Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

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 […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says it will provide Texas with multiple opportunities for input in potential development of a federal rule that could enable disposal of Greater-Than-Class C (GTCC) low-level radioactive waste in the state. That would encompass the public comment period for an upcoming NRC draft regulatory basis for GTCC waste disposition and […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) still hopes in coming months to award several major contracts, an agency procurement official said Wednesday. The potential $6 billion Hanford Mission Essential Services contract for the Hanford Site in Washington state could be announced within the next couple months, according to Norbert Doyle, EM deputy assistant […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is accepting public comment through Aug. 26 on a petition to update federal regulations to allow use of nuclear power plant decommissioning trust funds for removal of large parts prior to shutdown. The NRC in March docketed the petition from Gerard Van Noordennen, vice president for regulatory affairs at nuclear […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in April spent $939 of its remaining balance from the federal fund intended to pay for a federal repository for the nation’s nuclear waste. The spending left the agency on April 30 with a $409,861 unspent, undedicated balance from the Nuclear Waste Fund, according to the latest report to Congress. […]

The legacy cleanup vendor at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is seeking a subcontractor to excavate several old concrete slabs and provide related deactivation and decommissioning work at Technical Area 21. Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) expects to sign a firm-fixed-price contract with the subcontractor that will be chosen based on […]

The ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee is looking to increase the topline of the next defense policy bill to $750 billion, with plans to introduce an amendment for an additional $17 billion in funding when his panel meets Wednesday to consider the proposal. Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) told reporters Tuesday the chairman’s […]

The Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG), which represents companies that do business within the Energy Department nuclear cleanup and weapons complex, picked new officers during its annual meeting last week in Washington, D.C. Michael Lempke, president of the Nuclear and Environmental Group at Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Technical Solutions division, was selected as EFCOG’s new chairman, […]

The draft version of the House of Representatives’ National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2020 would allow none of the $26 million the Department of Energy requested for defense nuclear waste disposal. The measure is in keeping with the lower chamber’s opposition, under the Democratic Party majority installed following the November 2018 midterm elections, to […]

The Department of Energy on Friday issued a request for quote for a small business to administer the workers’ compensation program for contractor employees at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The agency plans to award a firm-fixed-price contract for up to five years for workers’ compensation support. Washington-based Penser North America holds the current […]

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) last week vetoed legislation that would have given Waste Control Specialists a two-year break on certain charges and fees for its radioactive waste disposal operations. “Senate Bill 1804 was a laudable effort to address domestic violence, until someone slipped in an ill-considered giveaway to a radioactive waste disposal facility,” Abbott […]

The Department of Energy acknowledged last week that a “minor miscalculation” by contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth resulted in the under-reporting of doses of some radioactive contaminants for many years around the agency’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. That said, the radioactive dose rates “remain far below” the point of being a health and safety concern, Undersecretary of […]

After a former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist was indicted for allegedly lying about contacts with the Chinese government, the Energy Department prohibited its employees and contractors from participating in certain foreign “talent recruitment programs.” Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette approved that prohibition Friday by signing DOE Order 486.1. The order bars agency employees and […]

The House Rules Committee on Tuesday turned back the latest legislative attempt to appropriate funds for licensing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. A bipartisan group of five lawmakers proposed to provide $15 million via an amendment to H.R. 2740, a “minibus” funding bill for fiscal 2020 encompassing several smaller measures already approved […]

Nuclear hawks and doves had varying success this week in attaching amendments to a minibus spending bill in the House of Representatives that would fund the Department of Energy in fiscal 2020. The bill was slated for debate on the House floor today. That debate begins even as the House Armed Services Committee is scheduled this morning to […]

For the second time in a year, an advisory board to the Department of Energy has rejected a member’s request to urge the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to reopen its decision on the On-Site Waste Disposal Cell being built at the the Portsmouth Site in Ohio During a meeting Thursday, the Portsmouth Site Specific Advisory Board voted against […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security has received the go-ahead to install a piece of hardware at the Y-12 National Security Complex that will one day help the National Nuclear Security Administration end uranium processing in the World War II-era Building 9212 and transfer the work to the planned Uranium Processing Facility. In a report published Friday, the […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) has set the new date for a public hearing on two radioactive waste drum accidents in the Energy Department weapons complex. The hearing, originally set for last month, is now scheduled for noon to 4 p.m. Thursday, June 20, at DNFSB headquarters in Washington D.C.. The hearing was delayed due […]

Banning a low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead could stop “some nitwit at the Pentagon” from attempting to fight a nuclear war, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Monday. It remains unclear how far Smith is willing to go to block the low-yield warhead, dubbed the W76-2. The Smith-authored $733 billion […]

The Energy Department withdrew its state permit application for the Hanford Site Test Bed Initiative last week after the Washington state Department of Ecology sought federal-state negotiations over tank waste remediation. In a May 29 letter, Ecology Director Maia Bellon told Anne Marie White, the departing DOE assistant secretary for environmental management, that it was […]

A House of Representatives subcommittee has scheduled a hearing Thursday to discuss three bills intended to promote consolidated interim storage and eventual disposal of spent reactor fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants. The latest of these measures is the Storage and Transportation of Residual and Excess (STORE) Nuclear Fuel Act, filed last week by Rep […]

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) has formally objected to commercial plans for an interim storage facility in the state for spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power reactors. Holtec International, of Camden, N.J., has applied for a 40-year license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a facility that ultimately could hold up to […]