ECA Update: January 9, 2013
Published: Wed, 01/09/13
2014 budget likely to be delayed
Sean Reilly, Federal Times January 6, 2013 The Obama administration's release of its fiscal 2014 budget request likely will be delayed well past its early February due date.
"I fully expect it to be late," said Thad Juszczak, a former federal budget officer, who predicts the delay will likely 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 anticipating a March submission date.
Officially, no decisions have been made on timing. But an administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Office of Management and Budget has yet to inform agencies which of their 2014 budget requests will be granted or rejected. OMB details its decisions on agencies' budget requests in documents called "passbacks," which usually go to agencies in late November.
While agencies can appeal OMB's decisions, the passback is a critical juncture in the run-up to release of the budget request. Delay "is almost unheard of except in years when you have a change in presidents," said Phil Joyce, a former Congressional Budget Office staffer who now teaches public policy at the University of Maryland.
An OMB spokesman did not respond to a query late last week on when the passbacks could come.
For the Defense Department, the delay contributes to a "terrible confluence" of events, said Gordon Adams, who served as OMB associate director for national security and international affairs from 1993 to 1997. The department's passback usually runs 10 to 15 pages and can affect decisions on matters as basic as aircraft production rates, he said. On top of the late feedback from OMB, the Pentagon faces another $2 billion budget cut this year under the "fiscal cliff" legislation approved last week and the possibility of far steeper reductions if sequestration takes effect in March.
"If I were [DoD Comptroller] Robert Hale, I'd be tearing my hair out right now," Adams said.
Hale was not available for comment late last week. In a statement, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta asked for budget stability. "The shadow of sequestration has cast a shadow over our efforts," Panetta said.
On Thursday, Pentagon spokesman George Little did not rule out submitting the department's budget next month, "but we need to define what the timeline is in the coming days and weeks."
At the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, officials at this point would normally have wrapped up work on the budget numbers, Chief Financial Officer Jim Dyer said in an interview. This year, the commission is still awaiting OMB's response after sending over its proposed fiscal 2014 budget in September, Dyer said. Because the agency doesn't have any multiyear acquisition projects, the delay isn't having any practical impact, he said.
OMB isn't saying when the passback might come, however.
The administration's budget request is due on Capitol Hill by the first Monday in February, which this year is Feb. 4. But delays are not unusual. Last February, the White House postponed release of its fiscal 2013 request by a week, citing the need for time to make final decisions and work out technical details.
One complicating factor plaguing the 2014 budget process is the lack of a budget baseline for the current fiscal year. Federal agencies are operating on a six-month continuing resolution that expires March 27. It is unknown whether Congress will approve a fiscal 2013 appropriation for the remainder of the year or simply extend the CR.
The White House could instead rely on the proposed figures in last year's submission or simply adopt the budget levels of the current CR as its 2013 baseline, according to Juszczak and other analysts.
Joyce, the former CBO official, sees the passback delay as the latest in a cascading series of dominoes that underscore the dysfunction afflicting the budget process. "In a sense, it has never operated worse than it is right now," he said.
Continuing resolutions have become the norm. In his five years on the job at the NRC, Dyer said the earliest he has seen a full-year appropriation is December.
This year, the uncertainty is aggravated by the specter of sequestration, as across-the-board budget cuts are formally known. Those cuts, originally supposed to take effect last week, are required under the 2011 Budget Control Act because lawmakers failed to come up with a long-term deficit-reduction path.
Last month, OMB attributed the passback delay to the potential need for "adjustments" based on negotiations with Congress to avert the sequestration cuts. But the legislation signed last week only pushed back the possibility of sequestration cuts another two months.
The inability to plan budgets carries a steep price, Joyce found in a report last year. Under continuing resolutions, for example, agencies often resort to short-lived contracts that may run from week to week. They also have to continue services that have outlived their effectiveness, while delays in maintenance and other activities may bring higher costs later on. One contractor reported getting a one-month base contract with 59 one-month options to accommodate the unpredictability associated with continuing resolutions.
"The paperwork cost, for the government and the contractor, of such an arrangement is substantial," Joyce said. He urged Congress to prohibit itself from using continuing resolutions. Although that route raises the risk of a government shutdown, it also "turns up the heat" on lawmakers to approve full-year spending bills, he said in the report, published by the IBM Center for The Business of Government.
At the NRC, Dyer acknowledged the extra work posed by recurrent continuing resolutions.
"It's a challenging period," he said.
The 113th Congress arrives Pete Kasperowicz, The Hill January 3, 2013 At noon today, the 12th Congress ends, and the 113th Congress begins.
After a bipartisan prayer service in the morning, the House meets at 11 a.m., and members of the 113th Congress will be sworn into office.
This first session of the new Congress will see the election of the Speaker of the House. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is a lock to be elected Speaker again, even though that seemed slightly less certain in the middle of the week when conservatives balked at passing the Senate's fiscal cliff bill.
Once elected, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will hand him the gavel, and Boehner will make opening remarks to the House. Once Boehner is himself sworn in, he will swear in the entire House.
Soon after, the House will debate and approve the rules for the 113th House, which are contained in the resolution H.Res. 5.
In the Senate, Vice President Joe Biden will take the chair at noon, and will preside over the ceremony of swearing in the new Senate.
Chuck Hagel nomination may help Ash Carter succeed Energy Secretary Steven Chu
Darren Good, Andrew Restuccia and Darius Dixon, Politico January 9, 2013 President Barack Obama's nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel to be defense secretary may increase the odds that the man passed up for that job will lead the Energy Department instead.
Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter's name had already circulated as a potential successor to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who is widely expected to step down this year.
Other potential candidates could include former Sen. Byron Dorgan, former assistant DOE Secretary Sue Tierney, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, former Obama Assistant Energy Secretary Cathy Zoi, Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman, former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and former Clinton Energy Department official Dan Reicher.
But the speculation over Carter has risen following Obama's announcement Monday that he wants Hagel to replace outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
"Obviously, that's a little different direction, but I think politically that might be sort of a clever choice because it would kind of elevate these issues of national security," said one former senior GOP Energy Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity since Chu has not yet announced his resignation.
Although he lacks a distinctive energy policy background, Carter would bring attention to the department's often overlooked but immense responsibility overseeing the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile and efforts to pursue nonproliferation agreements.
And under the Obama administration, the military has taken a leading role in efforts to develop new biofuels as a way to reduce the need for troops to be potentially put in harm's way during oil shipments in hostile areas.
After the withering criticism the administration -- and Chu specifically -- received over the failed $535 million investment in Solyndra that the DOE oversaw, a candidate like Carter could be a relatively painless confirmation.
Another former senior Energy Department official who served during a Republican administration said the GOP would rally around Carter.
"I think they like him a lot and they'd be relieved to have him. He would command respect," the former DOE official said.
Former department officials from both parties said Carter would have credibility regarding energy security and managing nuclear weapons.
"The nuclear weapons program at DOE is a major part of the department," said a former senior Clinton administration Energy Department official. "In terms of really understanding a strategy we have in the country regarding nuclear weapons, that would be one thing Ash Carter would bring to the table."
If instead, Obama decides to return to the precedent set by previous presidents and choose a former politician or a candidate with strong business experience to lead the department, Carter could also be a candidate to lead DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration. NNSA Director Thomas D'Agostino is stepping down at the end of next week.
Chu came into the job heralded as a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and head of a national laboratory that is part of the scientific network the DOE oversees.
Still, Obama may choose a candidate with more political battle scars than Chu or Carter, such as Dorgan, who would arguably receive a relatively easy confirmation from his former colleagues.
"DOE is chronically maligned by politicians, ... which makes you want to choose someone who's pretty safe and well-known on the Hill, and certainly Sen. Dorgan fits that one," said Tierney, a Clinton-era assistant energy secretary who co-led the department's transition after Obama was first elected.
One former senior DOE official said the White House "has only one name" for the post, and that's Dorgan. The official added that Chu intends to stay on for at least a few more weeks to break George W. Bush Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's title as the longest-serving energy secretary but slip out before budget season begins. Chu would have to remain in office beyond Feb. 1 to break the record.
Dorgan's former role as head of the Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development and on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee could help the department navigate fiscal belt tightening.
"Having somebody who is [an] expert in the DOE budget is pretty critical right now to making sure the president's key energy technology priorities are achieved in an incredibly demanding budget environment," said independent consultant Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House and Senate aide who also worked with Dorgan at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
"How do you continue to make investments in clean energy in a time of fiscal austerity when Congress is unlikely to pass any kind of major new energy programs?" echoed Daniel Weiss of the Center for American Progress. "And that's the challenge for the next secretary."
Weiss said recently retired Rep. Norm Dicks, a former top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee and energy spending subcommittee, would certainly fit the bill.
"Doesn't mean they have to be from Congress, but the ability to work with them would be of great value," he said.
In any case, the White House will largely call the shots on budget priorities regardless of who heads the Energy Department, one of the former GOP department officials said.
"Energy will suffer even if the secretary of energy is Harry Reid," the official said. "It won't matter."
And the department has a set of skilled congressional liaisons serving whoever is the secretary, the official noted.
"I think those kind of skills are more relevant to the passage of complicated energy legislation than it is to the appropriations process," the official said.
Dorgan, for his part, is keeping mum on whether he wants the job.
"I'm only interested in talking about Steven Chu," Dorgan told POLITICO on Monday.
EM Launches Revamped Website: New cutting-edge platform with sleek appearance focuses on ease-of-use
EM Press Release January 7, 2013 WASHINGTON, D.C. - EM entered 2013 with a bold transition to a more user-friendly public website, http://energy.gov/em.
EM launched the redesigned site after an extensive effort to recreate its old EM web pages and provide a modern Internet experience for website visitors. Based on Energy.gov's fresh innovative appearance and effective functions, the new EM website emphasizes up-to-date information easily accessible to users. For example, visitors at the home page can find information quickly and smoothly with just a few quick clicks.
EM's offices of External Affairs and Information Technology led the website reform effort, and worked closely with EM program offices to revamp the pages and update information as part of the transition to the new platform.
So far, the Department has transitioned many of its small staff offices to this platform, a move that saved DOE about $1.5 million. Meanwhile, site traffic has increased more than threefold. When complete, the overall website transition will help reduce and avoid costs, saving the Department $10 million annually, and improve the Department's communications infrastructure.
Please take a moment to visit http://energy.gov/em. EM welcomes your feedback.
NNSA Selects Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC to Manage the Consolidated Contract for Nuclear Production Operations
NNSA Press Release January 8, 2013 WASHINGTON, D.C. - In a move that shapes the future of the United States' nuclear security enterprise and will save $3.27 billion in taxpayer dollars over the next decade, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) today announced that Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC (CNS) has been selected to be the management and operating contractor for the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas. The contract also includes construction project management of the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at the Y-12 National Security Complex, and an option for unexercised option for Savannah River Tritium Operations at the Savannah River Site in near Aiken, S.C.
Comprised of Bechtel National, Inc; Lockheed Martin Services, Inc; ATK Launch Systems, Inc; and SOC, LLC, CNS will begin a four-month transition immediately. Additionally, CNS will use subcontractors Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc as Merger and Transformation specialist, and General Atomics for Savannah River Tritium Operations if that option is exercised by NNSA in the future.
"Our nuclear production capabilities are critical to our national security, and this contract puts NNSA in a position to improve mission delivery by generating significant savings that will be reinvested to improve safety, security, quality, and infrastructure," said NNSA Administrator Thomas D'Agostino. "This award will have a lasting impact on NNSA for years to come. It is the culmination of years of hard work focused on continuously improving the way we operate, saving taxpayer dollars, and aligning ourselves for the future."
"We found a strong, experienced partner in CNS," added NNSA Principal Deputy Administrator Neile Miller. "Their team, and the leadership and capabilities they bring with them, are an exciting addition to the NNSA family. Their focus on continuously improving while driving for cost efficiencies helps us plan for the future while ensuring that we're delivering on our commitments to our partners."
CNS will take over NNSA's mission activities under the new contract starting May 1, 2013. The base term of the contract is 5 years, with options that may extend the term up to an additional 5 years. To be eligible for continued performance beyond the fifth year, CNS will be required to deliver on promises made in its proposal regarding efficiencies and to continue to meet mission and other contract requirements consistently. If NNSA's option for Savannah River Tritium Operations is exercised at the end of year one, the contract includes a total available fee of approximately $446 million to manage the three sites for DOE and NNSA work, depending on CNS' quality of performance. CNS may also earn up to an additional $263 million as their share of savings, though CNS cannot share any savings related to employee benefits.
CNS will also be responsible for designing and overseeing construction of the new Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at Y-12, though NNSA has not determined who will ultimately build the facility.
Together, Pantex, Y-12, and Savannah River are integral parts of NNSA's nuclear production efforts, delivering products and services focused on surveillance and maintenance of the Nation's nuclear weapon stockpile. Each site provides unique capabilities in areas such high explosives, precision machining, and tritium production. Additionally, CNS will be responsible for the integration of production activities across the Nuclear Security Enterprise (NSE).
The proposed single contract award will further strengthen NNSA's ability to move toward a fully integrated and interdependent enterprise which will enhance mission performance, reduce costs, strengthen partnerships and improve stakeholder confidence. Specifically, NNSA laid out four objectives that will be met through this contract, which are:
1. Improving performance in the completion of national security missions for nuclear production operations;
2. Transitioning and merging operations at geographically dispersed centers of excellence for: nuclear weapon assembly/disassembly, enriched uranium, high-explosive production and tritium supply management under a single Contract; 3. Reducing the cost of performing work; and 4. Requiring actions that support operation as an integrated DOE/NNSA enterprise. The newly formed NNSA Production Office will have the primary responsibilities associated with administering the contract.
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Established by Congress in 2000, NNSA is a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science. NNSA maintains and enhances the safety, security, reliability and performance of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing; works to reduce global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the U.S. Navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the U.S. and abroad.
Martin Heinrich of New Mexico Makes Move From House to Senate National Journal January 2, 2013 Sen.-elect Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., fills the seat of retiring Democrat Jeff Bingaman. Heinrich, who was first elected to the House in 2008, was born in Fallon, Nev., earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from the University of Missouri, and moved to New Mexico in 1995. He founded a political-consulting business and served as executive director of the Cottonwood Gulch Foundation, which runs adventure programs in the Southwest. In 2003, he was elected to the Albuquerque City Council. His signature issue was increasing New Mexico's minimum wage in 2006; Heinrich worked with the city's business leaders and community activists to produce compromise legislation mandating a gradual increase. He also lobbied for federal protection of the Ojito Wilderness.
Encouraged by Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, Heinrich announced that he would challenge GOP Rep. Heather Wilson in 2008. National Democrats backed Heinrich's candidacy, and he defeated three other hopefuls in the June 3 primary, including former New Mexico Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron. In October 2007, Wilson announced her intention to relinquish the seat to run for the Senate. Republicans fielded a strong replacement candidate in Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White, who had had a long career in New Mexico politics, including two terms as sheriff. Early polls showed he had better name recognition than Heinrich.
But Heinrich made steady gains. He tied White to the unpopular president by reminding voters that White had served as George W. Bush's Bernalillo County reelection chairman in 2004. White in turn questioned Heinrich's business practices, saying that he had been paid by nonprofit groups for advocacy work without first registering as a lobbyist. Heinrich maintained that the law had not required him to register as a lobbyist when he was a political consultant for the Coalition for New Mexico Wilderness from 2002 to 2005. The campaign took an especially negative turn in the final weeks.
Heinrich's campaign ran an ad featuring a group of New Mexico state police officers' wives, who in 1996 accused White of promulgating policies they said compromised their husbands' safety. White's campaign hit back with an ad in which the mother of a slain Bernalillo County sheriff's deputy referred to Heinrich as "despicable."
Late polls showed a close race. But Heinrich defeated White by 56 percent to 44 percent, carrying three of the district's five counties. He crushed White by 33,786 votes in populous Bernalillo County, which Wilson had lost by a mere 1,250 votes in 2006. Heinrich out-raised White and was helped by the Democratic wave in 2008.
Before arriving in Washington, Heinrich had already generated some inside-the-industry buzz. A poll conducted by the website Politics1.com named the handsome Heinrich the "Hottest Man in Politics," ahead of such well-known political heartthrobs as Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. In the House, he was generally a reliable Democratic vote but a bit more centrist on economic issues. He opposed the December 2010 tax-cut deal between Obama and congressional Republicans, saying that the wealthiest Americans did not deserve to be included.
On the Natural Resources Committee, he focused on legislation to make the country energy independent. He supported the House-passed energy bill in June 2009 and added an amendment aimed at making it easier for federal agencies to contract with local clean-energy sources. He also amended a spending plan for Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories enabling them to allocate more money internally to research projects of their own choosing. A year later, he got a provision into the fiscal 2011 defense authorization bill creating a pilot program connecting military bases and the labs to develop energy systems that could be used more widely. On other local issues, he worked to stop the retirement of the New Mexico Air National Guard's 150th Fighter Wing, eventually getting it to merge in 2010 with the 58th Special Operations Wing at Kirtland Air Force Base.
Republicans sought to portray the 2008 election as an aberration in their quest to reclaim the seat two years later. The GOP nominee was Jon Barela, a well-connected former president of the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce and former state Republican Party vice chairman. Barela pledged fiscal conservatism to counter Democrats' "unchecked, reckless spending," and said that as a Hispanic, he would have the ability to connect with a broad cross-segment of the population. He got help from the National Republican Congressional Committee, which bought $300,000 of advertising time in October.
Heinrich accused Barela of seeking to privatize Social Security, a charge Barela denied, and defended his support of the economic stimulus and health care overhaul laws. Polls showed a tight race, but Heinrich managed to pull out a 52 percent to 48 percent win. He lost rural Torrance and Valencia counties as well as the portion of southern Santa Fe County in the district, but he came out ahead, 53 percent to 47 percent, in far more populous Bernalillo County.
NRC pleads lack of funds in Yucca licensing battle Keith Rogers, Las Vegas Review-Journal January 5, 2013 As in a football game when the offense does not have enough punch to move the ball down the field, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not have enough money left to proceed toward a license for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
That is what NRC Senior Attorney Charles Mullins said in court papers submitted Friday in a federal appeals case brought by attorneys in Aiken County, S.C., and attorneys for the states of South Carolina and Washington and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
The petitioners urged the appeals judges' panel to compel the NRC to resume licensing hearings for the Energy Department's funding-starved Yucca Mountain Project.
"Simply put, no appropriations decisions have been made which prohibit the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from using available funds to continue the agency's mandatory review of the Yucca Mountain license application," the petitioners' attorneys wrote.
Despite the NRC's congressionally mandated obligation to move forward, Mullins said the $10.5 million in carryover funds isn't enough to hold meaningful hearings.
"How meaningful would it be to advance the ball three yards down the field," he wrote. "Indeed it appears far more likely than not that neither NRC nor DOE will receive additional funds from the Nuclear Waste Fund for Yucca Mountain-related activities in the foreseeable future."
According to Nevada's Nuclear Projects Agency Executive Director Bob Halstead, the judges panel for U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit might take up to three weeks before deciding on a mandate for the NRC to resume licensing hearings. The hearings were suspended by the commission's Construction Authorization Board before the NRC closed its multimillion-dollar hearing facility in Las Vegas in August 2011.
Halstead offered assurance that Nevada's legal team is prepared for a fight if the appeals panel signals resumption of the hearings. "If they restart the licensing proceedings, we're ready to bloody them up on 200-plus contentions, and 100 of those are really, really strong," he said. "This is not going to be a cakewalk through the license application."
The DOE sought to withdraw the license application after Energy Secretary Steven Chu tasked a panel to chart a new course for disposing the nation's highly radioactive used fuel .
In 2011, NRC commissioners by a 2-2 vote with one abstention let stand the Construction Authorization Board's denial of DOE's request to withdraw the license application because it could neither uphold nor overturn the decision.
Meanwhile, the new commission recommended that Congress should change the law that singles out Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, for burying high-level nuclear waste and transfer that responsibility from the Department of Energy to a government-chartered independent corporation.
U.S. nuclear lab removes Chinese tech over security fears
Steve Stecklow, Reuters January 7, 2013 A leading U.S. nuclear weapons laboratory recently discovered its computer systems contained some Chinese-made network switches and replaced at least two components because of national security concerns, a document shows.
A letter from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, dated November 5, 2012, states that the research facility had installed devices made by H3C Technologies Co, based in Hangzhou, China, according to a copy seen by Reuters. H3C began as a joint venture between China's Huawei Technologies Co and 3Com Corp, a U.S. tech firm, and was once called Huawei-3Com. Hewlett Packard Co acquired the firm in 2010.
The discovery raises questions about procurement practices by U.S. departments responsible for national security. The U.S. government and Congress have raised concerns about Huawei and its alleged ties to the Chinese military and government. The company, the world's second-largest telecommunications equipment maker, denies its products pose any security risk or that the Chinese military influences its business.
Switches are used to manage data traffic on computer networks. The exact number of Chinese-made switches installed at Los Alamos, how or when they were acquired, and whether they were placed in sensitive systems or pose any security risks, remains unclear. The laboratory - where the first atomic bomb was designed - is responsible for maintaining America's arsenal of nuclear weapons.
A spokesman for the Los Alamos lab referred enquiries to the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, which declined to comment.
The November 5 letter seen by Reuters was written by the acting chief information officer at the Los Alamos lab and addressed to the NNSA's assistant manager for safeguards and security. It states that in October a network engineer at the lab - who the letter does not identify - alerted officials that H3C devices "were beginning to be installed in" its networks.
The letter says a working group of specialists, some from the lab's counter intelligence unit, began investigating, "focusing on sensitive networks." The lab "determined that a small number of the devices installed in one network were H3C devices. Two devices used in isolated cases were promptly replaced," the letter states.
The letter suggests other H3C devices may still be installed. It states that the lab was investigating "replacing any remaining H3C network switch devices as quickly as possible," including "older switches" in "both sensitive and unclassified networks as part of the normal life-cycle maintenance effort." The letter adds that the lab was conducting a formal assessment to determine "any potential risk associated with any H3C devices that may remain in service until replacements can be obtained."
"We would like to emphasize that (Los Alamos) has taken this issue seriously, and implemented expeditious and proactive steps to address it," the letter states.
Corporate filings show Huawei sold its stake in H3C to 3Com in 2007. Nevertheless, H3C's website still describes Huawei as one of its "global strategic partners" and states it is working with it "to deliver advanced, cost-efficient and environmental-friendly products."
RECKLESS BLACKBALLING?
The Los Alamos letter appears to have been written in response to a request last year by the House Armed Services Committee for the Department of Energy (DoE) to report on any "supply chain risks."
In its request, the committee said it was concerned by a Government Accountability Office report last year that found a number of national security-related departments had not taken appropriate measures to guard against risks posed by their computer-equipment suppliers. The report said federal agencies are not required to track whether any of their telecoms networks contain foreign-developed products.
The Armed Services committee specifically asked the DoE to evaluate whether it, or any of its major contractors, were using technology produced by Huawei or ZTE Corp, another Chinese telecoms equipment maker. ZTE Corp denies its products pose any security risk.
In 2008, Huawei and private equity firm Bain Capital were forced to give up their bid for 3Com after a U.S. panel rejected the deal because of national security concerns. Three years later, Huawei abandoned its acquisition of some assets from U.S. server technology firm 3Leaf, bowing to pressure from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The committee evaluates whether foreign control of a U.S. business poses national security risks.
In October, the House Intelligence Committee issued an investigative report that recommended U.S. government systems should not include Huawei or ZTE components. The report said that based on classified and unclassified information, Huawei and ZTE "cannot be trusted to be free of foreign state influence" and pose "a security threat to the United States and to our systems."
William Plummer, Huawei's vice president of external affairs in Washington, said in an email to Reuters: "There has never been a shred of substantive proof that Huawei gear is any less secure than that of our competitors, all of which rely on common global standards, supply chains, coding and manufacturing.
"Blackballing legitimate multinationals based on country of origin is reckless, both in terms of fostering a dangerously false sense of cyber-security and in threatening the free and fair global trading system that the U.S. has championed for the last 60-plus years."
He referred questions about H3C products to Hewlett Packard. An HP spokesman said Huawei no longer designs any H3C hardware and that the company "became independent operationally ... from Huawei" several years prior to HP's acquisition of it. He added that HP's networking division "has considerable resources dedicated to compliance with all legal and regulatory requirements involving system security, global trade and customer privacy."
Hanford Advisory Board asks DOE to review study carefully Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald January 4, 2013 The Hanford Advisory Board has asked the Department of Energy not to make a quick decision on a new environmental study covering a wide range of Hanford cleanup decisions.
The earliest DOE could issue a decision on the Hanford Final Tank Closure and Waste Management Environmental Impact Statement is Jan. 14. In about 10,000 pages, the study, released a month ago, discusses and lists DOE preferences for Hanford environmental cleanup projects that could be adopted as DOE policy when a final decision is issued.
The advisory board is asking DOE to wait until at least March 14 to make any decision.
That much time is needed for the advisory board and the public to adequately review and discuss issues and concerns raised in the study, the board said in a letter to DOE officials. The study, which was released Dec. 5, cost $85 million.
The advisory board is concerned that the study does not identify a preferred way to treat all 56 million gallons of radioactive waste now held in underground tanks. The waste is left from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program.
The $12.2 billion vitrification plant as now designed will not be large enough to treat all the waste for disposal in a reasonable amount of time.
The environmental study considers grouting some of the waste, using steam reforming to treat some waste, expanding the vitrification plant to glassify all the waste or using bulk vitrification to glassify some waste in large blocks the size of land-sea shipping containers.
However, the study does not pick a preferred alternative.
In June, the advisory board told DOE it should glassify all the tank waste for disposal and should discontinue efforts to use bulk vitrification, cast stone or steam reforming as alternative treatment methods.
The state of Washington also has said that the study analysis clearly supports expanding the vitrification plant by adding a second Low Activity Waste Facility as the only environmentally protective option for supplemental treatment.
In December, Hanford Challenge and Columbia Riverkeeper criticized DOE for not picking a preferred way to treat all the waste.
The study did pick preferred alternatives on other cleanup projects. They include entombing the Fast Flux Test Facility, emptying at least 99 percent of waste from underground tanks, leaving the largely emptied tanks in the ground rather than digging them up and continuing to ban most radioactive waste from being brought to Hanford until the vitrification plant is fully operational.
Probe comes up negative on leak in double-shell tank at Hanford
Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald January 8, 2013 An inspection of Hanford's second-oldest double-shell tank holding radioactive waste has found no evidence of a leak.
The result of the inspection was good news for taxpayers as the Department of Energy works to assess the extent of deterioration in massive underground tanks that are expected to be needed to hold radioactive waste for decades to come.
"Confirming the integrity of AY-101 is a positive step," Tom Fletcher, DOE assistant manager of the Hanford tank farms project, said in a statement. "We are continuing to accelerate surveillances of other tanks in an effort to ensure the protection of the workers, public and environment.
"In October a leak of radioactive waste from the inner shell of Hanford's oldest double-shell tank, Tank AY-102, was confirmed. It was the first leak detected within one of Hanford's double-shell tanks and raised concerns about whether other double-shell tanks might be deteriorating.
Hanford has 56 million gallons of radioactive waste left from the past production of weapons plutonium being held in underground tanks. Waste from 149 leak-prone, single-shell tanks is being pumped into newer double-shell tanks, some of which may need to hold waste for 40 more years until all of it can be treated for disposal.
But already the first of the double-shell tanks have been in use for four decades, the amount of time they were designed to be used.
Since the initial leak within Tank AY-102 was discovered, Hanford workers have been using video cameras to check for leaks in six of the oldest double-shell tanks, starting with the second oldest, Tank AY-101."We finished up in AY-101 without seeing anything unusual in the annulus that would indicate a leak," Del Scott, project manager for contractor Washington River Protection Solutions, said in a statement Monday. The annulus is the 30-inch-wide area between the inner and outer tank walls.
Construction was being done in 1969 on both of the first two tanks, but some of the construction problems with Tank AY-102 were corrected on the second tank, AY-101.Construction problems started on the first tank when the base of the outer shell was built with thin steel plates and bulges were created when they were welded. An eight-inch layer of hard insulating material was poured as a refractory over the steel bottom of the outer shell, but it cracked as the bulges moved. Welding the inner shell on top of the refractory proved difficult and 36 percent of the tank's welds were rejected after an inspection. Some welds were redone as many as four times before they passed a radiography examination, according to recent report on the history of Tank AY-102.Workers used three-eighths inch steel plates for the base of the outer shell of the second tank rather than the one-quarter inch steel used on the first. The percentage of rejected welds dropped from 36 percent to 10 percent on Tank AY-101, according to the report.
"It just did not have the number of construction difficulties," said John Britton, spokesman for Washington River Protection Solutions. And the construction problems it did have were less severe, he said.
"Ecology is pleased to hear that nothing significant was discovered in the inspection of AY-101," said Dieter Bohrmann, spokesman for the Washington State Department of Ecology, the regulator for the Hanford tank farms. "The state obviously hopes that is also the case when inspections are done on other double-shell tanks.
"On Monday, work to inspect double-shell tanks moved to Tank AZ-101, where video cameras will be lowered down risers that give access from the ground to the space between the tank's inner and outer walls.
The inner shell of the first double-shell tank continues to leak waste at a slow rate. An estimated 190 to 520 gallons of waste have leaked from the inner tank, but a significant portion of the liquid has evaporated, leaving an estimated 20 to 50 gallons of drying waste between the shells.
"Everything is on the table" as DOE and Washington River Protection Solutions join with the state Departments of Health and Ecology to decide what to do about the leak within Tank AY-102, Britton said.
There is no evidence that waste has leaked from the outer shell of the tank into the soil beneath the tank.
But an existing pump has been reconnected to the electrical system that could be used to pump liquid waste from Tank AY-102, Britton said. The tank holds about 850,000 gallons of radioactive waste -- all but about 150,000 gallons of it liquid waste.
Methods that could be used to empty the entire tank also are being considered, according to DOE.
In addition another pump as been staged to pump liquid waste from the annulus, if needed.
However, most of the limited double-shell tank space is needed to hold waste being emptied from single-shell tanks, some of which have held waste since World War II. DOE has a consent decree deadline approved in federal court to empty all 16 single-shell tanks in the grouping called C Tank Farm by fall 2014.To make more space in the double-shell tanks, the 242-A Evaporator could be run more frequently to reduce the volume of liquid waste in double-shell tanks.
In addition engineering studies are being conducted to see if some of the double-shell tanks could safely hold more waste.
The recommendation of the Hanford Advisory Board to build more waste storage tanks also is being considered, Britton said.
DOE has said building one double-shell tank could cost about $100 million and building a group of six tanks could take five to seven years.
SRS Clean-up Board to Meet in January, Radioactive Waste Management Problems and Spent Fuel Storage Schemes to be Raised Thomas Clements, The Aiken Leader January 4, 2013 The Department of Energy (DOE) has formally announced the next meeting of the Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board (SRS CAB) - on Monday, January 28, 2013; 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. and Tuesday, January 29, 2013; 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. at the Double Tree, 2651 Perimeter Parkway, Augusta, Georgia.
The public is encouraged to attend the meeting and make comments on SRS issues of concern. See below for text of Federal Register notice of Friday, January 4, 2013.
While a detailed agenda will be released soon, it is expected that the lengthy delay in a key high-level waste facility, the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF), will be discussed. Delays in the facility were outlined in an article in in Columbia, South Carolina newspaper on January, 2, 2013:
Cost impacts due to the 5-year delay in SWPF start-up will likely have severe impacts on the DOE's Office of Environmental Management (EM) budget. A full explanation of how the project will be financed, a detailed presentation on the reliability of the design, who is accountable for the costly delay and design problems and when the facility will start up must be presented at the meeting, according to the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA).
Also to be raised at the meeting will be the controversial idea being promoted by special interests to bring the nation's highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors sites to SRS for "consolidated storage." This scheme will likely be widely opposed by residents in the Aiken-Augusta area and throughout South Carolina.
Those concerned about SRS becoming a spent fuel dumping site are encouraged to attend the meeting and voice their concerns. To facilitate Aiken residents in expressing their concerns and learning about spent fuel dumping schemes, a "Don't Waste Aiken" Facebook page has been established: https://www.facebook.com/DontWasteAiken
Another important issue which must be on the agenda is the status of the current budget for funding key clean-up projects at SRS and what the outlook is for Fiscal Year 2014 and beyond, according to the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability.
Due to transfer of funds to poorly managed and costly construction projects such as the plutonium fuel (MOX) plant, which is costing tax payers around $900 million per year, budget stress on clean-up projects is growing. (See posting on problems with MOX funding for the troubled Shaw AREVA MOX Services project, on the ANA website: SRS Plutonium Fuel (MOX) Program to Go Cold Turkey in Lame Duck Session as Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Balks at MOX Use?)
Federal Register notice for the meeting of the "Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB), Savannah River Site":
[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 3 (Friday, January 4, 2013)]
[Notices]
[Page 716]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2012-31702]
Support for SRS Clean-up Funding, Spent Fuel Storage Concern by Hilton Head Island Newspaper
Thomas Clements, The Aiken Leader January 8, 2013 The Hilton Head Island (South Carolina) newspaper, the Island Packet, has on January 8 called for more funding for the clean-up of the Savannah River Site (SRS) and expressed concern about storage of highly radioactive spent fuel at the site.
This more good news for those in Aiken and South Carolina who are concerned about the clean-up of the Savannah River Site and the threat that the site could become the nation's dump for commercial nuclear reactor spent fuel if special interests get their way, according to the alliance for Nuclear Accountability.
In the editorial, entitled Congress needs pressure to clean up nuclear waste - http://www.islandpacket.com/2013/01/08/2333936/congress-needs-pressure-to-clean.html - the paper states that "state and congressional leaders must push harder for the U.S. Department of Energy to clean up toxic wastes at the Savannah River Site."
The paper goes on to voice concern about the clean-up problems being compounded by those wishing to profit from spent fuel dumping at SRS: "It also is worse to hear the Savannah River Site mentioned as a possible place to store highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel from the nation's nuclear reactors."
Hilton Head residents consume some water from the Savannah River, via the Beaufort-Jasper Water and Sewer Authority, as do residents of the Beaufort, SC and Bluffton, SC. Concern about the purity of the Savannah River and the impact to the river of contaminants at SRS is heightened due to the river being a key source of drinking water.
The Island Packet editorial is the third editorial in a South Carolina newspaper expressing concern about storing highly radioactive spent fuel at SRS. Both the Spartanburg and Rock Hills papers have written strong editorials against the idea being promoted by special interests:
>>> Spartanburg Herald-Journal, September 9, 2012:
SRS is not suitable for high-level radioactive waste - No more nuclear waste
>>> Rock Hill Herald, September 15, 2012:
Don't bring high-level nuclear waste to SRS in South Carolina - S.C. must insist that high-level nuclear waste not be stored at SRS near Aiken.
It is hoped that Governor Nikki Haley and elected officials are paying close attention to the growing sentiment against turning South Carolina into the new Yucca Mountain spent fuel dump. Governor Haley has received a number of letters from South Carolina citizens against the spent fuel scheme. The governor can be emailed at: http://governor.sc.gov/Pages/SendMessage.aspx
As Department of Energy sites may be targeted by special interests wishing to profit from spent fuel storage, Governor Butch Ott of Idaho was reported in a January 4, 2013 blog in the Spokane (Washington) Spokesman-Review to have stated his opposition to bringing spent fuel to the Idaho National Laboratory for storage. According to the blog, the governor said he would stick with the state's 1995 position against consenting to spent fuel storage and said "We are not going to become the dumping ground for nuclear waste."
Governor Haley would garner broad public support for a similar position against bringing spent fuel to South Carolina, which should include a statement against any "consent" by the state to host a spent fuel storage facility at SRS or a private facility (rumored to be under consideration by nuclear alliances).
At the January 28-29 meeting in Augusta, Georgia of the SRS Citizens Advisory Board, concern about dumping of spent fuel at SRS will be raised. The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), a public interest group fighting for effective clean-up and an end to wasteful spending at SRS, urges concerned citizens to attend the meeting and speak up against any plans to bring highly-radioactive spent fuel to SRS.
Information about the CAB, including the agenda for the upcoming meeting can be requested by sending an email to: srscitizensadvisoryboard@srs.gov
The French government-owned company AREVA has come out for spent fuel storage and reprocessing, which is part of an effort to get their hands on US taxpayer money, according to Tom Clements of ANA. In a presentation on December 13, 2012 to the South Carolina Governor's Nuclear Advisory Council, the general outline of a plan to store and reprocess high-level nuclear waste was presented.
"The claim by AREVA that the reprocessing of spent fuel is recycling is nothing more than greenwashing of a dirty technology that would produce a host of nuclear waste streams that would end up being dumped at SRS," according to Clements. "We thank AREVA for alerting the South Carolina public about its interest in creating another nuclear mess in our state. The public simply won't accept the dumping of spent fuel at SRS but will support adequate funding of clean-up of the existing nuclear mess at the site, on which SRS management needs to urgently refocus," said Clements.
Money, politics bury plans for Utah fuel-rod cemetery
Judy Fahys, The Salt Lake Tribune
January 7, 2013 Some folks once thought it was a great idea to build a kind of long-term parking lot in Utah's desert for the nation's nuclear-reactor waste.
That thinking drove 11 utility companies to form Private Fuel Storage LLC and partner with the tiny Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians in Tooele County to build a private, interim solution for nuclear waste until the federal government created a permanent one.
With spent fuel rods waste piling up at dozens of reactor sites nationwide, the idea was also a hit nationally -- especially with the influential nuclear industry and those stuck living near the stored waste.
But now the idea is headed for the bureaucratic trash pail, with too little money and political momentum to blame.
That's what the current chairman of PFS's board hinted in his Dec. 20 letter asking the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to scrap the project license. Robert M. Palmer noted that construction never began, funding was never committed and customers were never signed up.
"It is, therefore, requested that the NRC terminate the license immediately without further action," he wrote, "and without any future licensing fees being incurred."
As the NRC considers the request, stakeholders are getting used to the consortium's final decision.
The tribe seems to have the most at stake. Its leaders had traveled the world under a federal program to study the storage idea. They concluded it would be perfectly safe to keep steel-and-concrete containers of waste within a 100-acre pad just below the tribal village about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. And the $3 billion project seemed sure to be a money-maker.
Lori Bear, chairwoman of the Skull Valley Band, said in a recent news release that she was disappointed PFS is killing the project. But that doesn't change her job, she said, "to bring jobs and revenue to the Goshute Reservation so our people can be self-sufficient."
"We always knew that the spent nuclear fuel project was not going to be easy," said Bear. "But we have prepared ourselves and have been simultaneously working on several projects that I believe will help the Tribe reach its economic development and self-sufficiency goals."
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