Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico received 115 shipments of transuranic defense waste during the first five months of 2019. Based on 21.5 calendar weeks through May 31, that is an average of 5.4 shipments per week. By contrast, the facility received 138 shipments for the first five months of […]

The joint venture charged with environmental remediation of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site received all but about $600,000 of its potential performance fee for the first six months of fiscal 2019. The Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) sent the latest performance evaluation for URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) on Monday. The contractor […]

The U.S. senators from New Mexico have proposed three amendments to a draft defense policy bill aimed at ensuring the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) can carry out its full health and safety mission. The amendments from Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich (both D-N.M.) would be added to the National Defense Authorization Act […]

Nuclear forces worldwide in 2018 declined by roughly 4% over the course of the year or by 600 weapons, to 13,865, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in its latest annual yearbook on nuclear weapons. The U.S. and Russia, which have more nuclear weapons than the rest of the world’s seven nuclear-armed states combined, drove the […]

LATA-Atkins Technical Services, a team including Atkins and Los Alamos Technical Associates, said Tuesday it won a potentially 7.5-year waste-management subcontract from Y-12 National Security Complex operator Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS). The team also includes a small business, Strata-G, which has previously worked on liquid- and solid-waste management at the nation’s primary uranium processing site. […]

The House on Wednesday approved a 2020 spending bill that would provide more funding that sought to clean up shuttered nuclear weapons sites, and less funding that requested for active weapons programs. The Democrat-led House approved the bill on an essentially party line vote of 226 to 203. The so-called minibus spending measure funds the […]

The House of Representatives late Tuesday struck down amendments to a multi-agency appropriations bill for fiscal 2020 would have wiped out a next-generation cruise missile and permitted the Navy to deploy a low-yield, nuclear-tipped ballistic missile. An amendment from Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) to prohibit research on the Pentagon’s Long-Range Standoff Weapon (LRSO) nuclear cruise missile […]

Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said this week he has been unable to persuade the White House to take a direct interest in addressing findings of off-site radiological contamination near the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth cleanup project in his state. “I’ve begged the Department of Energy and I tried to get the president of the United […]

The members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday rejected two petitions for hearings on the agency’s review of the license transfer application for the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey. The four-member commission formalized its decision in a brief affirmation session prior to a longer meeting. In a 21-page memorandum, the […]

AECOM announced Monday it had signed an agreement with Toshiba to collaborate on nuclear decommissioning projects in Japan. The announcement came hours after the Los Angeles-based infrastructure specialist said it would next year spin off its Management Services branch into a separate company. Management Services handles the company’s government contracts and appears to be central […]

The Energy Department proposes to pay for five environmental projects valued at just over $1 million to work off some of the penalties assessed by the state of Idaho over the agency’s failure to start treating sodium-bearing waste at the Idaho National Laboratory. The rest of the $2.19 million penalty incurred for the 12 months […]

The prime contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s main uranium enrichment site intends to award a contract in 2020 for up to four furnaces that help reclaim excess uranium metal left over from defense missions, a company spokesperson said Monday. The award will be for at least one and possibly two pairs of direct […]

Holtec International anticipates the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will within six weeks approve license transfer applications for two retired nuclear power plants, after which it would buy the properties for decommissioning, a company executive said Monday. Agency staff should in two weeks rule on the application for Holtec to assume the license for Exelon’s Oyster […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will dedicate $1 million annually over the next half-decade to train college students in South Carolina and Georgia to take over the upcoming plutonium pit mission, among others, at the Savannah River Site. NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty discussed the $5 million commitment Monday afternoon during a press event at […]

Late delivery of high explosives to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California will delay by “at 2 two months” the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) program to refurbish an old warhead for a next-generation air-launched cruise missile, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported Monday. Livermore, which leads the W80-4 life-extension program, needs the high […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects on Aug. 30 to publish the proposed update of regulations for nuclear power plants transitioning from operations to decommissioning, according to its latest schedule. The completed rule would go to the agency’s signature authority – the commission itself – a year later, followed by publication in the Federal Register […]

The U.S. Department of Energy remains on track to remove a remaining half-metric of plutonium from the Savannah River Site and the state of South Carolina by the end of the year, thereby meeting an order in a federal lawsuit from 2016, according to a June 13 status report. South Carolina sued the federal government […]

EnergySolutions on Sunday said a seeming $15.2 million shortfall in the decommissioning trust fund for the Zion Nuclear Power Station in Illinois was the result solely of a documentation error. “There was an error in the original submission of the [trust fund] balance to the” Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” the Salt Lake City, Utah-based nuclear services […]

AECOM said Monday it plans next year to spin off its multibillion-dollar government contracting branch into a separate publicly traded company. The Board of Directors to the Los Angeles-based infrastructure multinational unanimously signed off on the separation, which is expected to occur in the second half of 2020, according to an AECOM press release. In […]

The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency amped up criticism of Russia’s nuclear stockpile work last week, saying in a statement that the nation at some point “has conducted nuclear weapons tests that have created nuclear yield.” That is a step beyond what agency Director Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley told reporters and the public in May at […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee is eyeing major changes at the U.S. Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), including limiting its members to a single consecutive term and bringing on an executive director to improve management. The measures, contained in the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act approved by the committee in May and released […]

The White House wants federal agencies including the Department of Energy to kill off one-third of their Federal Advisory Committees by September, according to a presidential order published Friday. Federal Advisory Committees are nominally independent, government-chartered groups that provide advice to federal agencies. Either the president or Congress can require an agency to create a […]

Both the House and Senate defense authorization bills, approved by their respective armed services committees, directed reports and briefings on the Columbia-class submarine program due to schedule and cost concerns. The House Armed Services Committee’s 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), approved by the Committee on Thursday, includes an amendment from Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) […]

A defense policy bill unveiled last week by the Senate Armed Services Committee would require the Department of Energy to report to Congress on its progress in closing radioactive waste storage tanks at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Idaho National Laboratory. The committee is also looking for a report from the […]

The House Armed Services Committee this morning approved its version of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) after about 20 hours of debate. The annual defense policy bill, now headed to the House floor, authorizes about 4% less funding than sought for active nuclear weapons programs managed by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear […]

The House of Representatives on Thursday is at last clear to debate several amendments to a 2020 minibus spending bill that concern nuclear weapons operations at the Department of Energy. Debate could have started Wednesday evening, but floor action on the House Appropriations Committee’s fiscal 2020 minibus appropriations package ground to a snail’s pace as […]