ECA Update: May 25, 2012
Published: Fri, 05/25/12
Senate Committee on Armed Services Completes Markup of the National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2013 (summary at link)
Senate Armed Services Committee Press Release May 24, 2012 WASHINGTON -- Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), Chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, announced today that the committee has completed its markup of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2013. The bill authorizes funding for the Department of Defense (DOD) and the national security programs of the Department of Energy (DOE).
"With unanimous approval of this bill, the Armed Services Committee has continued its bipartisan tradition of strong support for national security, and for our troops and their families," Levin said. "I want to thank Senator McCain for his support throughout the markup process that helped report out a bill with the unanimous vote of our Members."
Senator Levin continued, "The committee has approved a bill that maintains a strong, flexible national defense, and also exercises careful stewardship of taxpayer dollars, remaining within the topline of the president's budget request."
Ranking Member Senator John McCain (R-AZ) said, "I voted in favor of the Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization bill approved today by the Senate Armed Services Committee. This bill represents a truly bipartisan effort to support our warfighters and maintain the readiness of the Armed Forces of the United States in difficult budget circumstances."
Agencies told to assume the worst in FY14 budget requests Charles S. Clark, Government Executive May 22, 2012 The Obama administration still holds out hope of avoiding the across-the-board budget cuts required under the 2011 Budget Control Act, but it is nonetheless instructing federal agencies to begin preparing their fiscal 2014 budget requests assuming a 5 percent cut in discretionary spending.
Acting Budget Director Jeffrey Zients in a memo to agency heads on Friday said the coming spending plan will build on the Budget Control Act and the fiscal 2013 document's framework, and hence "must continue to cut lower-priority spending in order to create room for the most effective investments in areas critical to economic growth and job creation, including education, innovation, infrastructure, and research and development."
The directive also calls for a 10 percent cut in spending on information technology, unless an agency has worked out a previous arrangement with the Office of Management and Budget. During the spring and summer, Zients said, agencies should prepare guidance that reflects overall cuts of 5 percent in line with administration priorities. Plans should be accompanied by a ranked list of "add-backs" that could be reconsidered on their merits if funds become available.
"The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe."
-- Albert Einstein
We wouldn't object to seeing that quotation from one of history's greatest minds displayed at the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.
If only the park existed.
Those few words make a poignant argument for Congress to create a new park focused on the dawning of the nuclear age.
The first nuclear bombs fashioned from materials made at Hanford and Oak Ridge, Tenn., indeed changed everything.
As the Senate Armed Services Committee is set to mark up the fiscal 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is emphasizing the importance of environmental cleanup.
She was the lead signer on a letter with eight other senators urging the Senate Armed Services Committee leadership to remember the nation's responsibility toward cleanup at Hanford and other defense sites.
The National Defense Authorization Act sets defense budget priorities, and environmental cleanup poses a tempting account to raid in a bill that deals primarily with the active military.
Fiscal 2013 could be a particularly difficult year because of the looming possibility of sequestration triggered by the failure of a special congressional deficit committee to reach agreement.
NuScale submits proposal to DOE for small modular nuclear reactors Energy Business Review May 22, 2012 NuScale Power has submitted its proposal to participate in a US Department of Energy (DOE) program to accelerate the deployment of small modular reactors.
Using light water reactor technology, the NuScale reactor is cooled by natural circulation, entirely self-contained and installed underwater and underground to maximize safety.
South Carolina Gas & Electric will lead the formation of a consortium to license and operate the first NuScale plant at the Savannah River Site, as part of the NuHub economic development organization.
Yucca Lawsuit(s) Update - Four Related Cases The Bridge, SRS Community Reuse Organization Newsletter May, 2012 Congress formally designated Yucca Mountain as the nation's sole repository site for deep geologic disposal of high-level radioactive waste and spent fuel in 2002. In June 2008, the DOE submitted to the NRC its license application to build the repository, having already spent about $9 billion on the project. But the Administration slashed funding for the project in 2009, prompting Energy Secretary Steven Chu to request the withdrawal of the DOE's license application in March 2010.
In June 2010, a three-judge panel at the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) unanimously ruled the DOE's withdrawal of the license application "with prejudice" was illegal because it superseded the DOE's authority under NWPA of 1982. Subsequently, the Commission acted to review the ASLB decision but delayed any final decision.
The Department of Energy is making substantial progress in improving the safety culture at the Hanford vitrification plant project, said Peter Winokur, chairman of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
But it remains to be seen if that translates to the DOE contractor on the project, Bechtel National, Winokur said at a public hearing Tuesday in Washington, D.C., on vitrification plant nuclear safety culture issues.
Among changes is linking a larger percentage of Bechtel's potential quarterly pay on the project to safety culture performance.
Directors of a Reno group that wants to establish a nuclear energy research park at the Nevada National Security Site were knocking on doors in Washington last week in an attempt to nurture the idea.
Nevadans 4 Carbon Free Energy is trying to obtain a couple million dollars in seed money out of Congress. Its task is complicated, though, by technical questions about the plan, lingering fights over Yucca Mountain, and by suspicions in some circles over its motives.
Created in 2009 by five Northern Nevada businessmen, the group envisions creation of a federally funded partnership that would oversee construction of two test-scale nuclear reactors at the Nevada National Security Site to research waste reprocessing methods. The arrangement eventually could lead to the site being utilized for reprocessing of larger volumes of waste that could then be reused in commercial reactors.
The group commissioned a poll in February by Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican firm, that it said showed 62 percent of Nevadans favor the idea "because of jobs and money."
Sessions include "Future Plans for the DOE-EM Cleanup Program and Motivation for Best Practices Workshops" and "Status of Global Threat Reduction Initiative HEU Minimization Efforts."
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