Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Among the flurry of executive orders President Donald Trump signed Monday after being sworn in are measures to implement a federal hiring freeze and telling government staff to return to in-person work. “Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate […]

Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Tuesday that President Donald Trump must return to the table and reach “an understanding” with Iran on its nuclear program. “There was an agreement that existed before President Trump decided that it was not the path he wanted to follow,” Grossi said, referring to […]

WASHINGTON — Ahead of President Donald Trump’s (R) swearing-in, Jill Hruby, now former administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, advised the Trump administration to look at the agency’s enterprise blueprint. “I want to be clear that the blueprint is not a wish list,” Hruby said last week at a tell-all at Washington think tank […]

President Donald Trump (R) on Monday ordered federal agencies to pause distribution of funds appropriated by his predecessor’s signature stimulus bills, including funds intended to jumpstart a domestic uranium refining industry. “All agencies shall immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (Public Law 117-169) or the Infrastructure Investment […]

President Donald Trump (R) on Monday made David Wright the chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Wright was one of a large number of designations the White House announced in a statement mere hours after Trump took the oath of office for the second time. Wright succeeds Christopher Hanson, who had been chairman for much […]

Here is an event related to civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week: 2025 January 23: Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel. Public Meeting. Plymouth Town Hall, Great Room, 26 Court St, Plymouth, Mass. Scheduled to stream online. 6:30 p.m. Eastern time, U.S.  

The Department of Energy will hold two February public hearings, one online and one in person, to address soil cleanup plans at its Energy Technology Engineering Center within the Santa Susana Field Laboratory Site in Simi Valley, California. The virtual public scoping meeting is planned for Feb. 6 and an in-person one Feb. 18, the […]

Sens. Catherin Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) last week reintroduced a bill to prohibit the Department of Energy from siting a nuclear-waste disposal facility without the consent of state governments. The latest version of the Nuclear Waste Informed Consent Act was introduced a little under a week before Donald Trump (R) was sworn […]

Joyce Connery, chair of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and longtime fed, is retiring from government service at the end of January. “As you have heard, my plan is to retire at the end of the month,” Connery said late Friday in an electronic message to Exchange Monitor. Connery told the staff last week. […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received fewer shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during 2024 than in 2023, a decline that bosses at the underground disposal site hinted at during the fall. With annual results counted, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) finished 2024 with 470 shipments down from 489 […]

Chris Wright, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of energy, pledged Wednesday to support ample Department of Energy funding “to clean up the mess” left at the Hanford Site in Washington state. “I cannot overstate how critical I think it is to finish the job to finish the cleanup at Hanford,” a fracking company chief […]

Friends of the Earth on Wednesday withdrew a federal lawsuit seeking to stop payment of $1.1 billion federal bailout of California’s last nuclear power plant, court papers show. The group dropped the suit, filed in April, after Diablo Canyon Owner Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) revealed Jan. 6 that its plans to extend the […]

WASHINGTON — Chris Wright, President-elect Donald Trump’s (R) pick for secretary of energy, said he would make it a priority to enrich uranium domestically Wednesday at his confirmation hearing. “We have lost our ability to enrich uranium in this country, to construct plutonium pits, and to do so many critical things that are key to […]

WASHINGTON — Brandon Williams, a former one-term congressman from New York’s 22nd district, is President Donald Trump’s (R) pick to head the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration. Chris Wright, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Energy, told the Exchange Monitor here Wednesday after his confirmation hearing that he picked Williams personally for the […]

WASHINGTON — Peter Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s (R) intended nominee for Secretary of Defense, was questioned Tuesday by a Senate committee about his fitness for the role, including his knowledge of the U.S. nuclear weapons enterprise. Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), whose state houses the silos for the ground-based strategic deterrent, asked whether Hegseth, a former […]

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., has commenced its annual maintenance outage and won’t be receiving more shipments of transuranic waste until mid-March, the Department of Energy said Tuesday. Two of the bigger work chores scheduled for the outage include installation of final duct work for the new Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System […]

After a delay, the subcontractor that built a new ventilation system at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant site in New Mexico was expected to turn over the keys to the project to the prime contractor last month, according to a federal update. A Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNESB) staff report on […]

Approving the restart of a Michigan nuclear plant by August will be “demanding,” federal regulators said Tuesday, and there is more work ahead than the plant’s owner may realize. That was the takeaway from senior Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff during their hybrid public meeting at commission headquarters in Rockville, Md., with Holtec International, owner of […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff were scheduled to meet virtually on Tuesday with representatives of Holtec International to discuss the company’s planned restart of the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan. The meeting, portions of which are closed to the public, was scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time, according to a notice on the […]

Citizen groups were largely unimpressed by a Department of Energy plan to define and give priority to what the agency calls “legacy” transuranic waste sent to a deep underground disposal site near Carlsbad, N.M., but the mayor of the city endorsed the approach. That is according to a review of public comments, due Jan. 3, […]

Representatives from Iran were scheduled to meet in Geneva this week with officials from the Germany, France and the U.K., the so-called E3 countries, to discuss Tehran’s nuclear program, media reported. According to MSN, the meetings were scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, Jan. 13-14. The meetings come after French President Emmanuel Macron’s remarks at a […]

The Energy Communities Alliance said Monday it has hired Laura Hermann, founder of her own energy-related consulting firm, to the newly-recreated job of deputy executive director. Hermann, who will be the No. 2 person to executive director Seth Kirshenberg, started with Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) last week, Kirshenberg said in a brief phone conversation with […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday to consider the nomination of Chris Wright for secretary of energy. The hearing was scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Eastern time in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, room 366. The hearing will also be webcast live on the Energy and Natural Resources committee’s website. […]

The CEO of shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries said the incoming Trump administration is likely more receptive to a plan developed by the Navy and industry to improve shipyard wages and quicken submarine production. Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) CEO Chris Kastner told reporters Jan. 9 during a roundtable ahead of the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium […]

James Danly, who served on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission during Donald Trump’s first administration, is the Republican president-elect’s pick to be deputy secretary of energy the second time around, various news outlets reported over the weekend. A military veteran, Danly currently heads the energy regulatory branch of the Skadden Arps law firm and briefly […]