slashed from $2.6 billion enacted by Congress in […]

Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette said Wednesday he is ready to work with two key Senate appropriators to establish a pilot program for temporary storage of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants. Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) noted he and panel Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) have proposed the […]

The Air Force will not be affected in fiscal 2021 if Congress approves the White House’s plan to short the Pentagon budget by $2.5 billion to increase spending at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) by 25%, the service’s chief of staff said Wednesday. “The $2.5 [billion] didn’t have an impact on the Air Force, ” […]

WASHINGTON — Some new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent intercontinental ballistic missiles might be deployed into silos with warheads from their predecessor, the Minuteman III, a senior National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) official said here Wednesday. The fleet of next-generation missiles will use about a 50-50 mix of old W87-0 warheads, used on Minuteman III today, and […]

Soil samples taken since last summer along a right-of-way for a stretch of highway near the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant have not detected any high levels of radiative contamination, a Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) said this week. The Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority conducted more sampling along the route […]

The John Wood Group said Wednesday it expects later this month to complete the sale of its nuclear business to Jacobs, following regulatory approval in the United Kingdom. The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority has signed off on the deal, the Scotland-based energy services multinational said in a brief press release. “Wood and Jacobs continue […]

The $470 million Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is on track to begin operations this month, following completion in February of a readiness assessment, according to builder Parsons. Both the Energy Department and Parsons said via email this week that the agency’s readiness assessment […]

Roughly 90 representatives from some of the Energy Department’s major contractors registered for an industry day last week on the potential 15-year, $6.4 billion cleanup contract for the Idaho National Laboratory. The Energy Department issued the draft request for proposals for the award last month. It followed that up with a tour, informational program, and […]

California Assemblywoman Christy Smith, a Democrat, and Republican Mike Garcia, a former Navy fighter pilot, are expected to face each other in a May 12 runoff to decide who will represent California’s 25th congressional district until January 2021. A couple of hours after the polls closed in California, they are the top two vote-getters in […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday it would proceed with a major conference next week, even as other sizable events are being canceled as cases of coronavirus disease increase globally. There were more than 2,200 registrants as of Monday for the agency’s Regulatory Information Conference, scheduled for March 10-12 in North Bethesda, Md., according to […]

WASHINGTON — The annual tradition of legislative outrage over proposed reductions to nuclear cleanup spending continued in a blunt and unvarnished way here Tuesday, when Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) told Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette that the agency’s 2021 budget proposal “frankly sucks.” Heinrich was one of several vocally dissatisified legislators as Brouillette appeared before […]

WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy is revising a controversial order that curtailed the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s access to defense nuclear sites and personnel, and the agency plans to brief the board  this month, the Secretary of Energy told lawmakers here Tuesday. “It’s being revised,”Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette said of Order 140.1 […]

The Department of Energy plans to take bids on the design of a facility for interim storage of used reactor fuel from nuclear power plants, a senior official said Tuesday. Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Rita Baranwal discussed the upcoming procurement in a hearing on the new DOE budget proposal before the House Appropriations energy […]

WASHINGTON —Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette on Tuesday would not commit to supporting a congressional rewrite of the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act to exclude construction of a permanent nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. “If we were to consider a repeal of the 1987 amendment that designated Yucca Montain as the nation’s sole nuclear […]

WASHINGTON — The W93 warhead will notionally be based on previously deployed nuclear-explosive components, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said here Tuesday.  The W93, a planned submarine-launched warhead and the first U.S. nuclear weapon since the Cold War that isn’t a copy or iteration of an existing weapon, has been a […]

Two key projects at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico are nearing completion. Construction of the North Access Road should be finished by the end of the month, according to Donavan Mager, spokesman for WIPP management and operations contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership. The purpose of the $10 million, 3-mile bypass […]

The Energy Department, together with the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, have launched a site-wide five-year review of cleanup at the Idaho National Laboratory. Five-year reviews gauge the effectiveness of remediation efforts as required by the Superfund law, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), Fluor Idaho said […]

Defense Secretary Mark Esper has formally nominated Pacific Air Forces Commander Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown to become the Air Force’s next chief of staff. If confirmed, Brown would become the first African-American chief of staff for any of the U.S. military services. The Wall Street Journal first reported Brown’s impending nomination Monday, with a Defense Department release […]

The Department of Energy wants just a little bit less money in fiscal 2021 than it has now for research and development related to used nuclear fuel. The agency’s Office of Nuclear Energy asked for $60 million for the line item within its total budget request of nearly $1.2 billion. If approved by Congress, that […]