President Donald Trump Thursday signed the $901 billion 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law that would allow nearly $26 billion in funding to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
That is the highest authorization limit yet for the agency in charge of maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, and $100 million more than the Senate would have authorized based on its earlier version. It is also $700 million more than what the White House sought in its 2026 budget request. It is also about $500 million more than what the House would initially authorize.
Trump signed the bill after the Senate and House passed their combined versions of the policy bill. The House last week voted 312 to 112 to advance the bill to the Senate, and the Senate Wednesday, in a 77-20 vote, passed it on to Trump’s desk.
Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), who used his post on the House Appropriations Committee to push for remediation of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, said Wednesday he will not stand for re-election.
“I am announcing today that I will not seek reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives, ” Newhouse said in an announcement on his website. “Serving the Fourth District of Washington has been the honor of my life, and this decision comes with no reservations or remorse, only gratitude for the tremendous opportunity to have represented my home state in Congress. “
Newhouse is one of a handful of Republican House members who voted to impeach President Trump after a mob of Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Axios reported Newhouse is one of only two such GOP members that remain in the House. Newhouse won his past two re-election campaigns despite overcoming a primary challenger backed by Trump.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved SHINE Technologies request to extend the construction permit deadline for its SHINE Medical Isotope Production Facility in Wisconsin.
The approved amendment extends the latest date for the completion of the SHINE facility from Dec. 31, 2025 to Dec. 31, 2029, according to a Dec. 12 Federal Register notice. The NRC order was approved on Dec. 4.
SHINE was issued a construction permit by NRC in 2016 with the original completion date of Dec. 31, 2022. SHINE requested for its first construction permit extension in November 2022. The request was granted and extended the permit to Dec. 31, 2025. The SHINE facility is currently under construction.
The United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority group has completed safely processing a can of plutonium residue into a stable waste form.
“The achievement marks the start of a program at the NDA [Nuclear Decommissioning Authority] group’s Sellafield site to process around 400 cans of plutonium residue; a by-product from historic manufacturing processes of fuels and other materials,” according to the UK agency’s Thursday press release.
The residue is processed and made ready for eventual disposal in a Geological Disposal Facility in a Sellafield plant that has operated since the mid-1980s. Since January, the UK agency has taken on the mission of disposing of the UK’s plutonium stockpile through immobilization. The process takes unusable plutonium and embeds it into a stable form, then seals it into a canister.