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It appears that Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis has opted to hamstring the cybersecurity experts working to keep the lights on in his district by removing the one tool that can help monitor for vulnerabilities and risks in software used to manage critical infrastructure operations. He has chosen to remove the SBOM provision from the latest NDAA (6722) bill. I hope Mr. Gallagher remembers..
Energy Central…
The post Nuclear Waste Bill Gains Traction in the House appeared first on POWER Magazine.
A bill to amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) of 1982 and give the Department of Energy (DOE) the authority to site, build, and operate one or more interim storage sites that would consolidate spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from decommissioned nuclear reactors has passed out of committee and been reported to the full House of Representatives.
The full U.S. Energy and Commerce Committee amended the May 2019-introduced “Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019” (H.R. 2699) by voice vote on Nov. 20. The committee received it from the subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change on Sept. 26. It now goes to the full House, where its future is uncertain. However, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr.—a Democrat from New Jersey—was hopeful that it would move the nation closer to a “real national solution for moving spent fuel to an interim facility and, ultimately, to a permanent repository.”…
A bill that would have provided more cost-recovery certainty for Xcel Energy’s two Minnesota nuclear plants didn’t get through the state House of Representatives prior to the legislative session ending on May 20, effectively killing the measure.
The bill would have allowed Xcel to submit proposals to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) designating each of its nuclear plants—the dual-unit Prairie Island station and the single-unit Monticello plant—as carbon-reduction facilities. As part of the process, the company would have included a proposed statement of the total expected costs, including but not limited to capital investments and operation and maintenance costs associated with the facility’s operation.
The MPUC would then have been required to approve or reject the total expected costs within 10 months of the filing date. The solution would have given Xcel the ability to recover a facility’s total costs outside of a general rate case proceeding. Proponents of the legislation suggested that it would have given Xcel more certainty than it currently has concerning cost recovery.…
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is facing a $ 528 million cut to its funding under the Interior and Environment Appropriations bill reported out of committee July 18. While Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee expressed disappointment in the deep cut, it could have been worse.
The Trump administration’s budget request, released in late May, proposed EPA funding of $ 5.655, a cut of $ 2.345 billion. In contrast, the House bill would fund EPA at $ 7.5 billion, a level Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) says “will ensure that the agency is able to fulfill its core duties while streamlining the agency and reshaping its workforce.”
The other side of the aisle had a very different take on the EPA funding level in the bill, saying that $ 7.5 billion in funding is not only inadequate, it is all but certain to tank the bill entirely. “It is outrageous to think that Republicans would threaten another government shutdown rather than work with Democrats to enact government funding bills even though they know any legislation will require Democratic votes to become law,” Committee Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.)…
When it comes to nuclear power, the U.S. is not living up to its potential, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told appropriators during a July 20 full committee markup of the Senate’s fiscal year 2018 (FY18) Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill.
“When it comes to nuclear power, we’re just so far behind the times and I think now’s the time to catch up,” Graham said while presenting an amendment that would address language in the bill he believes to be problematic to the future development of small modular reactors.
According to Graham: “The current report language prohibits funds for engineering design or regulatory developing for next generation light water reactor technology. That language is being perceived by those in the small modular reactor world as basically an impediment to producing small modular reactors.”
Graham went to note that the U.S. has not successfully built a new nuclear reactor in decades, and those under development—the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear plant in Graham’s home state of South Carolina and Southern Co.’s…