NS&D Monitor
7/18/2014
IN CONGRESS
The Senate confirmed career foreign service officer Robert Wood by voice vote July 15 as the United States’ Representative to the Conference on Disarmament. Wood’s confirmation came nearly seven months after he was first nominated to the position. Wood has been serving as the top U.S. official at the CD in an acting capacity, and his confirmation makes him the permanent representative, with the rank of ambassador. Wood had been serving in a dual capacity as the Deputy Chief of Mission to the U.S. Mission to the International Organizations in Vienna, Austria. He was the State Department’s deputy spokesman from 2008 to 2010. The Senate still has not acted to confirm nine Department of Energy nominees and two key State Department arms control officials.
IN THE ADMINISTRATION
President Obama late last week nominated career diplomat John Francis Tefft as the new U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine from 2009 to 2013 and as the U.S. Ambassador to Georgia from 2005 to 2009. Since 2013 Tefft has been executive director of the RAND Business Leaders Forum at the RAND Corporation. The head post in Moscow has been vacant since former ambassador Michael McFaul resigned earlier this year.
IN THE INDUSTRY
USEC received an additional $5.4 million from the Department of Energy this week to support the American Centrifuge technology. The funding is enough to cover work through Aug. 5, USEC said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Since May, the company has been performing work under a subcontract with Oak Ridge National Laboratory with an aim to preserve the technology and maintain and demonstrate operations of the centrifuges. Total funding so far comes to about $21.3 million, while the base term of the subcontract runs until Sept. 30 for a total of $33.7 million. There are two six-month $41.7 million option periods that would run the program through FY 2015.
The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility project has gone 19 million consecutive work hours without an injury resulting in a lost workday, contractor Shaw AREVA MOX Services said this week. The streak set another safety record for the project, which has been the subject of significant controversy after the Administration moved to put the facility in cold standby in Fiscal Year 2015. That move has been opposed by Congress. “The credit for this achievement goes to everyone—employees and subcontractors—working every day to ensure workplace safety,” Shaw AREVA MOX Services President and CEO Kelly Trice said. “The commitment our employees have made to this project is exemplary and meeting this goal is evidence of that commitment.” Shaw AREVA said Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate typical construction sites experience a lost workday accident every 125,000 hours worked.
