In the aftermath of a poorly executed Colorado veterans’ hospital project that tripled in cost from $604 million to $1.7 billion and slipped from a 2013 opening to early 2018, the U.S. Government Accountability Office has taken a critical look at U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs facility planning and project delivery in two recent reports.
Mismanagement by the U.S. Energy Dept. has added $196 million and three years to cleanup of a former nuclear fuel-processing site in West Valley, N.Y., said April Stephenson, DOE acting inspector general in an April 26 report.
For the moment, a San Francisco federal court judge’s April 25 preliminary injunction has stalled President Donald Trump’s executive order that seeks to make “sanctuary” jurisdictions, which shelter undocumented immigrants, unable to receive federal grants and funds, including billions of dollars for highway construction, seismic upgrades and other public infrastructure projects.
The Tennessee Valley Authority is working to determine what caused the structural supports of a refurbished condenser to fail and how best to repair the damage at the newly commissioned Watts Bar 2 nuclear unit on the Tennessee River.
In an executive order issued on March 28, the Trump administration is trying to make it easier to develop traditional energy resources by reducing environmental requirements on coal, nuclear, oil and natural gas, but whether it will stop the shift toward emission-free renewable energy is in doubt.
The over-ambitious Cape Wind offshore farm in Massachusetts hit a wall after 15 years, but developers now see new ways to boost water-based wind in the U.S. power mix.