On November 8, the Senate and House Armed Services Committees announced the details of their compromise Fiscal Year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This Conference Report merges the bills each committee passed earlier this year to create policy and spending authorization for this current fiscal year.

Of particular note is language in the bill addressing how defense nuclear waste is classified. Click here to see Section 3139. Evaluation of classification of certain defense nuclear waste - page 1615 of the PDF copy and page 1576 of the bill itself. 

The bill directs the Secretary of Energy to conduct an evaluation of the feasibility, costs, and cost savings of classifying covered defense nuclear waste as other than high-level radioactive waste, without decreasing environmental, health, or public safety requirements. It further directs the Secretary to submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report, no later than February 1, 2018, that includes a description of any actions the Secretary has taken or plans to take to change the processes, rules, regulations, orders, or directives, relating to defense nuclear waste, as appropriate, and any recommendations for legislative action the Secretary determines appropriate.

This is a follow-up article to the September newsletter article entitled "A New Approach to DOE's Waste Management". The SRSCRO and the Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) support Section 3139 and support a two-pronged approach with two distinct but complementary strategies:

1.    An administrative approach that will use existing Department of Energy (DOE) authorities provided under DOE Order 435.1 to provide the clarity in how waste is defined.

2.    A legislative approach to codify the statutory change in the legal definition.

The DOE response to the February 1, 2018 deadline and the report's content will be followed closely.

WORC Update

 

More than 244 scholarships have been awarded to college and university students across the SRSCRO region through the Workforce Opportunities in Regional Careers (WORC) program. At the University of South Carolina Aiken (USCA), ten of the recent fall semester awardees and their professors gathered for a picture to send along with appreciation to the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) at Savannah River Site. The USCA students are enrolled in Industrial Processing Engineering or the Environmental Remediation and Restoration concentration - two programs that focus on skills needed at the Savannah River Site.

 

WORC is funded by DOE-EM and NNSA at the Savannah River Site to strengthen the local workforce pool needed to support current and future missions. WORC involves five colleges and universities that have been in partnership over seven years. These partners established seven new nuclear training certificate and degree programs locally through the Advancing Nuclear Skills Regionally (ANSR) program with funding that ended in 2016. Now, as part of the WORC program, the colleges and universities are providing scholarships and working to expand internships in 22 relevant fields of study that align with local workforce needs. Administration of the ANSR and WORC programs is managed by the SRSCRO.

 

Craig Newman

The results are real. More local students are entering STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields of study at regional technical colleges and universities with scholarship assistance from the WORC program. WORC scholarship recipients like Craig Newman are gaining valuable experience and starting new careers at the Savannah River Site. Read more about how Craig landed a new job with assistance from a WORC scholarship at Aiken Technical College.

 

WORC South Carolina partners are: Aiken Technical College, University of South Carolina Aiken and University of South Carolina Salkehatchie. Georgia partners are: Augusta Technical College and Augusta University. Information about WORC scholarships is available at each college or university involved.