A member of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) announced plans this week to leave Congress in order to attend to his ill wife.
Stewart did not reveal details of the health issues facing his wife but could resign soon, The Salt Lake Tribune reported Tuesday. “I can say with pride that I have been an effective leader for my beloved home state, and I’m honored to have played an important role in guiding our nation through some troubled times,” Stewart said in a Wednesday press release. But my wife’s health concerns have made it necessary that I retire from Congress after an orderly transition can be ensured.” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) is expected to schedule a special election for the seat, once Stewart sets a resignation date.
Stewart, who also serves on the Intelligence Committee, began his first term in the House of Representatives in January 2013. An Air Force veteran, he has also authored several books, including thrillers.
A company seeking to build a small modular demonstration reactor at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site has received a qualified endorsement from a Nuclear Regulatory Commission advisory panel.
Kairos Power said Thursday May 25 via Twitter the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards has recommended issuance of the construction permit for the non-power version of the Hermes reactor.
“A scaled demonstration plant like Hermes will be valuable to test key technical elements, design features, safety functions, and equipment performance for this technology,” the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards said in a letter dated May 16. “There is confidence that the facility can be constructed in accordance with relevant regulations,” the advisory committee said. The California-based company Kairos is working with the Tennessee Valley Authority to build a test version of its advanced reactor on remediated K-33 uranium enrichment complex land at the Oak Ridge Site.
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators with Department of Energy national labs in their states said recently they are forming a new Senate National Labs Caucus.
The Senate National Labs Caucus will coordinate with its counterpart caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives to identify legislation that increases lab visibility while meeting government energy and security objectives, according to a May 25 press release from the four co-chairs.
The co-chairs of the new Senate caucus are Sens. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), James Risch (R-Idaho.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). Their states serve as home to Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico; Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois; Idaho National Laboratory and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. The national labs employ more than 20,000 scientists and engineers across the country, the senators said in a “Dear Colleague” letter to other lawmakers.
The Department of Energy’s Cincinnati-based procurement office plans to issue a no-bid contract to US Ecology Washington to run a database for low-level radioactive waste disposal, according to a notice published Tuesday.
Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center announced the planned sole source contract to run the Manifest Information Management System, in a notice in the government’s System for Award Management. No dollar figure was listed for the planned contract. US Ecology Washington, an affiliate of US Ecology, already has a $90,000 contract for the tracking system, according to DOE online records.
Developed by DOE in 1986, the Manifest Information Management System is used to monitor commercial low-level radioactive waste. The system gleans data from manifests for waste shipments to commercial low-level disposal sites. US Ecology Washington is one of only three full-service Class A, B and C low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) disposal facilities in the nation, according to the company website. The disposal center is on DOE’s Hanford Site nuclear reservation 25 miles West of Richland, Wash. US Ecology was purchased more than a year ago by Republic Services.
