Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The legacy cleanup contractor for the U.S. Energy Department’s Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory in New Mexico is seeking a firm to monitor vapor levels around certain disposal areas. Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) on Monday issued an updated request for proposals at www.fbo.gov for a subcontractor to collect and report on material disposal area […]

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Keeping the threat of a bid protest in his back pocket, a Boeing Co. executive said here Tuesday the U.S. Air Force can save time and money building the next generation of nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles by scrapping a competition in which only Northrop Grumman is competing. “What I am suggesting is […]

Staff at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects completion by 2021 of an overhaul of regulations covering nuclear power reactors making the transition from operations to decommissioning. That is two years later than anticipated when the NRC commissioners in 2014 told staff to proceed with the rulemaking, Bruce Watson, chief of the NRC’s Reactor Decommissioning […]

House lawmakers on Tuesday officially moved to start final negotiations with the Senate on the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, but partisan gridlock in the Senate threatened to limit progress on budget negotiations this week to a stopgap spending bill, or continuing resolution. The House late Tuesday queued up a vote for either Thursday or […]

The head of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) was briefly on President Donald Trump’s short list to replace John Bolton as national security adviser, media reported Tuesday. However, Trump on Wednesday announced via Twitter he had selected Robert O’Brien, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs at the State Department and a former […]

Power company Exelon has moved up the retirement date for its reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania to Friday, a senior U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission official said Tuesday. Reactor Unit 1 had been scheduled to close by Sept. 30. “We originally were told it would shut down by the end […]

The Colorado Department of Health and Environment expects the organization building a toll road near Denver to continue soil sampling around the site of the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility and to submit its results by the end of the year. A soil sample taken by the Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority in May […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site is delaying roofing repairs at its H Canyon nuclear materials processing facility, after stating at the start of the year construction would begin around midsummer. Repairs on the leaky roof are scheduled to begin “later this year,” Monte Volk, a DOE spokesman at the 310-square-mile facility near Aiken, […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday affirmed that directives in recent years regarding disposal of very low-level radioactive waste (VLLW) do not apply to a facility operated by Waste Control Specialists (WCS) on its West Texas property. John Lubinski, director of the agency’s Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, was responding to a […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A draft environmental assessment on commercial disposal of up to 10,000 gallons of radioactive wastewater from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina could be issued for public comment by the end of 2019. The feedback to the draft assessment, under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, will help determine if […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The U.S. Energy Department’s top official at the Hanford Site in Washington state has a full plate these days. That includes preparing for potential turnover of four top contractors and gearing up for operation of the $17 billion Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) by 2023, Brian Vance, who manages both the Hanford Office […]

A former staffer at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) who worked on radioactive waste issues has returned as a commissioner. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Monday appointed Bobby Janecka to the third spot on the commission, according to a press release. The other members are Chairman Jon Niermann and Commissioner Emily Lindley. […]

Senate appropriators could slow the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) plan to award a uranium purification-and-conversion contract to BWXT Technologies, according to a report accompanying the upper chamber’s 2020 energy and water spending bill. The planned contract  is the semiautonomous Department of Energy branch’s way of ensuring it has enough uranium to complete scheduled nuclear […]

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee is recommending an $841.2 million budget for most operations at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the upcoming 2020 federal budget year. That would be just over $66.5 million less than the federal regulator requested for salaries and expenses for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. However, the committee directed that the nuclear […]

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday advanced legislation that would prohibit any large reorganization of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) unless “specifically authorized by law.” The language was place in the fiscal 2020 energy and water development spending bill that is now due to be considered by the full Senate. If the restriction […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is giving stakeholders an additional 60 days to comment on a draft regulatory basis that could lay the groundwork for an update to regulations on disposal of Greater-Than-Class C low-level radioactive waste. The comment period had been scheduled to close on Sept. 20. But the agency, in a Federal Register […]

General Dynamics [GD] has appointed Kevin Graney, president of GD National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO), as president of GD Electric Boat (EB), effective Oct. 1. Concurrently, David Carver, NASSCO’s vice president and general manager of repair, is succeeding Graney as president of NASSCO, the company revealed Friday. These moves come as Jeffrey Geiger, who has […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) on Thursday said he would not seek to succeed Lamar Alexander in the Senate. “I’m not going anywhere,” Fleischmann said during a presentation at the U.S. Energy Department’s National Cleanup Workshop. “I’m staying in the House. I’m not running for the Senate.” After Alexander (R-Tenn.) announced in […]

After several weeks of speculation that the two developers for the Air Force’s next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile system could work together on a path forward, the companies appear to be at a crossroads. Northrop Grumman has reportedly rejected Boeing’s offer to partner up to develop the Air Force’s Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) program, Boeing said in a Sept. […]

A subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee on Wednesday advanced legislation that would expand the mission of the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) to aiding permanent disposal of U.S. radioactive waste. The waste language is one part of the much broader ARPA-E Reauthorization Act of 2019 from Rep. Eddie […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security confirmed Wednesday it is is investigating “potential discrepancies” between the hours employees at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, say they worked and the hours recorded by badge readers at the nation’s only nuclear-weapons assembly site. The local NBC affiliate, KAMR-TV, first reported the news. The Bechtel National-led Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — While the U.S. Energy Department has moved slower than anticipated in awarding several multibillion-dollar nuclear cleanup contracts, it is important to get the process correct, DOE Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar said Wednesday. “We want to make sure we are doing it the right way,” Dabbar said during his speech at the […]

Two senior Democrats on Tuesday requested that the U.S. Congressional Budget Office evaluate the potential costs to the United States from expiration of the New START nuclear arms control treaty. The 2011 accord prohibits the United States and Russia from deploying more than 1,550 strategic warheads on a maximum of 700 fielded delivery systems. It […]

A top official at the U.S. Department of Energy on Wednesday placed the onus squarely on Congress to provide the means for permanent disposal of the nation’s nuclear waste. For now, that means the long-planned Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada, as directed under the 1987 amendment to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, Undersecretary of […]

New Mexico-based Strategic Management Solutions filed a protest with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Monday over a contract worth up to $137 million to provide technical support services for the Energy Department’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office. The DOE Office of Environmental Management issued the award on Aug. 22 to Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based Enterprise Technical […]

Fluor Idaho, the U.S. Energy Department’s cleanup contractor at the Idaho National Laboratory, expects within weeks to largely conclude its work at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP). As of late August, 140 cubic meters of transuranic waste debris remained to be treated at the AMWTP, company spokesman Erik Simpson said by email Tuesday. […]