The fiscal 2027 House Energy and Water Appropriations bill text was released Wednesday and waits to be debated on the House floor.
The bill text and any amendments submitted are available online. While the bill was scheduled to be debated on the House floor this week, debate and votes were postponed.
Last month, the House Appropriations Committee approved a version of the bill that wouldfund DOE’s Office of Environmental Management at $7.7 billion, less than the $8.2 billion sought by the White House and the $8.5-billion enacted for fiscal 2026.
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) inspectors at Los Alamos National Laboratory raised concerns about staffing levels at the lab’s field office, warning that federal oversight might not keep pace with the site’s growing workload.
According to a recent resident inspector report, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Los Alamos, N.M. Field Office is operating at approximately 75% staffing and could lose several additional employees in the coming months, the DNFSB report from May 29 said. Many of the anticipated departures involve personnel responsible for contractor safety oversight.
The report notes that current staffing levels are based on an analysis that does not reflect the laboratory’s increased operations or expected future growth. Los Alamos is playing a central role in NNSA’s effort to expand plutonium pit production, a mission that has driven increased activity across the site in recent years.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has issued a $2.2-million financial assistance grant to the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED), which is the state regulator for DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M.
The financial assistance grant for NMED’s Oversight Bureau helps the state agency with independent environmental monitoring of WIPP issues such as groundwater, surface water and gamma radiation sampling, DOE’s Environmental Management branch said in a Thursday June 25 press release. Through oversight, the state agency helps DOE protect public health and safety around WIPP.
The grant starts July 1 and runs through June 30, 2029. WIPP is the nation’s only deep underground repository for defense-related transuranic waste.
Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is seeking commercial partners for a patented fire mitigation technology designed to improve safety in advanced heat-pipe nuclear reactors, according to a recent technology licensing notice.
Responses are due Dec. 19, 2026, according to the Department of Energy’s June 19 notice.
The technology is intended to address one of the most significant safety challenges associated with alkali metal-cooled microreactors: the risk of fires involving sodium, potassium and other reactive metals used in heat-transfer systems.
Berkeley, Calif.-based small modular reactor developer Deep Fission last week became a publicly listed company on the NASDAQ Global Select Market, the company said in a press release.
The underground small modular reactor (SMR) developer will trade under the ticker symbol of FISN. Deep Fission said June 17 that the $16 per share pricing of its public offering should yield total gross proceeds of $40 million from 2.5 million shares of its common stock.
The company started trading on June 18 and anticipated the offering to close on Monday, June 22 subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Deep Fission went public after holding its initial public offering (IPO) in May, where it expected its IPO price to be between $24 and $26.
Bechtel National said June 19 it has opened an office in Gdańsk, Poland, to support development of Poland’s first nuclear power plant.
The office will serve as an engineering and operations hub for the AP1000 project in Choczewo, with a focus on hiring from the local workforce and working with regional universities and institutions, Bechtel said in a news release.