The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will next week consider Undersecretary of Energy Mark Menezes’ nomination to the No. 2 spot at the Department of Energy.
The White House in March nominated Menezes as deputy secretary of energy. He would succeed Dan Brouillette, who became energy secretary in December.
After a career on Capitol Hill and in the private sector, including as an executive with Berkshire Hathaway Energy and a lawyer in the House, Menezes became undersecretary of energy in November 2017. His work involves “driving transformative energy policy, and technology solutions through coordinated planning, management and performance of the Department’s energy programs,” according to Menezes’ official DOE biography.
In January, Brouillette assigned Menezes authority to make decisions on agency operations covering all areas except for the semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
The Senate committee’s nomination hearing is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, May 20, in Room 106 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. Panel members are authorized to participate in person or online, in keeping with safeguards to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“The Committee will follow guidelines developed in consultation with the Office of the Attending Physician and the Senate Rules Committee to protect the health of members, staff, and the public,” according to the notice for the hearing. “This includes maintaining six-foot social distance spacing in the hearing room. Pursuant to this guidance, Senate office buildings are not open to the public other than official business visitors and credentialed press at this time. Accordingly, in-person visitors cannot be accommodated at this hearing.”
Menezes in February created a minor stir during a House hearing when he said the Trump administration was still working on a “path toward” a nuclear waste repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev. This came just after the White House issued a 2021 budget proposal that pointedly did not include any money to resume federal licensing of the long-stalled project, after being rebuffed by Congress in three previous attempts at funding. President Donald Trump had also by then tweeted in support of Nevada’s opposition to the repository. Menezes and the Energy Department quickly issued statements walking back his earlier assertion.
The environmental liability of the Energy Department’s Office of Legacy Management is sure to increase from its recent $7.35 billion as it assumes responsibility for more remediated properties, according to a report issued Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Legacy Management conducts maintenance and surveillance following cleanup of radioactively contaminated sites by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), and private licensees for onetime uranium mills or other commercial operations licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
As of October 2019, Legacy Management was responsible for an even 100 properties. It was expected by last September to receive 52 more by 2050, according to an office document cited by the GAO.
“Since LM does not account for the environmental liability related to long-term surveillance and maintenance for a portion of its sites until it acquires them, LM officials could not tell us by how much its total environmental liability will increase as a result of acquiring these sites,” the report says. “However, officials said that some sites transitioning to LM in the future will be increasingly complex, which will likely mean increased long-term surveillance and maintenance costs.”
One official cited the contribution from incoming FUSRAP sites that are larger in size and have more leftover contamination than properties previously handed over to Legacy Management. That will require “more extensive and costly long-term surveillance and maintenance activities” by the DOE office, the official told the congressional auditor.
In its fiscal 2021 budget request, the Trump administration again proposed shifting management and funding for FUSRAP from the Army Corps to Legacy Management. Congress rejected that same proposal in the current 2020 budget year. The program, which remediates sites contaminated from the 1940s to the 1960s by nuclear-weapon and power operations under the Manhattan Engineer District and Atomic Energy Commission, had been managed by DOE from inception in 1974 to 1997, when Congress shifted it to the Army Corps.
Legacy Management has failed to plan for managing new remediation activities beyond its area of expertise and for evaluating and addressing the impact of climate change on its properties, the GAO said.
It made three recommendations to the secretary of energy: Direct the heads of the Legacy Management and Environmental Management offices to establish plans for remediation of LM sites that the office cannot handle alone; direct the Legacy Management director to collaborate similarly with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for such projects; and direct the Legacy Management director to prepare plans for evaluating and addressing the impact of climate change on the office’s sites. The Energy Department concurred with all three recommendations.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has determined there would be no significant environmental impact from a 40-year license renewal for the spent fuel storage pad at the decommissioned Humboldt Bay nuclear power plant in California.
Owner Pacific Gas & Electric “is proposing no changes in how it handles or stores spent fuel at the Humboldt Bay ISFSI,” the federal agency said in an April 30 environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact (FONSI). “No significant changes in PG&E’s authorized operations for the Humboldt Bay ISFSI were requested as part of the license renewal application. The proposed action would not result in any new construction or expansion of the existing ISFSI footprint beyond that previously approved. The ISFSI is a passive facility that produces no liquid or gaseous effluents.”
The NRC notified PG&E of its finding in a May 1 letter, which was posted on May 8 to the agency website.
Humboldt Bay Power Plant Unit 3, a boiling-water reactor, operated from 1963 to 1976 in Eureka, Calif. It closed for upgrades and never reopened. Decommissioning of the reactor, including demolition and site remediation, was completed in 2019 within its $1.1 billion budget, a PG&E spokesman said this week.
In November 2005, PG&E received a 20-year license from the federal regulator to take, hold, and transfer used fuel from the reactor via the ISFSI. The license was amended in 2013 to encompass storage of Greater-Than-Class C process waste, primarily solid waste left by operations and decommissioning of Unit 3.
The storage pad holds 390 used fuel assemblies in five storage casks manufactured by New Jersey energy technology company Holtec International. A sixth cask hold loose debris designated as Greater-Than-Class C radioactive waste.
The NRC expects this month to decide on the license renewal application, a spokesman said Tuesday.
Jan Carlin has stepped down as managing director of the Waste Management Symposia (WMS), the nonprofit organizer of the annual conference in Phoenix for the nuclear cleanup and waste management industries.
Carlin, a nuclear business consultant, started on the job in September 2017 and had only intended to remain for two years, but stayed on past the March 2020 conference, according to a press release Tuesday. Waste Management Symposia President Jim Fiore is heading up a search panel for Carlin’s successor. The position will be held in the interim by WMS director Robert Weiler.
The Waste Management Symposia conference drew about 2,100 participants this year, down about 10% from usual levels, as the severity of the COVID-19 health crisis was becoming apparent. Nearly all large events around the world have since been postponed or canceled for the year.
Two WMS participants afterward showed signs of potential infection, but both tested negative.
“In these uncertain times we will have a challenging period up until the March 7-11, 2021 conference,” Fiore said in the release. “We will need to appoint a person who can take up this challenge and ensure we have a successful 47th year of providing the premier global conference on radioactive waste management.”
Carlin is director of business development for robotics company Walischmiller Engineering GmbH, along with owner of Carlin Consulting Services, according to her LinkedIn profile. She has committed to staying on as an adviser for WMS through September.
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