Politics correspondent
United States desk
Sienna Brook is The Gold Standard's United States correspondent. Brook covers Washington, energy policy and the federal politics of the day.
NASA Glenn draft SPARC IDIQ posted 30 Aug 2026 — space nuclear MA-IDIQ with LR-1 Phase 1 sample task order; ~20 kWe HALEU closed Brayton; 2030 lunar land goal. Still draft as of 1 Sep. New Space Economy.
House E&C markup ~3 Sep 2026 advanced 10 bills; six bipartisan nuclear permitting reforms unanimous to the floor, one at 44–0. Guthrie on innovation and costs. SST hearing 2 Sep; four advanced reactors at zero-power criticality by 4 Jul.
DOE/NNSA removed 13.5 kg of remaining enriched uranium from Venezuela’s RV-1 research reactor to Savannah River Site with IAEA cooperation; early May arrival. energy.gov. Nonproliferation with nuclear-renaissance reuse.
In Caracas on CNBC, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the NABEP deal is not displacement of private companies and the U.S. government will not be operator or producer. OSC 35% at no cost. CNBC 5 Sep.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright arrived late Tuesday 1 September. The National Assembly backed the oil deal the same day. Signing set for Wednesday. Rubio: the 17 fields were in Chinese and Russian hands.
Monday night the White House named the company, the 35 percent stake, and the 20 percent at-cost offtake under Trump's Venezuela oil headline. Here's the structure, the fields, and the years the analysts won't delete.
On Sunday Trump said Venezuelan crude will refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The stockpile was about 290 million barrels on 21 August, against 714 million of capacity.
President Trump ordered a nuclear-industrial rebuild: fuel cycle, uprates, a target of moving U.S. nuclear from about 100 gigawatts toward 400 by 2050. In January the Energy Department put $2.7 billion into domestic enrichment. In August 2025 it named the first eleven reactor-pilot projects.
On 20 January 2025 President Trump signed E.O. 14154. The Energy Department, the same day, ended the Biden-era pause on non-FTA LNG export applications. Commonwealth LNG in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, got the first post-pause license on 14 February 2025.
Southern Illinois Multimodal Station opened 28 August 2026. $26 million. Amtrak, Greyhound, FlixBus and JAX under one roof, plus four more providers for 28 counties.
TRISO-X dated 24 August 2026 as the next construction phase at TX-1 in Oak Ridge. 19,900 square metres. 700,000 pebbles a year. Clark Construction stays on the job.
