Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The Department of Energy’s landlord contractor at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio last week signed a new contract with United Steelworkers members at the former gaseous diffusion plant, a union representative said Tuesday. A group of about 65 United Steelworkers (USW) Local 689 members ratified a new contract with North Wind Dynamics on Wednesday, Dec. […]

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) will chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the 119th session of Congress, beginning in January, the committee announced Monday. The Energy and Commerce committee authorizes and oversees civilian nuclear programs at the Department of Energy. Guthrie has represented Kentucky’s second congressional district since 2009. The western edge of the […]

An antinuclear group got a free pass to press its case against interim storage in a court it should have been locked out of, Holtec International wrote Monday in a Supreme Court brief. The company’s friend-of-the-court brief is part of a landmark case about commercial storage of spent nuclear fuel, set for arguments March 5 […]

Concern over farmland damage by elk around the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory has federal and state authorities considering a plan to widen the hunting boundary around the DOE complex. DOE, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality are in the midst of a 30-day comment period on […]

As of Dec. 1, the New Mexico Environment Department has 27 pages of emails with comments on the Department of Energy’s plan to define legacy transuranic waste for disposal at DOE’s deep underground disposal site near Carlsbad, N.M. Dec. 1 is nearly the mid-way point in the public comment period that runs through Jan. 3, […]

Members of Hanford Guards Union Local 21 on Friday voted down the latest contract proposal from the landlord contractor at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, both parties said. “We understand the HGU [Hanford Guards Union] vote on our latest offer failed,” a spokesperson from Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS) said late […]

Businesses interested in leasing warehouse space for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state now have until Dec. 30 to formally express interest in a deal with the Leidos-led landlord contractor at the nuclear cleanup site. Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS) initially published an online procurement notice Nov. 23 seeking a lease on […]

Congress informally discouraged storage of radioactive waste near the Great Lakes in an annual defense policy bill awaiting final votes this week. “We discourage the Government of the United States and the Government of Canada from developing storage facilities for permanent storage of spent nuclear fuel, low-level or high-level nuclear waste, or military-grade nuclear material […]

Here are some events related to civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week: 2024  December 13 – International Energy Agency. “Nuclear energy: are we entering a new era?” Virtual. Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Streaming online. 5:30 a.m. Eastern time.

A bill unveiled Saturday authorizes the National Nuclear Security Administration to spend slightly less than requested in 2025 and makes the agency’s production facilities a legal part of U.S. nuclear deterrence. The agency would be allowed to spend about $24.9 billion in fiscal year 2025 under a compromise National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). That would […]

Development of the nuclear warhead for the Air Force’s next cruise missile so far is not affected by the early parallel development of a sea-launched variant of the warhead for the Navy, the commander of the eighth Air Force said Wednesday. “I have not heard anything like that at all,” Major General Jason Armagost, commander […]

WASHINGTON — Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), chair of the energy and water appropriations subcommittee in the House, told the Exchange Monitor he does not know when a vote on the federal budget would be. “I have not been privy to that,” Fleischmann said here Wednesday in the U.S. Capitol. “But I sure wish we could’ve […]

EnergySolutions, Salt Lake City, will consider putting nuclear reactors under development at Terrestrial Energy, a Charlotte, N.C., on some of the Utah-based company’s sites, the companies said Wednesday. In a joint press release, the companies said they signed a memorandum of understanding “to collaborate on the siting and deployment of Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) […]

Virginia-based Amentum Holdings Monday announced the appointment of Darren Burton as its chief people officer of the publicly traded company with 53,000 employees spread across 80 countries. Burton has more than two decades of experience in corporate personnel management, Amentum said in a Monday press release. Burton’s most recent post was chief people officer at […]

Department of Energy management at the Savannah River Site told a federal safety watchdog last month steps are underway to strengthen oversight by departmental facility representatives at the nuclear complex in South Carolina. The DOE Office of Environmental Management is employing “trending analysis” and improving collaboration and training for its facility representatives at the Savannah […]

In a sort of paperwork anti-milestone, the Department of Energy last week asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to terminate a materials license for an unbuilt nuclear fuel handling facility once planned for Butte County, Idaho. “The decision has been made that the facility will not be constructed and therefore the License should be terminated,” reads […]

Santa Fe County commissioners were scheduled to meet Wednesday with a coalition for the Caja del Rio plateau to discuss making the plateau near the Los Alamos National Laboratory a monument, one of them said Tuesday. Commissioner Anna Hansen told the Monitor about Wednesday’s scheduled meeting in an email the week after the local Santa […]

President Joe Biden (D) on Tuesday nominated Air Force Major General Mark Pye to take command of the Air Force Nuclear Systems Center in New Mexico as a lieutenant general. Pye, whose promotion requires Senate approval, is currently the director of programs at the office of the deputy chief of staff for plans and programs […]

Cotter Corporation and other defendants last week asked the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit to reconsider whether litigation should be allowed to go forward by two sisters who blame their cancer on St. Louis area radioactive contamination dating to the Manhattan Project. The petition for rehearing was filed Nov. 27 by […]

The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement Nov. 28 that Ukraine’s three operating nuclear power plants reduced electricity due to military activity targeting the country’s energy infrastructure. “Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is extremely fragile and vulnerable, putting nuclear safety at great risk,” Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said […]

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has refused a request by Physicians for Social Responsibility and other groups to fix what they deem a mistake in an earlier ruling concerning a public hiking trail near where the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado once stood. Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and other plaintiffs asked […]

Members of Hanford Guards Union Local 21 want to quickly end a lockout initiated last week by the landlord contractor at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, a union official said Monday. Local 21 President Chris Hall told Exchange Monitor by phone the guards sought to keep working during contract talks with […]

Fluor’s longtime chief financial officer and executive vice president Joe Brennan plans to retire July 1, 2025 after more than three decades with the Irving, Texas-based government contractor. Fluor announced Brennan’s planned departure in a Monday press release, adding he will be replaced by the company’s chief accounting officer, John Regan. Regan, currently chief accounting […]

A 2023 ban on commercial interim storage was a judicial power grab that flouted the law and ignored the authority of other courts, according to a Monday Supreme Court brief. In its final brief before oral arguments scheduled for March, Interim Storage Partners (ISP) told the Supreme Court that the U.S. Fifth Circuit engaged in […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission this month gave the formal go-ahead for stranded transuranic waste from the Los Alamos Laboratory to remain in commercial storage for another two years. NRC cleared Waste Control Specialists to hold on to the waste until Dec. 31, 2026, according to a letter dated Nov. 22 and posted online by the […]