Department of Energy

As of March 2, Rick Perry had been U.S. secretary of energy for one year. Like his predecessor, Ernest Moniz, Perry has been on Twitter since the first day of his tenure at the top floor of the Forrestal Building in Washington, D.C. In that span of time, Perry tweeted exactly — yes, exactly — twice […]

Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee on Wednesday signed into law a bill that is expected to increase the number of Hanford Site workers’ compensation claims approved by the state Department of Labor and Industries. The legislation would require the state to presume a wide range of illnesses were caused by working for as little as […]

Following a 14-month outage, liquid waste processing at the U.S. Energy Department’s Savannah River Site is expected to restart by the end of the April. The South Carolina facility said in January operations would begin by March. But that milestone has been delayed by a month, Sonya Goines, DOE spokeswoman at Savannah River, said last […]

The 3 gallons of low-activity radioactive waste the Hanford Site in Washington state shipped in October to a nearby Perma-Fix Environmental Services facility have been processed and shipped to the Waste Control Specialists site in Andrews County, Texas. A March 2 article gave an incomplete picture of the status of the waste.

The U.S. Energy Department appears to be reaching out to all the teams that bid on the $4.7 billion contract to manage liquid waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, after the Government Accountability Office last month upheld one protest against the deal, industry sources said this week. Two industry sources said Thursday […]

Due to potential conflicts of interest, the U.S. Energy Department has determined potential bidders for the $4 billion Hanford Mission Essential Service Contract should not be part of five other key contracts at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Energy Department issued a draft request for proposals for the 10-year contract in November, with […]

Management relied too heavily on near real-time continuous air monitors (CAMs) to check for airborne radioactive particles during demolition of the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant, according to the root cause evaluation for the December spread of radioactive contamination from the project. Hanford cleanup contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. on Thursday submitted its evaluation […]

Former Waste Control Specialists President and CEO Rod Baltzer has opened a new consulting firm, and is not straying far from his specialty in low-level radioactive waste disposal. “I haven’t Tweeted in a while, but wanted you to know I have started a consulting firm since leaving WCS,” Baltzer said in a March 2 message […]

The U.S. Energy Department said last week it has renewed a cooperative agreement with Vanderbilt University for nuclear cleanup research. The latest iteration is worth $15 million over five years. The Nashville, Tenn., institution is part of the multi-university “Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation III” (CRESP). The program is designed to promote “cost-effective, […]

A hold by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) is seemingly the only barrier remaining between Anne Marie White and a vote by the full Senate on her nomination to become assistant secretary of energy for environmental management. The Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday it on March 1 automatically advanced White’s nomination to head the Energy […]

Faced with local news coverage raising questions about her expense account, and in the middle of a state legislative campaign, Andrea Romero acknowledged Friday her days at the helm of an advocacy group for communities near the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico are likely over. “It would be hard for me […]

By John Stang The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission should extend its public scoping comment period on a proposed spent reactor fuel storage facility in southeastern New Mexico to allow the state’s Legislature and public agencies to review and comment on the project, New Mexico lawmakers said recently. In a series of identical Feb. 27 letters, […]

The House’s top energy appropriator appeared to quash any hope that a fiscal 2018 budget being put together in advance of a March 23 federal-funding deadline would contain any money for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste repository in Nevada. In the face of that ominous prediction, Yucca booster-in-chief Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) told news outlets […]

Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee on Wednesday signed into law a bill that is expected to increase the number of Hanford Site workers’ compensation claims approved by the state Department of Labor and Industries. The legislation would require the state to presume a wide range of illnesses were caused by working for as little as […]

The U.S. Energy Department appears to be reaching out to all the teams that bid on the $4.7 billion contract to manage liquid waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, after the Government Accountability Office last month upheld one protest against the deal, industry sources said this week. One industry source said Tuesday DOE officials […]

Following the advice of a U.S. Court of Federal Claims (CFC) judge, the state of South Carolina this week dismissed one of its two $100 million lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Energy, and amended the other to reflect a $200 million total demand. Both suits, and a third case in the U.S. District Court […]

Due to potential conflicts of interest, the U.S. Energy Department has determined potential bidders for the $4 billion Hanford Mission Essential Service Contract should not be part of five other key contracts at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Energy Department issued a draft request for proposals for the potential 10-year contract in November, […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday it has advanced the nomination of Anne Marie White to be assistant secretary of energy for environmental management. However, there was still no official word on whether Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) might lift his hold on the nomination anytime soon. White was also approved by the Senate Energy […]

Following a 14-month outage, liquid waste processing at the U.S. Energy Department’s Savannah River Site is expected to restart by the end of the April. The South Carolina facility said in January operations would begin by March. But that milestone has been delayed by a month, Sonya Goines, DOE spokeswoman at Savannah River, said last […]

Anne Marie White, the Trump administration’s nominee for assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, understands Congress is getting antsy over the slow progress on key projects within the Energy Department’s $6.5 billion nuclear cleanup program. In 13 pages of questions and answers submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee before her confirmation hearing last […]

As of Friday, Rick Perry had been U.S. secretary of energy for one year. Like his predecessor, Ernest Moniz, Perry has been on Twitter since the first day of his tenure at the top floor of the Forrestal Building in Washington, D.C. In that span of time, Perry tweeted exactly — yes, you read that correctly — […]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking comments through April 19 on whether to sign off on the updated transuranic waste characterization program at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project. An affirmative decision could lead to AMWTP shipping TRU waste to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. Energy […]

The U.S. Energy Department said Thursday it has renewed a cooperative agreement with Vanderbilt University for nuclear cleanup research. The latest iteration is worth $15 million over five years. The Nashville, Tenn., institution is part of the multi-university “Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation III” (CRESP). The program is designed to promote “cost-effective, risk-based” […]

Mission Support Alliance (MSA) has earned its highest award fee since it became the Hanford Site’s services contractor in 2009. The Department of Energy announced late Monday it was awarding MSA $20.4 million, or about 94 percent of the maximum $21.7 million available for fiscal 2017. That was more than the $19.2 million, or 91 […]

A panel of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine kicked off two days of public meetings in Richland, Wash., on Wednesday as it studies supplemental processing of low-activity waste at the U.S. Energy Department’s nearby Hanford Site. The data gathering will culminate in several reports by the National Academies on treatment of low-activity […]

WASHINGTON — At the end of a roughly two-hour hearing that focused for only a few minutes on the Department of Energy’s $6.5-billion-a-year Cold War nuclear cleanup operation, no senator indicated any opposition to the White House’s pick to lead the program. Anne Marie White “got off pretty easy,” Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), acting chairman […]

Jeffrey Kash Grimes, who has been acting director of the U.S. Energy Department Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center (EMCBC) since December, has been named the permanent head of the procurement operation. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced Grimes’ promotion on Thursday. He replaces Ralph Holland, who retired at the end of 2017. The Cincinnati-based […]

A public meeting is planned for March 14 in Richland, Wash., on permit changes to support the Department of Energy’s plan to stabilize the second waste tunnel at the Hanford Site PUREX Plant. It also will cover actions already taken to stabilize the first tunnel at the plant. After the older of two tunnels storing […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has improved its emergency planning and preparation, but work remains to correct shortcomings identified in a 2016 report, according to new findings from DOE’s internal watchdog. The Office of Emergency Management Assessments, within the department’s independent Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA), studied WIPP emergency […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Carlsbad Field Office has two new assistant managers to help conduct its oversight of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. WIPP is the nation’s only underground repository for disposal of transuranic waste from across the Department of Energy complex. James (Ed) Garza has been named assistant manager for […]