Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

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. […]

Interim Storage Partners (ISP) on Monday petitioned for dismissal of the sole permitted contention against federal licensing of its planned consolidated interim storage facility in West Texas for spent fuel from nuclear power plants. Upon rejecting the contention, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board should then close out the entire proceeding of […]

Minutes after President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that John Bolton would leave his job as national security adviser, voices in the arms control community wondered if the White House now would be more likely to extend the New START nuclear-weapons treaty with Russia. “Is there hope for the New START Treaty?” Madelyn Creedon, principal deputy administrator […]

The Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee on Tuesday advanced legislation that would provide $65 million more than the White House requested for fiscal 2020 for the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation, nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile. The Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) program would receive $635 million for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, under the 2020 Defense Appropriations Act […]

Staff at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has determined there would be no significant environmental impact in a 20-year renewal of the Department of Energy’s license for storage of radioactive waste from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant at the Idaho National Laboratory. The agency is expected to formally post the final environmental assessment […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in July again spent little of its remaining balance from the fund intended to pay for a federal nuclear waste repository. The agency spent just $704 in the month for unspecified program planning and support. That left the NRC with a total balance of $434,262, with $408,039 of that not […]

Site preparation recently began for the next large-scale Saltstone Disposal Unit (SDU) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to a post Monday on the site’s Facebook page. Liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) has completed excavation of the location for SDU 8, a 32-million-gallon megavolume concrete structure that will permanently […]

HENDERSON, Nev. – Nuclear cleanup vendors hope the U.S. Energy Department’s new approach to procurement succeeds in quickening the pace of contract awards, one executive said here last week. That was the assessment of the end-state contracting model offered Sept. 3 at the ExchangeMonitor’s RadWaste Summit by Cathy Hickey, executive vice president for Navarro Research […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will flex up the Kansas City National Security Complex’s manufacturing capacity by leasing some 275,000 square feet of industrial space about a mile from the nuclear security enterprise’s main components shop, according to an environmental notice published Monday. The semiautonomous Department of Energy weapons agency plans to lease […]

The U.S. Energy Department announced on Friday it would keep BWX Technologies as a contractor for storage of radioactive hot cell waste and spent nuclear fuel. The department’s Idaho Operations Office and Office of Nuclear Energy announced plans to issue the sole-source, five-year contract for continued waste storage at a BWXT facility in Lynchburg, Va. […]

The leaders of the House and Senate have each announced plans to buy time for Congress to move through the fiscal 2020 appropriations process by passing a continuing resolution, but the chambers each have their own proposed process. The Senate will move quickly to pass as many regular appropriations bills as possible, and then pass […]