Nuclear Regulatory Commission member Kristine Svinicki and an agency staffer in August 2016 used a chartered flight to reach an isolated area of Saskatchewan, Canada, the NRC told senior members of the House of Representatives.
Eugene Dacus, director of the NRC’s Office of Congressional Affairs, responded on Oct. 25 to an Oct. 17 query from the top Republican and Democrat members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee regarding any trips by non-career personal on government-owned or private noncommercial airplanes from Jan. 1, 2016, to Jan. 19 of this year.
Svinicki, a commissioner since 2008 who in January became NRC chairman, traveled with a staffer from the NRC’s Office of International Programs on a chartered flight from Saskatoon to the Cigar Lake uranium mine and McClean Lake uranium processing mill in northern Saskatchewan, Dacus wrote. He noted the trip was made at the invitation of Canada’s Nuclear Safety Commission, which sent top officials on the tour.
“This mode of transportation is the only way to access these remote locations, and is the method used to transport mine and mill workers to the sites,” Dacus said in identical letters to committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.).
Mill operator AREVA chartered the aircraft, and the NRC reimbursed the company $1,770.62.
In a letter sent to the lawmakers on Oct. 10 following an earlier query, Dacus said no non-career NRC personnel had used government-owned or private noncommercial aircraft since Jan. 20 of this year, which was Inauguration Day for President Donald Trump.
The NRC has not received any other queries from Capitol Hill regarding travel, a spokesman said this week.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price was forced to resign in September after it was found he had spent no less than $400,000 of government money on chartered flights. That drew scrutiny to the travel practices of other top administration officials, including Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who told lawmakers last month he had chartered only one flight since taking office.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards on Monday recommended licensing for construction of a radioisotope production facility in Missouri.
Corvallis, Ore.-based Northwest Medical Isotopes intends to build its plant at the Discovery Ridge Research Park in the city of Columbia for production of molybdenum-99, an isotope that decays into technetium-99m, which is used in scans for heart disease and other health threats.
The United States has no domestic production capacity for molybdenum-99, but several companies hope to build production sites to address that vulnerability. Northwest says its planned facility could meet half the need for mo-99 in North America.
“NWMI has submitted a preliminary design for a facility that addresses hazards associated with the extraction of 99Mo from irradiated targets and the fabrication of targets for irradiation,” Dennis Bley, chairman of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, wrote in a Nov. 6 letter to NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki. “Once the design is finalized, the proposed facility can be constructed and licensed for operation with adequate protection of the public health and safety and no undue risk to the environment. A construction permit for the proposed radioisotope production facility can be issued to NWMI.”
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has preliminarily set a hearing on the construction license application for January, spokesman David McIntyre said Wednesday. A decision from the commission would be made some months after that.
Northwest Medical Isotopes has yet to file an operations license application, which would also require review by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards and then commission approval. The company has indicated it would seek a 30-year license, the NRC spokesman said
Northwest Medical did not respond by deadline to requests for an update on development of its facility.
French waste management company Veolia on Tuesday reported higher revenue but reduced net income for the first three quarters of 2017. The business segment that includes U.S.-based Veolia Nuclear Solutions posted even stronger revenue numbers.
Consolidated revenue spiked by 3.7 percent (4.4 percent at constant exchange rates) from €17.6 billion ($20.4 billion) for the first nine months of 2016 to €18.2 billion ($21.1 billion) for the same period of 2017.
Net income including International Financial Reporting Standards adjustments fell 1.6 percent from €412 million ($477.3 million) to €406 million ($470.3 million). Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization rose slightly from €2.3 billion ($2.7 billion) to €2.4 billion ($2.8 billion).
The improvements were made on the back of €190 million ($220 million) in cost cutting through the three quarters. Veolia said in a press release it aims to save €250 million ($289 million) for the year.
“Veolia’s 9-month results are satisfying, and support our strategy of growth and efficiency,” Chairman and CEO Antoine Frérot said in the release. “The solid development of our revenue is confirmed, as announced at the beginning of the year. Good commercial momentum and revitalized attractiveness of our offerings resulted in new contract awards across all our businesses and geographies.”
Nine-month revenue in Veolia’s Rest of the World business spiked by 10.6 percent at constant exchange rates on a year-over-year basis, from €4.3 billion to €4.8 billion. That included an 11.6 percent boost in North America.
The Rest of the World segment is home to Veolia Nuclear Solutions, established earlier this year to house Kurion and other nuclear cleanup and waste treatment businesses. The company does not break out earnings figures for Nuclear Solutions.
