Department of Energy

The full Senate Tuesday voted 54-to-41, mostly upon party lines, to confirm the nomination of Patricia Lee, a manager at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina, to be a member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.  The final vote was tallied shortly after 3:00 p.m. Eastern time. The Senate […]

Department of Energy contractors should consider requiring “diversity training” when developing diversity plans, according to the latest version of its acquisition guide, published this week. That’s despite recent pushback by Republican House appropriators. Diversity plans were already required by DOE’s acquisition regulation. The changes published this week, dated June 2024, ratchet up requirements to monitor […]

In notices last week, the Department of Energy said it plans to again extend incumbent cleanup contractors at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky for up to a year. DOE published a notice of intent July 2 to extend the Decontamination & Decommissioning services contract held by Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth for […]

A subprogram responsible for consent-based siting of spent nuclear fuel from power plants would drop by more than half if a bill approved this week by the House Appropriations committee becomes law. The Integrated Waste Management System (IWMS) within the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy would get $25 million for fiscal year 2025, […]

The Department of Energy seeks industry input about a long-term contract to design, build, license and operate a federally owned interim storage site for spent nuclear fuel, according to a notice released last week. Responses to the request for information are due Sept. 6, the Friday after the U.S. Labor Day holiday. DOE released the […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of a must-pass defense policy bill would again authorize more than $7 billion for the Department of Energy to carry out Defense Environmental Cleanup at nuclear weapons complex sites. Language in the nearly 1,200-page bill would also allow the secretary of energy to accelerate cleanup at nuclear facilities if […]

Department of Energy contractors should consider requiring “diversity training” when developing diversity plans, according to the latest version of its acquisition guide, published this week. That’s despite recent pushback by Republican House appropriators. Diversity plans were already required by DOE’s acquisition regulation. The changes published this week, dated June 2024, ratchet up requirements to monitor […]

By John Stang OLYMPIA, WASH. — The Hanford Site faces an extremely tight schedule to select both a technology and a destination for low-level radioactive waste intended to be immobilized in grout, the site’s top lawyer said here this week. “It is an aggressive timeline” said DOE’s chief Hanford counsel Mark Silberstein on the tight […]

Department of Energy contractors should consider requiring “diversity training” when developing diversity plans, according to the latest version of its acquisition guide, published this week. That’s despite recent pushback by Republican House appropriators. Diversity plans were already required by DOE’s acquisition regulation. The changes published this week, dated June 2024, ratchet up requirements to monitor […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee wants the secretaries of energy and defense to brief Congress if either plans an alternative to the W80-4 warhead for a nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile, according to a draft National Defense Authorization Act released Monday. The briefing would have to detail the benefits and cost expectations of any alternative, according […]

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) wants to amend the House Appropriations Committee’s 2025 energy and water bill to strip out a GOP provision to zero-fund the Department of Energy’s Justice40 Initiative. Stansbury, whose district includes Albuquerque, filed an amendment with the House Rules Commitment to strike part of the bill that prohibits funds from being used […]

The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday voted 30-26, largely along party lines, to approve a budget bill that would provide more than $8.3 billion for the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch in fiscal 2025. There was little mention of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management during the hour-plus markup. The measure will next be considered […]

A federal judge in New Mexico granted the Department of Energy and the New Mexico Environment Department until Oct. 7 to continue settlement talks on changes to agreements governing legacy waste cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. U.S. Magistrate Judge John Robbenhaar on Tuesday ordered another 90-day extension of the settlement talks after the […]

The U.S. Department of Labor has set a July 18 information session in Lisle, Ill., for current and former nuclear weapons workers and survivors covered by the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. Presentations were scheduled for at 9:00 a.m. Central Time at the Sheraton Lisle Naperville, 3000 Warrenville Road, Lisle, Ill., according to […]

The full Senate Tuesday voted 54-to-41, mostly upon party lines, to confirm the nomination of Patricia Lee, a manager at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina, to be a member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.  The final vote was tallied shortly after 3:00 p.m. Eastern time. The Senate […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of a must-pass defense policy bill would again authorize more than $7 billion for the Department of Energy to carry out Defense Environmental Cleanup at nuclear weapons complex sites. Language in the nearly 1,200-page bill would also allow the secretary of energy to accelerate cleanup at nuclear facilities if […]

The Department of Energy’s $8-billion nuclear cleanup branch has started implementing some best practices sought by the Government Accountability Office but still has far to go, according to a report out Monday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management “is updating its site-specific life-cycle cost and schedule estimates to use as baselines to track progress and […]

A subprogram responsible for consent-based siting of spent nuclear fuel from power plants would drop by more than half if a bill scheduled for a committee vote Tuesday becomes law. The Integrated Waste Management System (IWMS) within the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy would get $25 million for fiscal year 2025, $30 million […]

Key environmental construction projects are nearly complete at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state and its Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and that’s reflected in a House Appropriations funding plan for fiscal 2025. The budget proposal, details of which House appropriators released Monday in a bill report, was scheduled to be marked up […]

The Department of Energy seeks industry input about a long-term contract to design, build, license and operate a federally owned interim storage site for spent nuclear fuel, according to a notice released last week. Responses to the request for information are due Sept. 6, the Friday after the U.S. Labor Day holiday. DOE released the […]

In notices last week, the Department of Energy said it plans to again extend incumbent cleanup contractors at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky for up to a year. DOE published a notice of intent July 2 to extend the Decontamination & Decommissioning services contract held by Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth for […]

State emergency management coordinators in South Carolina will receive a $2.4-million grant from the Department of Energy to enhance emergency preparedness at DOE’s Savannah River Site, the federal agency announced Friday. The five-year grant to the South Carolina Emergency Management Division runs from July 5, 2024, through June 30, 2029, according to a DOE press […]

Workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state recently finished removing 346,000 gallons of radioactive and chemical waste from Tank AX-101, the 21st single-shell tank to be emptied at Hanford, DOE said this week. The retrieval project was completed by June, DOE said in a Tuesday press release. Amentum-led contractor Washington River […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s largest ever carbon-pollution-free procurement would be a partnership with Los Alamos that aims to provide two Department of Energy labs in New Mexico with electricity from solar energy, the agency said Thursday. The project — called the Los Alamos County Foxtail Flats Solar and Storage Project — will notionally be […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology in June formally signed off on a Department of Energy plan to solidify into a concrete-like grout up to 2,000 gallons of low-level liquid radioactive waste from the Hanford Site. Filtering of cesium and other radionuclides, what DOE calls pretreatment, will happen onsite at the former plutonium production complex, […]

The Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico and the prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant will hold the next town-hall-style public meeting at the end of July. The hybrid meeting will provide an update on disposal of defense-related transuranic waste and related issues at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), […]

The security guard’s union at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state accuses Leidos-led Hanford Mission Integration Solutions in court papers of trying to run out the clock on the existing labor contract without first resolving an overtime dispute. Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS), the DOE landlord contractor, has twice canceled arbitration sessions […]

Bruce Covert, a longtime executive with Amentum and its predecessors, who held many senior jobs across the Department of Energy’s weapons complex, retired June 30, the company confirmed Tuesday. Covert in May announced he would retire as deputy general manager at Amentum-led Waste Treatment Completion Co. He will be succeeded by another longtime senior manager […]

A relatively new federal district judge in South Carolina will preside over an employment discrimination case against the Department of Energy’s management prime for the Savannah River Site. U.S. District Judge Jacquelyn Austin will hear the job discrimination and retaliation lawsuit against Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions filed this spring by a former employee, a […]

Leidos-led Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, the contractor for roads, grounds and essential infrastructure-related chores at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, appointed Todd Synoground acting chief operations officer. Synoground, listed as senior vice president of infrastructure and site services on the contractor’s website, will step in as acting operations chief with Amy Basche moving up […]