ECA Update: December 1, 2011
Published: Thu, 12/01/11
The BRC will host a full commission meeting in Washington, D.C. tomorrow to present the revised recommendations of the three subcommittees to the full Commission for deliberation and to present the recommendations of the newly established Ad-Hoc Subcommittee on Co-Mingling Of Defense and Commercial Waste.
The BRC also made available on its website two documents: 1) a BRC staff background paper on commingling of defense and commercial waste and 2) an outside legal analysis of commission recommendations for near-term actions.
The Senate looks forward to passing its version (S. 1867) of the Fiscal Year 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (FY12 NDAA) late Thursday. The bill sets funding authorization levels and policy for DOE national security programs.
Before voting on final passage of the bill, the Senate will consider a number of amendments. Among those amendments could be one or more submitted earlier by Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee in support of NNSA weapons activities.
The amendments may not get a chance at adoption, however, as Senate leadership is pushing to limit debate time and secure final passage of the bill. In any event, Senators Kyl and Corker demonstrate strong support for NNSA weapons activities by submitting these amendments.
Amendments to boost NNSA weapons activities funding
Senators Kyl and Corker collaborated to submit a series of amendments (SAs 1380, 1386, 1401, and 1453) that could provide significant additional funding to NNSA weapons activities.
If the amount appropriated to weapons activities under the FY12 Energy-Water bill is less than the amount authorized under the FY12 NDAA, the Kyl-Corker amendments would authorize the transfer of additional appropriations from the Department of Defense and the Department of State to NNSA weapons activities until that account's appropriations level rises to its authorization level.
The current gap between FY12 weapons activities authorization and appropriations levels is about $500 million.
The House and Senate seem to be in general agreement to authorize $7.63 billion for NNSA weapons activities, whereas both chambers recommend about $500 million less for appropriations. The House Energy-Water appropriations bill (H.R. 2354) recommends the appropriation of $7.13 billion to NNSA weapons activities and the Senate version (also H.R. 2354) recommends $7.19 billion. The final numbers depend upon conference negotiation and ultimate passage.
Amendment in support of nuclear weapons complex safety and modernization
Senator Kyl also submitted Senate Amendment (SA) 1444, which would express the sense of Congress that:
'Passback Day' is a key date in the federal budget process
Ed O'Keefe, The Washington Post November 27, 2011 For hundreds of federal budget analysts, the Monday after Thanksgiving is a day to step back, take a deep breath and prepare for a stressful holiday season, marked less by parties and gift-giving and more by complex political maneuvering and tricky math.
"Passback Day," as the last Monday of November is known in budget circles, is when the White House and the Office of Management and Budget literally pass back drafts of proposed budgets for the next fiscal year to agencies and departments and begin a series of negotiations in hopes of completing a final budget proposal for President Obama by January.
Bingaman to float 'clean energy standard' early next year Andrew Restuccia, The Hill November 30, 2011 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) will introduce legislation early next year requiring that a portion of the country's electricity be generated from low-carbon energy sources.
The "clean energy standard" legislation, which faces major hurdles in Congress, will be informed by an analysis released Wednesday by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the Energy Department's statistical arm.
Bingaman praised the analysis, which he requested in August, in a statement Wednesday.
Rep. Markey hits GOP chairman hard as nuclear weapons flap escalates John T. Bennett, The Hill December 1, 2011 Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) will hit back hard on Thursday at criticisms lobbed by a House Republican chairman over the costs of America's nuclear arsenal.
House Armed Services Strategic subcommittee Chairman Michael Turner (R-Ohio) slammed Markey in a Wednesday letter for injecting inflated nuclear weapons cost figures into the debate about how to best cut the military's budget. Markey will answer in a statement due out Thursday by claiming Turner's cost projections make "Enron look like mathematicians."
Markey, using data from the Ploughshares Fund, told the now-dead supercommittee that Washington spends around $50 billion annually on its nuclear fleet. The group came up with a total cost of $700 billion over 10 years, a figure that has been picked up by other advocates of nuclear cuts.
At MIT, Energy Secretary Chu says he hopes ARPA-E will survive budget cuts
Scott Kirsner, The Boston Globe November 30, 2011 U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu was gave a talk at MIT today on "Winning the Clean Energy Race," and I got a chance afterward to ask him about the future of the ARPA-E program, which was created in 2009 to supply grants to "transformational energy research" at universities and start-up companies. Modeled after DARPA, the arm of the Pentagon that helped develop the predecessor to the Internet, ARPA-E is the "Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy." The program has funded fuel cell research at Harvard, wind turbine development at FloDesign in Wilbraham, and new solar cell production approaches at 1366 Technologies in Lexington, among others.
What will happen to ARPA-E in 2012 and beyond, given the battles in D.C. over deficit reduction, and the possibility that a "sequestering" mechanism could impose across-the-board budget cuts?
Los Alamos lab asks New Mexico for more time to meet mandated cleanup milestones
Associated Press November 25, 2011 ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Los Alamos National Laboratory is asking the state of New Mexico for more time to meet some mandated cleanup milestones as it faces shifting priorities and uncertainty about its environmental cleanup budget.
The northern New Mexico lab would be able to speed up the shipment of radioactive waste from lab property to a permanent disposal site if allowed to shift resources to higher priority work, George Rael, head of environmental management for the federal government's Los Alamos Site Office told the Albuquerque Journal.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- A federal appeals court has agreed to consider a watchdog group's lawsuit to halt construction of a new $6 billion plutonium lab at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver Tuesday agreed to consider the merits of the appeal by the Los Alamos Study Group. The group filed a lawsuit last year to halt development of the so-called Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement nuclear facility. The group alleged the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration violated federal law by failing to do a new environmental impact statement after changing the design for project to address seismic and other safety concerns
Feds appeal new discharge permit at Y-12, fight mercury requirements
Frank Munger, Atomic City Undergroud November 30, 2011 OAK RIDGE -- The National Nuclear Security Administration has filed an appeal on the new discharge permit for the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant, arguing against the state's use of the permit to enforce mercury-cleanup projects at the federal site.
In a letter to the Tennessee Water Quality Control Board, the federal government's legal counsel at Y-12 argued that some of the new permit's required mercury-reduction activities are the domain of CERCLA -- the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, commonly known as Superfund -- and should not be included in the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. The NNSA said cleanup projects are taking place under other agreements.
NRC licensing review finds MOX project in compliance
Rob Pavey, The Augusta Chronicle November 30, 2011 Construction work at the U.S. Department of Energy's mixed oxide fuel plant at Savannah River Site fulfilled all licensing and inspection requirements during the past 12 months, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's annual review.
"Our inspections indicated that your construction program and procedure development, along with project staffing, were sufficiently implemented to support ongoing construction activities," NRC Construction Division Director James H. Moorman wrote in a Nov. 15 letter to Kelly Trice, the president of Shaw AREVA MOX Services, the project contractor.
DOE shouldn't try to save triage system for cleanup
Editorial Board, Tri-City Herald November 29, 2011 There's one glaring error in a new report suggesting that the Department of Energy consider a nationwide triage system for ranking environmental projects at Hanford and other polluted sites.
When it comes to cleaning up the massive environmental mess left at Hanford, a ranking system already exists. It's called the Tri-Party Agreement.
The document has stood the test of time, serving as the foundation for decisions on Hanford cleanup for more than 22 years.
Any proposal that would supersede the pact ought to be rejected out of hand.
The Tri-Cities should look to energy innovation for future economic success, said Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., campaigning for governor Monday in the Tri-Cities.
He was the guest of the Tri-City Development Council at a Meet the Candidate Luncheon in Richland after touring the Tri-Tech Skills Center of the Kennewick School District. He also visited Pasco High School.
Washington is poised to lead a technological revolution in energy innovation, including for biofuel, wind and solar energy production, and the Tri-Cities has the blend of skills and resources needed, he said.
"The day will come when the world will come to the Tri-Cities for these products," he said.
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