Department of Energy

The Department of Energy has named Mark Bollinger as its new acting deputy manager for the Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico, which oversees the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Bollinger took over the No. 2 manager slot on March 14 at Carlsbad, reporting to manager Reinhard Knerr, according to a Twitter post last week from […]

Earnings improved at Centrus Energy Corp., the Bethesda, Md.,-based fuel broker and nuclear technology company, in both the fourth quarter and 2020 as a whole, according to financial results released late last week. In its Thursday press release, Centrus reported net income of $54.4 million for the 12 months ended Dec. 31, 2020 compared with […]

The Senate is primed this week to confirm David Turk as the deputy secretary of energy after a procedural motion last week to end debate on the former Biden staffer and Obama administration official. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), the majority leader, filed cloture on Turk’s nomination Thursday, meaning the Senate had, starting then, a little […]

After a former lobbyist accused him of sexual harassment, Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), whose 23rd congressional district includes the West Valley Demonstration Project, will retire from the House of Representatives rather than run for re-election, the lawmaker announced via Twitter on Sunday. Reed further said he will not seek any political office in 2022. The […]

The head of the joint venture that manages the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site expects the rate of employee COVID-19 vaccinations to go from a trickle to a steady stream in the near future. “We have about 1,500 folks that have an appointment ready to go for their vaccinations,” within the next couple of […]

The U.S. Senate Monday voted 51-to-40 to confirm Rep. Debra Haaland (D-N.M.) as secretary of interior, which will create a vacancy in the congressional district that includes the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories facilities in Albuquerque. An Associated Press article Tuesday in the San Antonio Express-News reported Tuesday former State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn […]

The conversion of depleted uranium hexafluoride at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio and Paducah Site in Kentucky came to a stop in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and had yet to restart as of last week, federal and contractor representatives said during an online conference. Neither Zachary Lafontaine, DOE’s program […]

Jim Bittner is taking over as vice president and general manager for BWX Technologies’ Nuclear Operations Groups’ Lynchburg, Va., manufacturing facility, which manufactures reactors for naval aircraft carriers and submarines, the company announced Monday. Bittner will be in charge of about 2,200 employees in Lynchburg, which is one of the two commercial facilities certified by the Nuclear […]

The Department of Energy, Washington State and the Environmental Protection Agency are meeting more frequently these days to negotiate changes to legally binding Hanford cleanup deadlines that longstanding technical challenges — and later, COVID-19 — may have made untenable, a Washington state official said Wednesday. “I am optimistic on some progress we have made,” Bowen […]

The Department of Energy could formally reply to subcontractor complaints at the Hanford Site in Washington state “within the next few days or the next few weeks,” Brian Vance, the top manager at the facility said Wednesday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management executive made his comments during a virtual meeting of the Hanford Advisory […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said Friday there were 153 active confirmed cases of COVID-19 at its operations this week — and that the tally it provided last week, 101, was off by more than 50 cases. The actual number from last week, discovered via audit, was 168, an Environmental Management (EM) […]

A Department of Labor board last week ruled against a Hanford contractor’s appeal of a 2016 decision favoring two whistleblowers at the former plutonium production site in Washington state. Labor’s Administrative Review Board on March 10 upheld federal Administrative Law Judge Christopher Larson’s 2016 ruling that Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) experts Kirtley Clem and Matthew […]

After receiving final go-ahead from the state, contractor North Wind Portage started demolition this week on one the four remaining contaminated buildings within the Department of Energy’s portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County, California. Demolition of Building 4038 started Monday and will take a month to complete, the California Department of […]

Bechtel National earned 70%, or $5.54 million out of a potential $7.88 million, for its work on the Waste Treatment Plant at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state in 2020. That is according to a fee scorecard released this week by the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management for the 2020 calendar year.  […]

The Department of Energy, Washington State and the Environmental Protection Agency are meeting more frequently these days to negotiate changes to legally binding Hanford cleanup deadlines that longstanding technical challenges — and later, COVID-19 — may have made untenable, a Washington state official said Wednesday. “I am optimistic on some progress we have made,” Bowen […]

The Department of Energy could formally reply to subcontractor complaints at the Hanford Site in Washington state “within the next few days or the next few weeks,” Brian Vance, the top manager at the facility said Wednesday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management executive made his comments during a virtual meeting of the Hanford Advisory […]

Virginia-based Bechtel announced in a press release this week that Stephen Bechtel Jr., who served three decades as CEO of the privately-held company that bears his family’s name, died Monday at age 95. In 1960 Stephen Bechtel Jr. became CEO of the company started by his grandfather in 1898, according to the Washington Post, and […]

The U.S. Senate Monday voted 51-to-40 to confirm Rep. Debra Haaland (D-N.M.) as secretary of interior, which will create a vacancy in the congressional district that includes the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories facilities in Albuquerque. Haaland presented House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with her letter of resignation Tuesday and issued a farewell address to […]

Bechtel National earned 70%, or $5.54 million out of a potential $7.88 million, for its work on the Waste Treatment Plant at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state in 2020. That is according to a fee scorecard released this week by the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management for the 2020 calendar year.  […]

The Department of Energy plans a virtual pre-solicitation conference March 30 to share details on procurement for the new Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Transportation Services Contract. The DOE cleanup office plans to skip the draft-request-for-proposals stage and issue a final solicitation this spring, possibly in May. The DOE’s Office of Environmental Management will hold the […]

Contractor North Wind Portage has received final go-ahead to tear down the last few remaining contaminated buildings within the Department of Energy’s portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County, California. The California Department of Toxic Substances Control in a March 4 letter approved DOE plans for demolition of the remaining buildings at […]

The head of the joint venture that manages the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site expects the rate of employee COVID-19 vaccinations to go from a trickle to a steady stream in the near future. “We have about 1,500 folks that have an appointment ready to go for their vaccinations,” within the next couple of […]

The conversion of depleted uranium hexafluoride at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio and Paducah Site in Kentucky came to a stop in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and had yet to restart as of last week, federal and contractor representatives said during an online conference. Neither Zachary Lafontaine, DOE’s program […]

A Department of Labor board last week ruled against a Hanford contractor’s appeal of a 2016 decision favoring two whistleblowers at the former plutonium production site in Washington state. Labor’s Administrative Review Board on March 10 upheld federal Administrative Law Judge Christopher Larson’s 2016 ruling that Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) experts Kirtley Clem and Matthew […]

Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based RSI Services is the winner of a potential five-year, $22-million small business contract to remediate Naval Reactors sites overseen by the semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration in West Milton, N.Y. The set-aside cleanup contract for the Kesselring Site was announced Tuesday by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. Under the […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee unanimously approved David Turk to be deputy secretary of energy in a roll call vote Thursday, clearing the way for the full Senate to confirm the former Biden staffer and Obama administration official for the agency’s No. 2 job. The Senate had not scheduled a confirmation vote for […]

During a brief appearance at an online conference Tuesday, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm simultaneously praised and challenged the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup community. “This industry is made up of some of the nation’s best engineers and scientists,” Granholm told the Waste Management Symposia conference, which in non-pandemic years happens in Phoenix. At the same […]

The Department of Energy could lengthen contract transition periods under the new procurement model, possibly to 120 days, federal officials said Wednesday during the online Waste Management Symposia. Transition to the Amentum-led Central Plateau Cleanup Co. venture at the Hanford Site in Washington state, which ended in January, showed 60 days is insufficient to sort […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee unanimously approved David Turk to be deputy secretary of energy in a roll call vote Thursday, clearing the way for the full Senate to confirm the former Biden staffer and Obama administration official for the agency’s No. 2 job. The Senate had not scheduled a confirmation vote for […]

While General Atomics, GE-Hitachi and Westinghouse Government Services are companies that know their way around nuclear reactors, representatives from the firms said this week they find it tough to penetrate the procurement market for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management.   But the DOE Environmental Management (EM) office wants to increase the contractor pool […]