The budget for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management could swell to almost $8.4 billion by fiscal 2027, according to projections included in President Joe Biden’s detailed justification for the fiscal 2023 request.
The DOE requested over $7.6 billion for fiscal 2023, which is relatively flat with fiscal 2022 that ends Sept. 30. The 490-page Environmental Management (EM) justification document released shortly before Weapons Complex Monitor deadline suggests a steady increase in nuclear cleanup funds over the next five years.
The administration foresees EM funding rising to $7.8 billion in fiscal 2024, $8 billion in 2025, about $8.2 billion in 2026 and $8.4 billion in 2027. Appropriations legislation in 2012 directed DOE to look down the road and envision funding levels for five years.
The projections of course come with an important disclaimer: “Actual future budget request levels will be determined as part of the annual budget process.”
Lynchburg, Va.,-based BWX Technologies said this week Jan Bertsch has been elected to chair the company’s board of directors, succeeding retiring board chairman John Fees.
Bertsch, who became chair effective Tuesday, has been a BWXT director since 2013. In addition to serving on several boards, she served as the chief financial officer and senior vice president of Owens-Illinois and executive vice president and chief financial officer of Sigma-Aldrich. Bertsch has also held management posts at Ford, BorgWarner, Chrysler and Visteon.
“Jan’s tenure on our board goes back to before the spinoff of our power generation business in 2015, and her deep engagement on our board makes her an ideal fit for this new role,” BWXT CEO Rex Geveden said in a press release.
Craig Ferguson, who was most recently chief operating officer and deputy director for operations of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, is joining Las Vegas-based Longenecker & Associates as senior vice president for operations, the company said.
Ferguson is returning to Longenecker, having previously served as the company’s group vice president for Mission Assurance before moving to Princeton Plasma in 2019. In the new role, he will report to Longenecker chief operating officer Christine Gelles, who previously served as senior vice president for operations, according to a company press release.
Ferguson has much experience in the Department of Energy weapons complex including a stint as a manager for BWXT at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and other positions. An engineer and U.S. Navy veteran, he has also served as an associate lab director of infrastructure and safety at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, formerly Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
