PHOENIX – Winning support for a new low-level radioactive waste landfill at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee took a lot of time and friendly arm-twisting, a member of the House Appropriations Committee told the Waste Management Symposia Monday via electronic hookup from Washington, D.C.
At various points, “we were stymied by our own state” along with DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said Fleischmann. The lawmaker, who now chairs the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee, said getting to “yes” took time. It also involved much back-and-forth with officials ranging from Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) to President Joe Biden’s EPA administrator, Michael Regan.
Fleischmann said he stressed to EPA and other stakeholders that approval of the new facility is vital to the cleanup of the Y-12 Nuclear Security Complex and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
President Joe Biden (D) appointed Deborah Frincke, associate laboratories director of national security programs at the Sandia National Laboratories, to the National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee, the labs network said this week in a press release.
The Biden administration announced the appointment in December. Frincke, who has a PhD in Computer Science/Security from the University of California, Davis, came to Sandia from the National Security Agency in 2020. Frincke also serves on U.S. Strategic Command’s (STRATCOM) Strategic Advisor Group. STRATCOM commands U.S. nuclear forces.
There are no safety roadblocks that should stop the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from approving a license that SHINE Medical Technologies needs to begin producing the molybdenum-99, a precursor isotope to the medical isotope technetium-99, at a factory in Wisconsin, commission staff said this week.
Commission staff made their recommendation as part of a 785-page safety evaluation report report published this week and dated February 2023. SHINE plans to use financial aid, and low-enriched uranium, from the National Nuclear Security Administration to make medical isotopes in the U.S. Historically, these isotopes were made aboard with highly enriched uranium.
