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"The Department of Labor (DOL) Site Exposure Matrices (SEM) Website is a repository of information gathered from a variety of sources regarding toxic substances present at Department of Energy (DOE) and Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) facilities covered under Part E of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA). In putting together SEM, DOL held round table meetings with workers from DOE facilities all over the country and gathered their input on the hazards at these sites. DOL also obtained copies of thousands of documents from DOE regarding toxic substances at those facilities. In addition to toxic substance information, the SEM Website also contains information regarding scientifically established links between toxic substances and illnesses. Displayed links for diagnosed illnesses show how these correlate to toxic substance exposures. The relationship between toxic substances and diagnosed illnesses shown in SEM is derived from records of research by recognized medical authorities maintained by the National Library of Medicine (NLM). DOL continually updates these relationships as new disease associations are recognized by NLM. The causal links provided by NLM do not represent an exclusive list of the pathways necessary for an affirmative Part E causation determination. Every case is evaluated on its own evidentiary merits. (Please note, however that SEM does not address the relationship between radiation and cancer. For purposes of EEOICPA, the relationship between radiation and cancer is evaluated by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH))."

"The Department of Energy is proposing extending a chemical barrier along the Columbia River at Hanford after a pilot project successfully trapped radioactive strontium before it entered the river. At the same time, a system to pump contaminated water out of the ground and treat it, which had disappointing results, would be torn out. DOE has been testing the chemical barrier technology since 2005, with the most recent results showing a 90 percent reduction in strontium contamination in ground water, according to DOE. The test area extends 300 feet along the Columbia near Hanford's N Reactor, but DOE is proposing extending the chemical barrier to 2,500 feet to span the width of the area where strontium exceeds drinking water standards in ground water near the river."

"That's what a panel decided today, granting petitions from other states and saying the federal law does not grant authority to DOE to abandon application. Surely will be appealed. The decision is at right."

"Southern Company Chairman, President and CEO David M. Ratcliffe today announced that the company's Georgia Power subsidiary has reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to accept terms for a conditional commitment for loan guarantees. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20080801/SOCOLOGO ) (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080801/SOCOLOGO ) "This will provide Georgia Power customers significant savings," said Georgia Power President and CEO Mike Garrett. President Obama and DOE Secretary Steven Chu announced the award of the conditional loan guarantees to Georgia Power on February 16. "This is another step forward on the road to nuclear power playing a prominent role in America's energy future," said Ratcliffe. "Nuclear energy is vital in any effort to make meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and meet this nation's rising demand for electricity. This conditional commitment is an endorsement of the company's performance as a safe, efficient nuclear operator with strong financial integrity." "

"Resource will help workers more accurately determine chemical exposure level, get compensation faster Thursday, July 15,2010 WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Patty Murray (D-WA) announced that a new online database is available for former Hanford workers whose health has been adversely affected on the jobsite to help them determine the extent of their exposure to toxic chemicals and get more information about related illnesses. Compiled by the U.S. Department of Energy, the online database, called the Site Exposure Matrix (SEM), is available to former nuclear weapons facilities employees covered by Part E of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program (EEOICP). After its May 10 announcement of the database's planned launch, DOE released the SEMs for 48 nuclear sites quickly but did not immediately release others, including one for the Hanford site. On June 25, 2010, Senators Cantwell and Murray sent a letter to DOE and the Department of Labor requesting the speedy release of a Site Exposure Matrix for Hanford. Within days, DOE responded that it has approved the release of the Hanford SEM along with matrices for 20 other sites."

Along with automobile makers and banks, a number of senators whose districts include U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) contaminated sites are asking for stimulus money to rejuvenate local economies with cleanup work and perhaps, freshly-cleaned land for industrial development. According to the DOE, spending more and completing cleanup would enable the government to decrease the "footprint" or overall size of each site, releasing more property for development. The letter asking for the funding was signed by Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.; Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M.; Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Jim Risch, D-Idaho; and Tom Udall, D-N.M. Sen. Patty Murray, D.-Wash.; is supporting boosting cleanup spending nationally by $6 billion. Since the mid-1990's, the DOE has already spent more than $7.3 billion on environmental cleanup nationally each year.

Yesterday, POGO sent a letter to the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Health, Safety, and Security (HSS) urging it to provide oversight and enforcement of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's (ORNL) beryllium exposure prevention policies. These policies were designed to prevent Lab workers' exposure to beryllium, which can lead to the development of the incurable and potentially fatal lung disease, chronic beryllium disease. Recently, POGO received a tip that ORNL is not in compliance with its beryllium prevention plan. ORNL's plan was born out of Beryllium Controls at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (IG-737), a damning 2006 DOE Inspector General (IG) report which found that ORNL "did not properly manage activities relating to beryllium contamination." In our letter, we expressed concern that HSS did not follow up on these issues when they were previously brought to the office's attention.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is proposing that $6 billion to $7 billion be included in a national economic recovery package for cleanup work at Hanford and other Department of Energy nuclear sites. That's in line with a proposal that's outlined in a DOE report that covers one option for the Obama administration to consider. The DOE proposal calls for $6 billion to be spent to significantly reduce the size of large contaminated sites such as Hanford and finish cleanup at smaller sites. The proposal also calls for DOE cleanup sites to be developed into energy parks. "To make progress ... we need to put in enough funds to reduce the size of the sites," Murray said Tuesday during a Senate Budget Committee confirmation hearing for Peter Orszag, nominated for director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Project Scope A National Academies committee will provide technical and strategic advice to the DOE-EM's Office of Engineering and Technology to support the development and implementation of its cleanup technology roadmap. Specifically, the study will identify: o Principal science and technology gaps and their priorities for the cleanup program based on previous National Academies reports, updated and extended to reflect current site conditions and EM priorities and input form key external groups, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Environmental Protection Agency, and state regulatory agencies. o Strategic opportunities to leverage research and development from other DOE programs (e.g., in the Office of Science, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, and the National Nuclear Security Administration), other federal agencies (e.g., Department of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency), universities, and the private sector. o Core capabilities at the national laboratories that will be needed to address EM's long-term, high-risk cleanup challenges, especially at the four laboratories located at the large DOE sites (Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Savannah River National Laboratory). o The infrastructure at these national laboratories and at EM sites that should be maintained to support research, development, and bench and pilot scale demonstrations of technologies for the EM cleanup program, especially in radiochemistry.

Assessments of the harm done by nuclear weapons plants to both workers and neighbors have generally relied on the radiation data provided by the Department of Energy (DOE) and its contractors. Detailed studies of the DOE's uranium processing plant near Fernald, Ohio, (commonly called the Fernald plant), show that DOE and contractor assessments are fundamentally flawed in numerous ways and that harm to both neighbors and workers was far greater than the DOE acknowledged. Further, preliminary indications are that the conditions that gave rise to the DOE's false reassurances of safety and environmental compliance are also likely to be present at a number of other nuclear weapons plants.

WASHINGTON, DC - On Wednesday, May 7, 2008, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management (EM) James A. Rispoli will deliver remarks at the Environmental Management Advisory Board (EMAB) semi-annual public meeting in Washington, D.C. Assistant Secretary Rispoli will provide an update on the Bush Administration's priorities for safely and responsibly cleaning up the Nation's Cold War era nuclear waste and will outline the Department's recent accomplishments across the DOE complex

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled that the state of Washington does have authority over certain radioactive waste mixed with hazardous chemicals at Hanford. It upheld a 2005 summary judgment ruling in Eastern Washington federal District Court that the state had authority to require DOE to dig up and process waste temporarily buried at Hanford after 1970 until the nation has a national repository opened in New Mexico. At issue is mixed transuranic waste, typically trash such as protective clothing and laboratory debris contaminated with plutonium and also hazardous chemicals such as solvents or heavy metals. It's left from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. "The federal court has upheld the state's authority to protect its people and its resources from the extremely dangerous wastes that were buried decades ago at Hanford," Jay Manning, director of the Washington state Department of Ecology, said in a statement. The case was filed after Ecology issued an order in 2003 requiring DOE to remove and process enough waste to fill about 75,000 55-gallon drums. The waste is buried in drums and boxes.

Construction workers at Department of Energy nuclear sites, including Oak Ridge, had a significantly increased rate of cancer deaths, according to a study published recently in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. Oak Ridge, in particular, had an abnormally high number of deaths attributed to non-Hodgkins lymphoma - a type of cancer sometimes linked to radiation exposure. The study, which was funded by DOE as part of a medical surveillance program, looked at death numbers and death causes among 8,976 former construction workers at four DOE sites: Oak Ridge; Hanford, near Richland, Wash.; Savannah River, near Aiken, S.C.; and Amchitka, an Alaskan island once used for nuclear weapons testing. The overall mortality rate of the study group was slightly lower than the U.S. population as a whole, but that's expected when looking at any group of steadily employed workers with access to health care, according to Dr. John Dement, the lead researcher and professor of occupational medicine at Duke University.

Thanks to everyone who contacted the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) and their Members of Congress two weeks ago, urging an extension of DOE's public comment period on its proposed weakening of taxpayer protections in its nuclear loan guarantee program. Under pressure from concerned citizens and U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO), DOE extended the comment deadline from Sept. 8th to Sept. 22nd. Now we must take advantage of this extension to get our comments in! DOE's most clearly outrageous proposal is to give up its "first lien" in the event of a new reactor loan repayment default. This would mean that taxpayers would be placed behind other lenders, such as foreign export-import banks, in terms of receiving compensation. Thus, taxpayers likely would not be compensated at all, but rather left holding the bag for billions when a new reactor or uranium enrichment facility goes belly up. The Congressional Budget Office has predicted, based on the nuclear industry's history, that well over half of all new reactors could default on their loans. Taxpayers' liability for dozens of new reactor loan guarantees could reach into the hundreds of billions of dollars. DOE's rule change would increase, not decrease, taxpayer risk.

This is the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff's report of its monitoring of U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) non-high-level waste disposal actions in calendar year 2008, pursuant to Section 3116(b) of the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 (the NDAA). Section 3116 of the NDAA requires that DOE consult with the NRC on its non-high-level waste determinations and plans and that the NRC, in coordination with the covered States of South Carolina and Idaho, monitor disposal actions that DOE takes to assess compliance with NRC regulations in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Part 61, "Licensing Requirements for Land Disposal of Radioactive Waste," Subpart C, "Performance Objectives." The NRC has prepared this report in accordance with NUREG-1854, "NRC Staff Guidance for Activities Related to U.S. Department of Energy Waste Determinations," issued August 2007.

USEC Inc. (NYSE:USU) today announced that it expects the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to make a decision on a conditional commitment for a loan guarantee by early August. A loan guarantee conditional commitment would allow USEC to continue deployment of its American Centrifuge Plant, currently being built in Piketon, Ohio, and would ensure the security of thousands of jobs created across the country by the plant's construction and manufacturing activities. The Company also said that at the direction of its board of directors it is preparing demobilization plans for the American Centrifuge Plant if it does not receive a conditional commitment by early August. USEC announced in February a slowdown in the planned escalation of spending on the project and has stated that a further delay in obtaining a DOE loan guarantee would require the Company to implement further project spending reductions.

Meanwhile, DOE has moved a press release with some reported highlights of the DOE budget. Here are those: The proposed budget, DOE said: * Cuts funding for programs that aren't needed or aren't as effective as other investments - like more than $200 million in oil and gas company research that the companies can and do fund on their own. * Substantially expands the use of clean, renewable energy sources while improving energy transmission infrastructure. * Supports the Administration's goal to develop a smart, strong and secure electricity grid. * Helps restore America's leadership in scientific research and innovation - including transformative science that can lead to a new generation of clean energy jobs. * Makes significant investments in low-emissions plug-in and hybrid vehicles, nuclear energy, and clean coal technologies, as part of the Obama Administration's aggressive effort to reduce greenhouse gas production. * Supports the ongoing security of our weapons stockpile, continued efforts at nuclear non-proliferation and ongoing environmental cleanup and legacy management as part of the Department's long-term stewardship responsibilities.

"On Monday, the Department of Energy (DOE) Inspector General (IG) released a report on why it has been taking so long for DOE to secure the stock of Uranium-233 (U-233) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The stock of U-233, a highly radioactive isotope with dangerous properties, still sits in a "deteriorating" ORNL facility even though DOE began planning to dispose of the material back in 2001. As some of you may recall, POGO actually has some pretty direct experience with this material. During a 2005 site visit, POGO investigators were able to park in front of the ORNL building that held the 1,000 cans of U-233 and walk around for about 15 minutes before guards finally approached them and escorted them from the area. We determined that ORNL was the most vulnerable site in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex."

"In the midst of initiating a federal spending freeze, it is shocking that President Obama's FY 2011 Budget Request released this week pours billions of dollars into two unnecessary nuclear weapons construction projects. There is no demonstrated requirement for either the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at the Y-12 National Security Complex nor the Chemical and Metallurgical Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). "Contrary to the spin, neither of these facilities are needed to ensure the safety, security and effectiveness of our weapons," says Peter Stockton, POGO Senior Investigator. In addition, DOE does not even have an estimated cost for completing the projects, as the budget describes their total costs as "TBD." "To Be a Disaster," is what POGO fears that term means, based on DOE's atrocious record of soaring construction costs and overruns. For example, the cost of the Highly Enriched Uranium Manufacturing Facility (HEUMF) at Y-12 ballooned from $97 million to $549 million. "

"The Hanford Advisory Board is questioning whether the Department of Energy is doing enough to protect Hanford workers from an incurable lung disease caused by exposure to beryllium. DOE officials in Washington, D.C., are about to launch a review of the Hanford beryllium protection program because of the concerns of some workers. But by the time that review is finished, three more cases of chronic beryllium disease could be diagnosed if current trends continue, said board member Mike Korenko at a meeting Thursday of the advisory board in Kennewick. "How can you not look at that data and have adrenaline flowing?" he asked Doug Shoop, deputy manager of the DOE Hanford Richland Operations Office. Ten months have passed since the advisory board last recommended that DOE improve its beryllium protection program, and since then three more Hanford cases of chronic beryllium disease have been verified. That brings the total with the disease to 32 and the number of workers determined to be sensitized to beryllium to 95, up from 88."