ECA Update: December 27, 2012
Published: Thu, 12/27/12
Western governors want trend of DOE budget cuts to end
Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald December 22, 2012 The governors of five western states, including Washington, are asking the White House to turn around the trend of cutting federal spending for environmental cleanup of the Department of Energy's weapons production sites, including Hanford.
"While much progress has been achieved, we are now concerned that the national fiscal environment will result in the progress virtually grinding to a halt, resulting in significant environmental risk," said a letter sent Thursday to Jeffrey Zients, deputy director for management of the Office of Management and Budget.
The letter was signed by Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, Idaho Gov. Butch Otter, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez and California Gov. Jerry Brown. Their states are among 11 in the nation with contamination being cleaned up from nuclear weapons production.
The sites include Hanford, where plutonium was produced during World War II and the Cold War for the nation's nuclear weapons program.
The federal government has estimated that about $7 billion annually is needed to continue cleanup at a level that meets regulatory standards and agreements, such as Hanford's Tri-Party Agreement.
Historically, the nationwide program has received less than that -- about $6 billion to $6.5 billion a year -- and in the past few years spending has dropped below $6 billion, the letter said.
Since Congress did not pass a DOE budget for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1, DOE has been operating under a continuing resolution that puts spending at closer to $5 billion, according to the letter."
Given the current federal budget crisis in Washington, D.C., we are anticipating funding to continue to dwindle for this program, perhaps to just $5 billion a year or perhaps even less in fiscal year 2014 and beyond," the letter said.
That amount may sound impressive, but it costs DOE $3 billion annually just to maintain environmental cleanup sites in a safe and operable mode, it said.
While the DOE cleanup budget is shrinking, the cost of environmental cleanup continues to grow because of new and urgent high-risk cleanup work, the letter said.
At Hanford, work has slowed on key parts of the $12.2 billion vitrification plant until technical issues that could affect its eventual safe operations are resolved. The cost of the plant is expected to increase, and more time might be needed to get it operating to treat up to 56 million gallons of radioactive waste for disposal.
In addition, the first leak has been detected from the inner shell of one of Hanford's 28 double-shell tanks, raising concerns about whether the tanks will last as long as 40 more years until all the waste can be treated for disposal. DOE has estimated the cost of building one new double-shell tank at $100 million.
Emerging work across the complex includes work that is first of a kind and that is very technically challenging, which will put more pressure on near-term budgets, the letter said.
"The combination of emerging work scope and dwindling budgets is on the verge of requiring massive worker layoffs, delayed environmental cleanup, violations of numerous environmental compliance agreements and regulations, and huge increases in 'to go' costs," according to the governors.
The remaining cleanup costs nationwide already are expected to grow from $200 billion to $300 billion and the completion date could be extended from the 2060s to the 2080s, the letter said.
The White House and Congress need to work together to adequately pay for cleanup and protect the health and safety of residents who live nearby or downstream from nuclear environmental cleanup sites, the letter said.
Copies of the letter were sent to Jack Lew, White House chief of staff, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
Lisa Jackson Stepping Down as EPA Head Olga Belogolova, National Journal December 27, 2012 Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson will be stepping down after President Obama's State of the Union address in January.
Jackson, the first black head of the EPA and the fourth woman to hold the job, has spent much of her tenure at the center of the energy and environment debate in Washington and was often criticized for the agency's controversial Clean Air Act regulations.
The EPA during her tenure has undertaken several significant regulatory actions, including setting new standards to clean up mercury and other toxic emissions from coal power plants, establishing new fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards for motor vehicles and setting new standards to limit fine particle soot in the air. The EPA also reversed course from the Bush administration's policies and declared that climate change posed a real threat to the environment.
Critics have accused the EPA of overreach and of putting in place "job-killing" regulations at a time of economic weakness. In the last year, Jackson and her colleagues have been grilled by congressional committees on the agency's environmental rules and their effects on energy industries and economic recovery. The GOP-led House has passed laws trying to block or delay EPA regulations.
Jackson, 50, was born in Pennsylvania, but grew up in New Orleans. She spent 16 years at the EPA and six years at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection prior to becoming EPA administrator.
On 'fiscal cliff,' Obama and senators returning to Washington for one last attempt at deal Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane, The Washington Post December 26, 2012 With historic tax increases set to hit virtually every American in five days, President Obama and members of the Senate are headed back to Washington on Thursday to take one last shot at a deal to protect taxpayers and the gathering economic recovery.
If anything, hope for success appeared to have dimmed over the Christmas holiday. The Republican-controlled House last week abdicated responsibility for resolving the crisis, leaving all eyes on the Senate. But senior aides in both parties said Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have not met or even spoken since leaving town for the weekend.
One small sign of progress came from House GOP leaders, who vowed Wednesday to call the House into session and stage a vote on anything the Democratic-controlled Senate approved.
But Speaker John A. Boehner (Ohio) and other top Republicans also demanded that Senate leaders take up a bill approved by the House months ago that would preserve expiring tax cuts for the wealthy as well as the middle class.
After failing to persuade their fellow Republicans last week to let taxes rise on income over $1 million, GOP leaders offered no guidance on the shape of a package the House could ultimately accept. "The House will take . . . action on whatever the Senate can pass, but the Senate first must act," the leaders said in a joint statement.
The White House, meanwhile, was working with Reid on an alternative package that would keep Obama's vow to let taxes rise on income over $250,000. Top Senate aides said their approach also would protect millions of middle-class Americans from having to pay the costly alternative minimum tax for the first time and would keep benefits flowing to 2 million unemployed workers who otherwise would be cut off in January.
The measure also could delay deep spending cuts set to strike at the Pentagon and other federal agencies next month. But aides said the scope of the package depends on negotiations with Senate Republicans, and the talks had yet to get off the ground.
With no sign of urgency, aides in both parties predicted that failure was not just a possibility -- it was rapidly becoming the most likely outcome. No significant movement was expected Thursday: Obama was scheduled to be in the air traveling back from his Hawaiian holiday for a good portion of the day, and the Senate wasn't set to convene for votes until the evening.
Unless the House and the Senate can agree on a way to avoid the "fiscal cliff," more than $500 billion in tax increases and spending cuts will take effect next year, potentially sparking a new recession.
In a sign of mounting anxiety over Washington gridlock, Starbucks is asking employees in its D.C. area stores to write the words "Come Together" on cups provided to customers Thursday and Friday. The aim is to send a message to lawmakers that they must settle their differences and resolve the fiscal crisis, Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz said in a letter posted online.
Financial markets, already unsettled by the prospect of dramatic tax increases and spending reductions, may also face a new battle over the limit on federal borrowing. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner announced Wednesday that the debt will hit the $16.4 trillion cap on Dec. 31, leaving roughly two months for Congress to raise it or default on the nation's obligations.
Some lawmakers are looking ahead to the debt-ceiling fight as the moment when party leaders will finally agree on a plan to get rampant government borrowing under control.
"I think we're going to fall out of the fiscal tree," Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." "The big chance for a big deal is at the debt ceiling. That's when we will have leverage to turn the country around, prevent it from becoming Greece, and save Social Security and Medicare."
Until last week, much of Washington had hoped that a broad deal would come together by New Year's Eve. Obama and Boehner had been talking since the November election about a compromise that would meet the president's demand for higher taxes on the wealthy and the speaker's demand for significant changes to the health and retirement programs, such as Medicare and Social Security, that are the federal government's biggest expenses.
The two leaders appeared to come close. In his last offer, Obama proposed to cut $400 billion from federal health programs through 2022 and to slow cost-of-living increases for Social Security benefits. All told, he proposed net spending cuts of about $850 billion in exchange for about $1.3 trillion in new revenue.
Boehner offered to raise $1 trillion in fresh revenue, and he wanted spending cuts of equal size. By that measure, Obama's tax offer was $300 billion too high and his cuts $150 billion too low, for a net difference between the two men of about $450 billion -- less than 1 percent of projected federal spending over the next decade.
In the end, however, the gap proved to be much wider politically than it was numerically. Triumphant Democrats, who gained seats in the House and the Senate in addition to holding the White House in November, were unwilling to push the tax number any lower. And they adamantly opposed additional health savings that might reduce benefits for the elderly, such as raising the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67, or jeopardize the 2014 launch of Obama's health-care initiative.
Boehner, meanwhile, might have been able to accept a higher tax target, Republicans said. But he needed parity in spending cuts, and the president did not provide it.
Democrats argue that the speaker couldn't have sold any deal to his anti-tax caucus, pointing to the failure last week of his "Plan B," which would have raised taxes on millionaires, after he broke off talks with Obama. Doubts about the House are now clouding the prospects for action in the Senate.
The most likely way forward, aides in both parties said, is for Reid to take up the House bill and amend it to let taxes rise for the wealthy, to extend federal benefits for the long-term unemployed and to make other urgent changes. At this late date, aides said, such a bill would be extremely unlikely to include significant spending cuts or to raise the debt limit, but it would avert the worst economic effects of the fiscal cliff.
Nearly a dozen Senate Republicans have expressed support for such an approach, including Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.), the incoming No. 2 Republican leader.
"One of the beauties of that bill is it wouldn't require a vote to raise anybody's taxes, and I think that is a major advantage," Cornyn said Friday, noting that an "aye" vote would extend expiring tax cuts for most households, letting taxes rise on the rich by default.
But Senate Democrats say they would not advance such a bill until they secured McConnell's commitment not to block it and Boehner's pledge to let it pass the House with Democratic votes.
"House Republicans pushed middle class families closer to the cliff by wasting an entire week with their incompetent 'Plan B' stunt," Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson said in a statement. "The Senate has already rejected House Republicans' Tea Party bills, and no further legislation can move through the Senate until Republicans drop their knee-jerk obstruction."
Wall Street traders, meanwhile, began bracing their clients for disaster.
"The blame game could reach full swing by the weekend," the Washington Research Group, an arm of Guggenheim Partners, wrote Wednesday in its daily message to investors. "We . . . continue to believe there is a 70 percent chance that we go over some form of the cliff at the end of the year."
President's 2014 budget request likely to be late, experts say Sean Reilly, Federal Times December 21, 2012 The turmoil over this year's spending levels means that the Obama administration likely will delay submission of its fiscal 2014 budget request well past the early February due date, experts said Friday.
"I fully expect it to be late," said Thad Juszczak, a former federal budget officer who predicted that the delay will probably run into March. Another former federal official, who asked not to be named because he was citing sources within the government, confirmed that agencies are also expecting a March submission date.
In an email, an administration official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said no decisions have been made on timing. The official added, however, that the Office of Management and Budget had held off on issuing the "passbacks" that usually go to agencies in late November to let them know what'll be allotted per agency in the upcoming budget request.
The administration's budget request is legally due on Capitol Hill the first Monday in February, which next year falls on Feb. 4. But delays are not unusual: This past February, the White House postponed release of its fiscal 2013 request by a week, citing the need for more time to make final decisions and work out technical details.
But while fiscal 2013 began almost three months ago, lawmakers have not given final approval to any of the dozen appropriations bills that set agency budgets. Instead, the government is operating under a six-month continuing resolution that runs through most of March.
The White House and congressional Republicans are meanwhile battling over the terms of a deal needed to avert a combination of tax increases and across-the-board budget cuts set to take effect at the beginning of January.
It's tough to set 2014 spending benchmarks without knowing what the budget levels for 2013 will be, said Stan Collender, a former congressional budget staffer.
In a brief appearance before reporters late Friday afternoon, Obama called on lawmakers to come up with a compromise package that would keep income tax rates from going up Jan. 1 on most Americans, as well as extend unemployment benefits.
"We're going to have to find some common ground," Obama said. He said nothing, however, about possible steps to head off the budget cuts that would begin Jan. 2 and did not take questions.
Heitkamp to be Key Energy Voice Among Moderate Democrats Amy Harder, National Journal December 27, 2012 Heidi Heitkamp--the Democrat who surprised everyone and beat her Republican challenger Rick Berg to win the North Dakota Senate seat in this year's election--will be an important leader in a growing group of moderate Democratic senators hailing from energy-rich states.
"We hope that the voices of people who are familiar with the energy issues will be voices that will be listened to in the caucus," Sen.-elect Heitkamp told National Journal in a phone interview.
North Dakota is now second only to Texas in oil production and has the country's lowest unemployment rate--3.1 percent--due in large part to the state's oil boom over the last few years.
Heitkamp noted that Democratic Sens. Mark Begich of Alaska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana visited her state during the campaign season. "We see this as an American issue, not just an energy state issue," Heitkamp said. Former President Bill Clinton also stumped for her in the last days of the campaign when it became more apparent she had a good shot at winning.
With Heitkamp's surprise victory--even the New York Times' Nate Silver didn't predict she would win--and another upset win by Rep. Joe Donnelly in the Indiana race, the Senate will welcome two new Democrats next year who are especially moderate (some would say conservative) on energy and environment issues.
Republicans saw these pair of wins as a silver lining in an election that was mostly and surprisingly positive for Democrats across the board.
"The Senate was disappointing, though we picked up some strong fossil-fuel Ds," said one former House Republican energy aide, who would only speak on the condition of anonymity.
Heitkamp was selected to the two panels she had pledged she would seek during her campaign--Agriculture and Indian Affairs--and will not be sitting on either the Energy and Natural Resources or Environment and Public Works committees. That won't hinder her efforts in the area, she maintained.
"When you come from a state that is the second-largest oil producer in the country...you have an obligation to speak up and speak your mind and participate in the debate in ways that might not necessarily be sitting in a committee meeting," Heitkamp said.
Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., who does sit on the energy committee, told National Journal in an interview last week that Heitkamp could be central to building bridges with other Democrats on energy issues.
"I think she'll have an opportunity to get involved to work to get Democrats to support energy legislation," Hoeven said. "To move any energy bill, it's got to be bipartisan. I think we actually have a shot to do it."
Heitkamp and Donnelly's positions on energy align them with other Democrats like Landrieu, Begich, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. These senators represent some states that are traditionally known for their fossil-fuel production, such as Texas and Louisiana. But others, like Arkansas and North Dakota, are seeing booms in unconventional natural gas and oil. Donnelly is one of the few remaining Blue Dog Democrats in the House and voted against the 2009 cap-and-trade bill, which turned off some environmental groups from supporting his candidacy this year.
Heitkamp didn't make a lot of friends in the environmental community while on the campaign trail either. In October, she told a business crowd that President Obama was "wrong on energy" and that he should fire both Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, according to the AP.
The League of Conservation Voters was one of the most active environmental groups this election cycle, and spent $14 million on certain races supporting the Democratic candidates, including Martin Heinrich in New Mexico, incumbent Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts. All three of these politicians won, and LCV and other environmental groups said their efforts had a hand in the victories. LCV did not devote time or money to either the North Dakota or Indiana race.
"We were concerned by and did not agree with some of her [Heitkamp's] statements while she was campaigning," said Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president for government affairs at LCV. "But we look forward to working with her once she gets to the Senate and we hope we can find areas of common ground."
In her interview with National Journal, Heitkamp stood by her comments that Jackson and Chu should go.
"Whether in fact they've been obstructionists in developing an energy policy, the perception is definitely that they have picked one side or the other rather than broadening the discussion and talking about all the elements," Heitkamp said. She said she hoped Obama would select new cabinet members. "It would go a long way toward opening the dialogue on long-term energy policy if we had different administration representation."
One of the top candidates for the next Energy secretary is former Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who only had nice things to say about Heitkamp in a recent interview with National Journal.
"I've known her for a long, long, long time," Dorgan said. He, Heitkamp, and retiring Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., all held the same position as tax commissioner before coming to the Senate. "She ran a terrific race, near perfect race." On energy and environment issues, Dorgan predicted she would strike a moderate balance by supporting both fossil-fuel and renewable energy.
"She has taken some centrist positions on things that are not unexpected," Dorgan said, noting her strong support of North Dakota's oil production.
Obama's potential nomination of Dorgan for a cabinet position would have the support of Heitkamp. "We'll see if the president does call on him," she said. "I'm hopeful that he'll take up the challenge."
Heitkamp, who has a background in energy, including oil and natural gas tax issues, has made friends with the industry's top executives in Washington.
"She's terrific. We had lunch with her the other day," Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, told National Journal in an interview last week. "She is very thoughtful, extremely well informed about oil and gas, particularly on the taxation [issue]. She understands the dynamics around oil and gas."
In her interview with NJ, Heitkamp expressed general support for not eliminating oil and gas tax breaks. "Most of these costs are no different than any other business deductions," she said.
Mikulski will take gavel of powerful Senate Appropriations Committee Erik Wasson, The Hill December 19, 2012 Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) is set to become the chairwoman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee.
She takes the position in the wake of the sudden death of Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) this week, and after Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) declined the role.
In a statement, Mikulski highlighted the fact that she will be the first woman to chair the spending panel.
"It's an honor and a privilege to be expected to follow the great leadership of Senator Inouye, one of my most treasured mentors, and become the Chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee," Mikulski said. "It is especially gratifying to be the first woman to lead this powerful committee. I am grateful for this opportunity to fight for the day to day needs of the American people and the long range needs of the nation."
Leahy will remain as the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Harkin will keep his spot as the head of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee. Leahy congratulated Mikulski over Twitter.
Mikulski is the longest-serving woman in the Senate, but held no position nearly as powerful as the one she now assumes. Her first job will be to try to shepherd a $60.4 billion Hurricane Sandy emergency-spending bill through Congress, and to see if an omnibus spending bill replacing the current 2013 stopgap bill can be passed next week.
Leahy had been next in line to take the Appropriations post after Inouye's death. By choosing to stay at Judiciary, he will be responsible for dealing with possible gun control in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., massacre last week that claimed the lives of 20 first-grade children. Judiciary also will likely have a key role in approving Supreme Court nominees in the next Congress.
"Chairing the Judiciary Committee and maintaining my seniority on the Appropriations Committee will allow me to protect both the Constitution and Vermont," Leahy said in a statement issued by his office.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) will remain as the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Democratic aides said. A leading gun-control advocate, she had been next in line to take the Judiciary helm.
The Leahy and Harkin decisions may at least partly reflect the declining appeal of Appropriations in a time where austerity rather than stimulus spending dominates the conversation and earmarks are no longer the currency of influence in Congress.
Harkin said that he passed up the once-coveted post because his "passion lies" in the HELP committee.
"I believe the best place to advance this agenda is through my HELP Chairmanship working in conjunction with my Chairmanship of the Appropriations subcommittee that funds health, education, and labor. It was my good friend Senator Inouye who said that these issues are the issues that define America. I couldn't agree more. I am proud of these assignments and I intend to see my work through," he said.
Harkin said he plans to push massive education and pension reform proposals in the new Congress, including his USA Retirement proposal unveiled in this Congress. He also said he will continue to push for full implementation of the Obama health reform prevention title, which conservatives have said includes a "slush fund."
Hawaii Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz Appointed to Senate Julie Sobel, National Journal December 27, 2012 Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie announced at a press conference Wednesday that he had appointed Democratic Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz to the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by the death of Sen. Daniel Inouye.
The choice was a surprise -- Rep. Colleen Hanabusa was considered the heavy favorite, thanks in part to a letter Inouye wrote Abercrombie prior to his death indicating his last wish was for the congresswoman to replace him in the Senate. The selection of Hanabusa would have triggered a special election for her House seat.
The Hawaii's Democratic Party's State Central Committee, tasked with choosing three candidates for the seat, earlier Wednesday selected Hanabusa, Schatz and former House candidate Esther Kia'aina.
"No one and nothing was pre-ordained," said Abercrombie at the announcement, in reference to the fact that he didn't choose Hanabusa despite Inouye's wishes. He called the choice in the best interests of the party, the state, and the country.
Schatz indicated that he will leave tonight for Washington, and will be sworn in Thursday afternoon. He said he would try to walk in the late senator's footsteps, though no one could fill his shoes.
"Of course Senator Inouye's views and wishes were taken into account fully," Abercrombie said in response to a question, after which he reiterated that nothing was "preordained." He proclaimed himself "very comfortable" with the choice.
The governor said the special all-party, no-primary House race that would have resulted from a Hanabusa appointment was something that needed to be taken into account as well. When Abercrombie resigned from the House to focus on his run for governor in 2010, Republican Charles Djou took advantage of a split Democratic field to win the Democratic-leaning seat in the special election.
Abercrombie also noted that it was important for Hawaii to build back seniority across all of its federal offices after Inouye's death and Sen. Daniel Akaka's retirement this year. Schatz, who is 40 years old, is younger than anyone currently serving in the Senate.
Schatz will serve in the Senate until 2014, when an election can be held to fill the rest of the term, which ends in 2016. He said at the press conference that he planned to run for reelection.
New Nuclear Plant Hits Some Snags Rebecca Smith, The Wall Street Journal December 23, 2012 The first newly licensed nuclear-power plant to be built in the U.S. in decades, the Vogtle project in Georgia, has run into construction problems and may be falling years behind schedule, according to an engineering expert advising the state.
The $14 billion plant is being closely watched by energy experts as a bellwether for the rebirth of the U.S. nuclear industry, because it involves a new type of nuclear reactor and a modular construction method that are supposed to reduce construction time and cost.
But a construction monitor warned in a report to the Georgia Public Service Commission this month that the plant, which will be operated by Southern Co. on behalf of several utilities, was falling behind schedule because of what he called an unsatisfactory performance by its construction team.
The expert hired to monitor the project, Bill Jacobs of engineering consultancy GDS Associates Inc., advised the regulators to brace for a potentially costly delay of two to four years. The two-reactor plant was initially scheduled to put its first reactor into service in 2016 but now expects that to happen in 2017.
Joseph "Buzz" Miller, executive vice president for Southern Nuclear, said Southern knew there were risks going into the project. "We haven't built [reactors] in 30 years," he noted.
Southern already was facing criticism from consumer groups that Georgia customers' power needs could be met more cheaply by natural-gas-fired power plants and through conservation efforts.
Georgia Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols said he wants to see the plant finished but said consumers shouldn't have to pay for the builders' "learning curve." The construction consortium includes Shaw Group Inc. and Westinghouse Electric Co.
Roger Hannah, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said scrutiny of new nuclear plants was important to ensure they meet standards and "prevent or mitigate the risk to people near the facility" when it begins operating.
For the power sector, the delay evokes unpleasant memories of cost overruns during the latest big nuclear-construction cycle, in the 1980s, which resulted in massive rate increases and utility losses.
Hoping to prevent a recurrence of those problems, the NRC streamlined the licensing process, and nuclear-design companies like Westinghouse developed modular techniques that allow the facilities to be built in smaller pieces and then assembled on site. Vogtle (pronounced VOH-gul) is the first plant in the U.S. to use new AP1000 reactors by Westinghouse, which the company says are faster to build and less expensive to operate.
But in his report on the pioneering Vogtle plant, Mr. Jacobs cited problems with module fabrication at Shaw's plant at Lake Charles, La., as well as welding issues and design revisions, all of which have slowed production.
He didn't think it would be possible to compress the construction schedule, citing "numerous examples of poor performance" by the building team, and an inability to meet milestone dates.
Shaw spokeswoman Gentry Brann declined to comment beyond a statement that said the Baton Rouge, La., industrial company's module-fabrication plant "is a world-class facility" and that "contrary to the construction monitor's opinion, the modules have not delayed construction."
Westinghouse spokesman Scott Shaw said in a statement that the partners are committed to "superior quality of construction" and that "independent oversight of these massive, complex and first-of-a-kind projects are welcomed to ensure that this occurs."
The delays and cost pressures have created friction between the construction partners and utility companies that will serve as the plant's owners, escalating into a series of lawsuits totaling more than $900 million.
Southern's Mr. Miller said he is hopeful an out-of-court settlement can resolve the disputes.
French firm proposes used nuclear fuel solution at Savannah Sarita Chourey, The Augusta Chronicle December 17, 2012 COLUMBIA -- A French nuclear company thinks it has a solution for spent nuclear fuel in the United States.
AREVA Federal Services presented last week its concept for an interim storage and recycling facility for used nuclear fuel to the S.C. Governor's Nuclear Advisory Council.
Paul Murray, technology director for AREVA Federal Services, described a recycling process that would reduce the amount of leftover material to be placed in long-term storage.
Murray projected a diagram onto the committee room wall of a cropping machine with a 1-ton blade, which shears a fuel assembly into small pieces. He said the fuel assembly would then fall down into a rotating dissolver, followed by other steps before fuel is produced. Waste would be turned into a high-level waste glass, suitable for disposal in a geological repository.
But the process is still on the drawing board.
Before the AREVA representative spoke, Council chairman Karen Patterson told those in attendance, "I remind you, it's only a concept and only one.
"Speaking as a citizen," she said, "I believe we should begin to learn about the options long before we are faced with a decision."
Murray said AREVA's proposed system would match recycling capacity to demand and wouldn't involve stockpiling plutonium.
Federal leaders have been searching for ways to handle the nation's spent fuel, which is housed at 104 commercial power reactors across the nation.
The Obama administration canceled plans to place more than 75,000 tons of materials in a deep repository in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. A Blue Ribbon Commission created afterward said interim storage sites could be used temporarily.
In October AREVA announced it was leading a team of companies chosen by Eddy Lea Energy Alliance, LLC, to start developing the concept of a used nuclear fuel "Consolidated Storage Facility" in southeastern New Mexico.
Meanwhile, Shaw AREVA MOX Services is the contractor that will build and run the nearly $5 billion mixed oxide fuel facility at Savannah River Site.
Richland business gets $15M Hanford cleanup contract Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald December 19, 2012 Washington Closure Hanford has awarded one of the last major subcontracts for environmental cleanup of the 300 Area just north of Richland to a small Richland business, Sage Tec.
Sage Tec will receive $15 million to clean up contaminated structures, soil and pipelines.
The Department of Energy plans to have most environmental cleanup near the Columbia River at Hanford, which includes the 300 Area, completed in 2015. The 300 Area was used for radiological research and to fabricate uranium fuel for Hanford reactors that produced plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program.
With the award of the Sage Tec subcontract, the only expected major subcontract award remaining in the 300 Area will be for cleanup of the radioactive cesium and strontium spill beneath the 324 Building, said Tom Kisenwether, Washington Closure subcontracts manager for the 300 Area.
"We've made tremendous progress cleaning up highly contaminated buildings and waste sites in the 300 Area," Carol Johnson, Washington Closure president, said in a statement.
Sage Tec will remove the contaminated structures below ground associated with the Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor after the reactor is removed in spring 2013. The reactor, which sat under the iconic dome just north of Richland that was removed in early 2011, supported development of alternative fuels for the commercial nuclear power industry.
It also will remove three empty tanks that once held radioactive liquids near the reactor and remove pipelines associated with the reactor and contaminated soil near it.
Sage Tec also will remove three liquid waste piping systems in the 300 Area. That includes a line used for radioactive liquids and a newer line that replaced it. The third system was for laboratory process waste lines that could have low levels of radioactive contamination.
Sage Tec also will dig up contaminated soil, including in areas that have become accessible as many of the buildings in the 300 Area have been torn down. The waste sites include spills of radioactive material, soil contaminated from an underground diesel tank and low-level radioactive waste burial sites.
Sage Tec is expected to remove an estimated 360,000 tons of waste material starting next month, with work expected to be completed in March 2014.Waste will be taken to the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility, a lined landfill for low-level radioactive waste in central Hanford.
Since Washington Closure began work in the 300 Area, it has torn down 126 buildings or other facilities, cleaned up 57 soil waste sites and hauled off more than 1 million tons of waste material.
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