Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management would receive almost $7.5 billion under a compromise fiscal 2020 appropriations bill released by House and Senate lawmakers on Monday. That’s equal with the Senate Appropriation Committee’s energy and water development bill, approved in September, and well above the $7.2 billion in last year’s appropriation: an amount roughly […]

As the Department of Energy prepares to reshape the state of business at the Hanford’s Site by switching its industry affiliations at the former plutonium-production campus, Major League Baseball has proposed abandoning its affiliation with a hometown fixture that arrived before the current slate of cleanup contractors: the Tri-City Dust Devils Minor League Baseball club. […]

Holtec International has already added up to three years to its schedule for decommissioning the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts, which could increase certain costs for the project by $102 million, according to the commonwealth Attorney General’s Office. The figures are based on a presentation Holtec gave last month to a local advisory panel […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration would get all the money it needs, and more, in what’s left of fiscal year 2020, including some $710 million to start work on a controversial two-state plutonium pit complex that would bring a new nuclear-weapon mission to South Carolina. The compromise budget bill, details of which the House unveiled […]

A draft request for proposals for a new cleanup contract at the U.S. Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL) could be released by late December, according to a new procurement notice. The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management said in a Dec. 11 notice on a federal procurement website that the draft document should be […]

Professional Project Services has received a three-year contract potentially worth more than $2.3 million to support construction by Centrus Energy of a 16-machine uranium enrichment cascade at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio. Under the pact, which will employ the equivalent of 2.5 full-time employees, Professional Project Services (Pro2Serve), of Oak […]

The U.S. Navy still has margin to burn on the first Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, despite some of that programmatic breathing room getting burned after BWX Technologies incorrectly welded a dozen tubes for the Common Missile Compartments intended for that vessel and Virginia-class attack subs, a senior Navy officer said. “They do have margin to […]

While the clock ticks down on 2019, the U.S. Energy Department Office of Environmental Management has yet to issue a draft request for proposals for a new remediation contract for the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The agency said in a July procurement notice it planned to issue a draft RFP within 60 days, which […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission from July to October conducted 10 unannounced inspections of spent fuel transfer operations at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California. The inspections are part of the agency’s response to several problems in the project, notably an August 2018 incident in which a canister was put at risk […]

The Kansas City, Mo., National Security Campus plans this coming spring to open a small satellite factory about 1 mile east from the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) main workshop for non-nuclear components of nuclear-weapon. “Occupancy is expected to begin next spring after tenant improvements such as utilities and furnishings are completed,” a spokesperson […]

Department of Energy contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security returned some piping to a subcontractor after determining it was unsuitable for installation in the main uranium processing building at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee. Mechanical contractor Hicks & Ingle, of Knoxville, Tenn., fabricated the pipes under a two-year contract awarded in 2018. A spokesperson for […]

A compromise National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would authorize all the nuclear weapons spending the White House seeks for fiscal 2020 for passed the House in a landslide Wednesday evening, despite earlier threats of resistance from left-leaning Democrats. The annual bill, which sets policy and spending limits for defense programs, passed 377-48. The “no” […]

An article in Wednesday’s edition of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, “NDAA Would Stop DNFSB Members From Serving After Their Terms Expire,” should have said all three members of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board are serving expired terms. An article in Monday’s edition of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, “Final RFP for Nationwide Deactivation Contract Expected Soon, DOE […]

New U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette assured a Senate committee recently that steps are being taken to tighten his department’s shipment of radioactive waste for disposal at the Nevada National Security Site. Brouillette, at the time deputy energy secretary, listed several measures in a written response to a question submitted by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission intends to issue a follow-on contract for support in finalizing the emergency preparedness portion of its ongoing decommissioning rulemaking. ICF Incorporated LLC would receive a two-year noncompetitive award for “Completion of Emergency Preparedness Decommissioning Rulemaking and Guidance,” according to a Dec. 5 procurement notice from the NRC. Agency staff in […]

A risk of combustion linked to calcium prompted suspension in November of transuranic waste shipments from the U.S. Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant further south in New Mexico, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). Workers discovered calcium metal in certain transuranic material that can ignite […]

New Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette skirted a Nevada senator’s questions regarding his position on requiring consent from impacted state, local, and tribal communities in selecting the site for storage of nuclear waste. The issue of consent is of keen importance to Nevada’s state leadership and congressional delegation, which for decades have been fighting the […]

Despite discussing arms control in private meetings Tuesday in Washington, the top diplomats for the United States and Russia gave no hint in a subsequent press conference that the countries would extend the New START nuclear treaty. Speaking with reporters, Mike Pompeo, President Donald Trump’s secretary of state, stuck to the administration’s position that New START […]

The Nevada Board of Examiners on Tuesday approved a $5.1 million, two-year renewal to the state contract with a law firm for counsel in its fight against the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. The contract amendment keeps Egan, Fitzpatrick, Malsch, & Lawrence on the job through Feb. 28, 2022, with a maximum payment of […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has signed off on transferring the reactor and spent-fuel storage licenses for the Zion nuclear power plant in Illinois from decommissioning contractor EnergySolutions to site owner Exelon. The order from agency staff took effect on Nov. 26, according to a Dec. 6 notice in the Federal Register. It is good […]

Members of the federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board would generally not be allowed to serve in expired terms any longer, if Congress’ compromise 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) published late Monday becomes law. The measure would make an exception in cases where the departure of a board member would leave the nominally five-member […]

Two U.S. Energy Department contractors in fiscal 2019 together cited 48 violations of the New Mexico hazardous waste permit for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), including incorrectly recording the whereabouts of 250 drums of radioactive waste. In September, about 250 waste drums shipped to the DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad were incorrectly […]

The U.S. Department of Energy on Friday backed storage of up to 6,800 metric tons of elemental mercury in existing buildings at the Waste Control Specialists (WCS) property near Andrews, Texas. Using two buildings at the licensed commercial waste disposal site will be cheaper than building new structures and simplify the Energy Department procurement processes, […]

The Savannah River Site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) resumed operations last week, ending a four-month scheduled outage that allowed workers to tie the $2.3 billion Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) into the rest of the liquid waste system at the Department of Energy complex in South Carolina. The DWPF is again treating radioactive sludge […]

A compromise defense policy bill published Monday would authorize all the nuclear weapon spending the Department of Energy sought for fiscal 2020, bar the agency from downgrading the hazard classification of certain nuclear waste in Washington state, and prohibit defense funding for the proposed Yucca Mountain permanent waste repository. The House is set to vote […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology is threatening to fine the U.S. Energy Department for withholding important data about operations at the Hanford Site. For its part, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management claims the state misunderstands the level of access allowed under the 1989 Tri-Party Agreement that governs cleanup at the former plutonium production complex. […]

U.S. Department of Defense senior executive Tom Mooney is expected this week to become the new chief of staff at the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. Mooney is the current chief of staff for the Pentagon’s Office of the Chief Management Officer, according to a source who said the federal manager stopped by DOE […]