Wrap Up: Danly advances; Russia won’t replace New START; House passes compromise budget resolution; Solicitations

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 13 to 7 Wednesday to advance the nomination of James Danly to be deputy secretary of energy.

The Danly nomination to be the No. 2 official in the Department of Energy can now go to the full Senate for a confirmation vote. No date for such a vote was scheduled as of Thursday afternoon.

Danly, nominated by President Donald Trump on Jan. 22, is a former general counsel and commission member at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Dmitriy Peskov, spokesperson for the Kremlin, said Tuesday that there was little chance that there would be a replacement for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, that runs out Feb. 26, media reported.

Peskov reportedly said that there was not enough trust between Russia and the U.S. to start a new treaty, and also echoed the statements of former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev that more countries would obtain nuclear weapons. Medvedev said he felt this was because the West pushed the world to the “brink of World War Three” by getting involved in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

The House on Thursday narrowly passed an updated, compromise budget resolution that sets a blueprint for passing Trump administration priorities, and which includes plans to boost defense spending by $150 billion, an increase from the $100 billion in the House’s original blueprint.

After the Senate crafted the revised framework and passed the measure last week, Congressional Republicans are now set to head into negotiations on a range of high-ticket items for the eventual reconciliation bill, to include potentially finding up to $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, finalizing details on raising the debt ceiling and extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts.

The budget resolution does not provide a specific breakdown of how the additional funds should be spent over the four years covered by the pending reconciliation bill, tasking committees to determine how the spending would be authorized. This article was originally published by Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily.

The Department of Energy and its semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration put up a notice April 9 for a solicitation for a small business to provide technical and analytical support services to the Office of Nonproliferation and Arms Control.

While there is not much information yet on the contract, the location is listed as Albuquerque, N.M. and the deadline for responses is April 25.

The National Nuclear Security Administration also put up an updated notice April 1 to solicit a contractor to convert cylinders of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) or depleted uranium oxides, both stored at the Office of Environmental Management conversion facilities, into high purity depleted uranium metal for nuclear weapons.

The contract would be under NNSA’s Office of Strategic Materials Production Modernization. Responses are now due May 22.