Dozens of Westinghouse employees and supply chain partners descended on Washington, D.C., last week to build legislative support for new nuclear projects.

Johnston

John Bennett Johnston Jr., a moderate-to-conservative Democrat who served four terms in the U.S. Senate (1972–1997) and often advocated for the energy and infrastructure interests of his home state of Louisiana, passed away on March 25 at the age of 92. Johnston was a strong supporter of Louisiana’s oil and natural gas sectors and nuclear energy expansion.

Johnston was born on June 10, 1932, in Shreveport, La. He left Shreveport to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and then Washington and Lee University in Virginia. He earned his juris doctorate in 1956 from Louisiana State University. From 1956 to 1959, he served as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army’s Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps.

The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board has recommended to the Department of Energy and Congress that they work together “to create a workable pathway to site, license, construct, and operate a geologic repository for the permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.”

Fleischmann

U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann is all about energy—specifically nuclear energy.

On March 20, the GOP congressman from Tennessee joined the official launch of Atoms for Appalachia, the new report from the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center that studied opportunities for deploying advanced nuclear energy in the area to spur economic development.

The council hosted a series of Atoms for Appalachia (A4A) workshops in 2024 in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and West Virginia in partnership with the Breakthrough Energy Foundation. The sessions explored workforce demand, partnership opportunities, and innovation happening across the nuclear industry.

Pronuclear coalition Nuclear Matters is asking people to help preserve nuclear power and support new technology by writing to members of Congress.

Legislative proposals focused on streamlining the U.S. nuclear energy export process have circulated on Capitol Hill for several years, notably aimed at establishing a single point of contact in the government to simplify global nuclear projects.

The most recently introduced International Nuclear Energy Act (INEA) proposal (S. 826) promotes engagement with partner nations to develop a civil nuclear export strategy and to offset China’s and Russia’s growing influence on international nuclear energy development.

The American Nuclear Society recently selected two of its members to serve as the 2025 Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellows. The 2025 Congressional Fellows, Jacob Christensen and Mike Woosley, will help the Society fulfill its strategic goal of enhancing nuclear policy by working in the halls of Congress, either in a congressional member’s personal office or with a committee, when their fellowship term begins in January.

The Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship offers American Nuclear Society members a unique opportunity to directly support public policy. By supporting nuclear experts through the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship Program, ANS provides a path for its members to help advance nuclear policy and ensure a brighter, nuclear-powered future.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published its annual report to Congress for fiscal year 2023 on abnormal occurrences involving medical and industrial uses of radioactive material.

The report, which was announced by the NRC on May 3, is available on the NRC website.

A minibus appropriations bill—the second produced this month by Congress—emerged from conference negotiations yesterday with language that would extend the Price-Anderson Act—legislation first enacted in 1954 that makes it possible for nuclear power producers to seek insurance from the private marketplace. Today the House of Representatives voted 286–134 to approve the minibus package of six fiscal year 2024 appropriations bills, and the Senate is expected to vote today, too. By extending the Price-Anderson Act—now set to expire in 2025—Congress can support the current U.S. power reactor fleet and pave the way for new reactor deployments.

Statement from Craig Piercy, CEO and Executive Director of the American Nuclear Society, on the Fiscal Year 2024 Consolidated Appropriations Act:

New appropriations bills currently under review in the U.S. Congress include a significant funding boost for nuclear energy.

This week, ranking members of both the U.S. House and Senate released six fiscal year 2024 appropriations, including the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies bill that has nuclear energy funding for FY 2024.

Donalds

Fleischmann

Two U.S. representatives—Chuck Fleischmann (R., Tenn.) and Byron Donalds (R., Fla.)—have published an op-ed in the Washington Examiner that calls for the United States to seize “the current nuclear economic opportunity worldwide” and “once again be the world leader in nuclear power.” The congressmen emphasize that “it is in the best interest of the United States and the rest of the world for our country, instead of China and Russia, to be the preferred partner for embarking nuclear nations.”

Atoms for Peace: Fleischmann and Donalds argue that President Dwight Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech in 1953 established the foundational principles for the domestic and global success of the U.S. civil nuclear energy industry—and they urge the nation to reclaim those principles now. They point to the numerous benefits of nuclear energy, ranging from economic development to desalination to sustainable fuel creation, and note that the “global market is ripe for nuclear technology.”

Just a few hours after a new Speaker of the House of Representatives was elected on October 25, the White House sent a list of funding priorities for “critical domestic needs” to Congress for consideration as legislators restart the stalled annual appropriations process. Those priorities include $2.2 billion for low-enriched uranium (LEU) and high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) enrichment capabilities. And to ensure that investment in domestic HALEU enrichment pays off, the White House is also calling for a long-term ban on enriched uranium from Russia.

Class was back in session this spring when, after a hiatus, the American Nuclear Society hosted its third session of Nuclear Energy 101 in Washington, D.C., for congressional staffers. This five-course educational series is a wonderful—and popular—tool for ANS to network with congressional staff and explain the basics of nuclear science and technology.

In the last few weeks of 2021, when it was clear that the Russian invasion of Ukraine had put this country’s uranium fuel supply in jeopardy, nuclear energy advocates lobbied hard to attach provisions to various pieces of “must-pass” legislation—such as the National Defense Appropriations Act (NDAA), the Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act—to have the government get the ball rolling on new domestic uranium fuel production capacity. Four times they thought they had succeeded, that Congress was going to allocate enough money to start the United States on the road to a secure supply of reactor fuel, including the higher-enriched fuel needed for advanced reactors.

Officially established on November 15, 2021, with the signing of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—aka the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, or BIL—the Department of Energy’s Civil Nuclear Credit Program was designed to give owners/operators of commercial U.S. reactors the opportunity to apply for certification and competitively bid on credits to help support the continued operation of economically troubled units. Finally, the federal government, and not just certain farsighted state governments, would recognize nuclear energy for its important grid reliability and decarbonization attributes.

This article is the second in a series about the domestic nuclear fuel crisis. The first in the series, “‘On the verge of a crisis’: The U.S. nuclear fuel Gordian knot,” was published on Nuclear Newswire on April 14, 2023.

Once upon a time, enrichment was a government monopoly—at least outside the Soviet bloc. But the United States, eager to get out of the field, was convinced that the private sector could do it better. Now, the West is dependent on the Soviets’ successors and is facing an uncertain supply, a complication of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Slowly, a consensus is growing that dependence on imports is a bad idea. Some experts also say that upsets like the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, and the collapse of natural gas prices due to fracking, show that the market is too prone to shocks for private companies to navigate without support. One of the architects of the U.S. government’s exit from the enrichment game is now voicing second thoughts. And belatedly—shortly after the first anniversary of the beginning of the Russian invasion—five Western countries, including the United States, announced that they have to get more deeply involved in the fuel supply chain, but didn’t say precisely how.

Barnard

Donalds

“To be frank, any emissions-related climate goals are moonshots without nuclear energy, and next-generation nuclear technology is something that the United States can and SHOULD lead on.” So writes U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds (R., Fla.) and Christopher Barnard, vice president of external affairs for the American Conservation Coalition, in an essay published by RealClear Energy.

Good news: Donalds, one of the strongest advocates for nuclear energy in the U.S. House, and Barnard, publisher and coauthor of Green Market Revolution, begin their essay by noting some recent positive developments for nuclear power. They characterize the initial criticality of Vogtle-3, the first new nuclear reactor built in the United States in about 30 years, as “a monumental achievement for the American nuclear industry.” They praise the Biden administration’s allocation of funds to keep established nuclear plants operational.

Donalds

“I wholeheartedly believe that utilizing nuclear energy—specifically advanced nuclear microreactors—could have made a positive difference for Florida’s 19th District in many ways,” wrote Rep. Byron Donalds (R., Fla.) in an op-ed about Hurricane Ian that appeared in the Floridian on December 5. Donalds noted that Ian, which struck southwest Florida (the location of his congressional district) on September 28, 2022, was an “unforgettable storm” that caused “heart-wrenching devastation” to the area but that “the deployment of microreactors throughout Southwest Florida could have: (1) reduced disaster-related mortality; (2) reduced direct disaster-related economic loss; and (3) reduced the overall disruption of basic services stemming from Hurricane Ian’s devastation.”

Microreactor technology and benefits: Donalds offered his readers a brief lesson on nuclear microreactors, explaining that they are “small, versatile, and extremely reliable pieces of innovative technology” that put to rest common public concerns about nuclear energy related to “large smokestacks, nuclear waste, and nuclear meltdowns.”