Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) management contractor for the Savannah River Site plans by June to finalize the design for a new plant capable of making 50 plutonium nuclear-warhead cores a year, the company’s president said here Wednesday. The conceptual design report for the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF), to […]

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he plans to nominate Undersecretary of Energy Mark Menezes to take over as deputy secretary for the Department of Energy. Menezes would succeed Dan Brouillette, who in December was confirmed and sworn in as secretary of energy. Menezes was confirmed by the Senate in November 2017 as undersecretary, through […]

Lawmakers are strongly opposing the Navy’s plans to fund eight new ships in fiscal 2021, including only one Virginia-class submarine, a decrease from 12 in the current fiscal 2020. When the fiscal 21 budget request was first released on Monday, asking for eight ships at $20 billion, House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee Chairman […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — After delays attributed to unsuitable electrical components, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) now plans to manufacture the first refurbished B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb and W88 Alt-370 submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead in 2022 and 2021, respectively, a senior agency official said here Tuesday. That would mean a one- to two-year delay for both […]

The Energy Department on Tuesday issued a draft request for proposals for the potential 10-year, $6.4 billion contract for the Idaho Cleanup Project. The Idaho National Laboratory cleanup contract includes operation of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, management and disposal of both low-level radioactive and transuranic waste, decommissioning old facilities, and spent fuel management of […]

Several of the 16 nuclear cleanup sites overseen by the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management would receive less money during the upcoming fiscal 2021 than they do in the current budget, under the latest spending proposal from the administration of President Donald Trump. Environmental remediation funding for the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee would […]

The Trump administration this week again proposed transferring management of the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to the Department of Energy. The plan is laid out in fiscal 2021 budget documents for both entities, employing similar language to that used last year in the White […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The directors of the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories on Tuesday each declined to say whether their shop would design the planned sea-based W93 nuclear warhead. Asked which of the two nuclear weapons design labs would handle the W93, if Congress approves it, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory […]

Key Pacific Northwest lawmakers in the House and Senate pledged this week to ensure the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state gets more than the nearly $2 billion proposed in President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2021 budget request. The two DOE offices that oversee cleanup and radioactive waste management at the former plutonium manufacturing complex […]

BWX Technologies said Monday it had received a $3.6 million contract for engineering to decommission and refurbish parts of its Lynchburg, Va., facility to eventually produce high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel for a National Nuclear Security Administration nonproliferation program. The uranium-molybdenum alloy fuel the company will produce will be used in U.S. research reactors that currently […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) made post-Cold War history in its 2021 budget request, which seeks funds to develop a new sea-based nuclear warhead designated Mk7 W93 — a weapon designed to be rapidly upgradeable and serviced outside of the civilian agency’s Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas.  This will be the first new warhead […]

The Donald Trump administration on Monday requested $6.1 billion for the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management during fiscal 2021, which would be an 18% reduction from the $7.5 billion enacted by Congress in the current budget year. It also represents a $400 million slice from the $6.5 billion the White House sought last March […]

The Trump administration’s fiscal 2021 budget request adds only eight battle force ships, two fewer than previously planned, while also planning to retire four Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs). The Navy is requesting $207.1 billion overall, $2.9 billion less than in the current fiscal 2020. Ship procurement is set at $20 billion, down from the $24 […]

After winning $1.475 million in an initial jury decision and another $295,000 in front pay in a post-trial ruling, a former employee for the Savannah River Site’s liquid waste contractor is seeking nearly $270,000 more in a discrimination suit to cover attorney fees and litigation costs. In a Feb. 6 request in U.S. District Court […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is requesting $863.4 million in funding for the upcoming 2021 fiscal year, a small step up from the $855.6 million authorized by Congress for the current spending cycle. But the agency noted Monday that it has decreased its budget by 17% since fiscal 2014. In that time, the number of full-time […]

Having failed to revive plans for a geologic repository under Yucca Mountain in Nevada, the Trump administration wants nearly $30 million to promote the means for consolidation and temporary storage of the nation’s nuclear waste. The White House did not include Yucca Mountain in its budget plan for fiscal 2021, released on Monday, after three […]

A transportation provider for the cleanup contractor at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee was involved a January fender-bender while moving low-level radioactive waste along a highway in Arkansas. No injuries resulted and no radioactive soil spilled in the accident, according to a Feb.7 DOE accident report. The unidentified subcontractor hired by URS/CH2M […]

The roughly $20 billion 2021 budget the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) requested on Monday — a figure that would come at the expense of the Pentagon’s naval shipbuilding budget and, to a lesser extent, cleanup of the nation’s nuclear weapons complex — is “the right number” to reverse a decade of “neglect,” Secretary of […]

Members of Congress representing states that are home to Department of Energy facilities with radioactive waste on Ffriday urged the Trump administration to rethink its plan not to request funding for the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada. “It is disappointing to see Yucca Mountain continued to be used as a political pawn,” Rep. Dan Newhouse […]

It could be nearly a decade before the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state ships more transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, an Oregon official said last week. However, “eventually Hanford will be the predominant shipper of waste to WIPP,” Ken Niles, administrator for the Hanford and Nuclear […]

The Department of Energy last week appealed a $1 million fine filed by the Washington state Department of Ecology for allegedly withholding safety information regarding the Hanford Site. The notice of appeal was filed Feb. 6 with the state’s Pollution Control Hearings Board. The federal agency on Jan. 3 appealed the underlying violation. The first […]

Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette made his first splash on the international stage Monday morning, weaving some tough talk about Iran and North Korea into a speech at a United Nations nuclear security conference in Vienna, Austria. “We call on Iran to fully cooperate with the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] in monitoring and inspecting […]

The nuclear dismantlement branch of Orano has received secured a contract valued at millions of euros to fully disassemble the stainless-steel walls and metal structure of two retired spent fuel storage pools at France’s Marcoule nuclear facility. Dismantlement operations will “commence shortly,” according to a press release from Paris-based Orano. The release does not cite […]

The Energy Department and contractor CH2M Plateau Remediation have finished taking down the main processing facility at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant. With the building’s demolition, full removal of the Plutonium Finishing Plant should be finished this summer by the Jacobs subsidiary. Remaining work involves packaging and disposal of the rubble from the Plutonium […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Surplus Plutonium Disposition project has reached Critical Decision 1 (CD-1), paving the way for the agency to begin procurement on the long-awaited replacement for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The project hit the milestone on Dec. 19, a spokesperson for […]

Long-anticipated talks between the Department of Energy and the Washington state Department of Ecology on cleanup issues at the Hanford Site should finally begin by early March. The two sides have agreed on the scope of the talks, Ecology Nuclear Waste Program Manager Alex Smith said Wednesday during a meeting of the Hanford Advisory Board. […]