4728 Federal Register / Vol. 90, No. 10 / Thursday, January 16, 2025 / Notices 

edition of the Federal Register and the 

Code of Federal Regulations at 

www.govinfo.gov. At this site, you can 

view this document, as well as all other 

Department documents published in the 

Federal Register, in text or Portable 

Document Format (PDF). To use PDF, 

you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, 

which is available free at this site. 

You may also access Department 

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Program Authority: 2 CFR part 200 as 

adopted at 89 FR 30046 (April 22, 2024); 

2 CFR 3474. 

Roberto Rodriguez, 

Assistant Secretary of Planning, Evaluation 

and Policy Development. 

[FR Doc. 2025–01050 Filed 1–14–25; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4000–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Request for Information Regarding 

Treatment and Disposal of Elemental 

Mercury 

AGENCY: Office of Environmental 

Management, U.S. Department of 

Energy. 

ACTION: Request for information (RFI). 

SUMMARY: The U.S. Department of 

Energy’s (DOE) Environmental 

Management Consolidated Business 

Center and Office of Environmental 

Management are currently in the 

acquisition planning and regulatory 

planning stages for a potential future 

treatment and disposal (T&D) 

acquisition activity and fee rulemaking 

activities for elemental mercury waste. 

This planning supports DOE’s efforts to 

implement the requirements of the 

Mercury Export Ban Act of 2008, as 

amended by the Frank R. Lautenberg 

Chemical Safety for the 21st Century 

Act. DOE’s Office of Environmental 

Management is issuing this RFI for the 

purpose of conducting market research 

in accordance with the Federal 

Acquisition Regulation (FAR). This RFI 

is also being issued to potentially 

support a future rulemaking action that 

would establish a fee to provide longterm management and storage of 

elemental mercury. No contract 

solicitation is available through this RFI. 

DATES: Written comments and 

information are requested on or before 

March 3, 2025. 

ADDRESSES: Interested parties may 

submit comments via any of the 

following methods: 

Email: mercury.mgt.fee@em.doe.gov. 

Please include ‘‘Treatment and Disposal 

of Elemental Mercury RFI’’ in the 

subject line, and submit comments in 

Microsoft Word, or PDF file format, and 

avoid the use of encryption. 

Postal Mail: Timothy Herald, U.S. 

Department of Energy, Office of 

Environmental Management, Office of 

Waste Disposal (EM–4.22), 1000 

Independence Avenue SW, Washington, 

DC 20585. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Timothy Herald, U.S. Department of 

Energy, Office of Environmental 

Management, Office of Waste Disposal 

(EM–4.22), 1000 Independence Avenue 

SW, Washington, DC 20585, Telephone: 

(240) 243–8753, Email: 

mercury.mgt.fee@em.doe.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Purpose and Introduction 

The purpose of this RFI is to identify 

entities capable of providing (1) 

infrastructure, capabilities, and 

capacities for the treatment and/or 

disposal of elemental mercury, (2) 

documentation of permits held, or 

viable strategies for obtaining permits 

and regulatory approval for the T&D 

methods identified, and (3) physical and 

administrative methods to segregate and 

control the elemental mercury 

considered under this RFI separately 

from other hazardous wastes managed at 

the facility or facilities. 

To that end, this RFI solicits input via 

capability statements from interested 

parties with the specialized capabilities 

necessary to meet all, or part of, the 

major elements of scope for the T&D of 

elemental mercury. Within these 

capability statements, DOE is seeking 

feedback from contractors, small 

business concerns, and other interested 

parties regarding options for innovative 

approaches to perform the work scope 

elements of this RFI. This feedback will 

assist DOE with identifying interested 

and capable sources, and with 

advancing development of DOE’s 

acquisition strategy and future 

rulemaking action. 

This RFI is issued as part of DOE’s 

implementation of the requirements of 

the Mercury Export Ban Act of 2008 

(Pub. L. 110–414), as amended by the 

Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for 

the 21st Century Act (Pub. L. 114–182) 

(collectively identified herein as 

MEBA). Within MEBA, DOE interprets 

‘‘long-term management’’ to include 

T&D. Elemental mercury managed 

under MEBA is a hazardous waste and 

thus must be treated and disposed of in 

accordance with applicable statutory 

and regulatory requirements. 

DOE is aware that Land Disposal 

Restrictions (LDRs) described in the 

Resource Conservation and Recovery 

Act of 1976 (42 U.S.C. 6901 et seq.) 

(RCRA) at 40 CFR part 268, subpart D— 

Treatment Standards, do not currently 

include an approved treatment standard 

for non-radioactively contaminated 

elemental mercury waste that provides 

an LDR-compliant waste form 

acceptable for shallow land disposal. 

However, a treatment and land disposal 

path for non-radioactively contaminated 

elemental mercury would be available if 

the U.S. Environmental Protection 

Agency promulgated a new rulemaking 

(per 40 CFR 260.20) or approved a sitespecific No Migration Variance (NMV) 

(per 40 CFR 268.6) or a site-specific 

Determination of Equivalent Treatment 

(DET) (per 40 CFR 268.42(b)). Recently, 

DOE received information that could 

provide other potential T&D options 

(e.g., deep well injection) to disposition 

elemental mercury. Also, RCRA may 

allow for intermediary treatment 

methods that convert elemental mercury 

to a more stable form (e.g., cinnabar/ 

mercury sulfide) suitable for longer 

duration storage pending disposal 

availability. DOE therefore encourages 

all interested parties to identify their 

T&D methods for DOE consideration. 

II. Performance Work Statement 

DOE requires services for the T&D of 

elemental mercury conveyed to DOE 

pursuant to MEBA. DOE may initially 

seek T&D services for up to 120 metric 

tons (MT) of elemental mercury to 

which DOE holds title as established in 

an August 2020 settlement agreement 

with Nevada Gold Mines, LLC (NGM), 

whereby DOE agreed to accept title to 

and all further responsibility for 112 MT 

of elemental mercury that was in 

temporary storage at certain NGM 

facilities as of December 31, 2019. 

DOE is considering additional 

contract options that could increase the 

quantity of elemental mercury T&D 

capacity over a 5-year contract period of 

performance. The potential need for 

additional T&D capacity is based on the 

expectation that additional quantities of 

elemental mercury would be conveyed 

to DOE, and such options would afford 

DOE the capability to disposition a 

much larger volume of elemental 

mercury waste. Interested parties’ 

responses to this RFI should address 

their capabilities and capacities to treat 

and/or dispose of the following three 

volumes of elemental mercury waste 

during a base period of performance 


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Federal Register / Vol. 90, No. 10 / Thursday, January 16, 2025 / Notices 4729 

(estimated) through a maximum 5-year 

period of performance (PoP): 

• 120 metric tons (MT) elemental 

mercury—base period proposed by 

responding entity. 

• 1,500–2,000 MT elemental mercury 

(includes base 120 MT)—maximum 5- 

year PoP. 

• 2,000–3,000 MT elemental mercury 

(includes base 120 MT)—maximum 5- 

year PoP. 

III. Request for Information 

Within the context of the information 

contained in this RFI request, interested 

parties may provide responses to the 

following information requested below 

as deemed appropriate and applicable 

by the respondent, and to the extent the 

information is available: 

1. Describe your experience managing 

hazardous materials and hazardous 

waste, including elemental mercury as a 

material and as a waste. Discuss roles 

and responsibilities of your company 

and any contemplated teaming partners 

specific to the performance work 

statement (PWS) elements of this RFI. 

2. Describe your approach to meeting 

the PWS elements of this RFI in 

providing T&D services for elemental 

mercury waste. Specifically, discuss: 

a. The permits you hold or your 

regulatory status/proposed strategy for 

obtaining regulatory approval (i.e., DET, 

NMV, other RCRA T&D method, export 

to Organization for Economic 

Cooperation and Development country, 

etc.) to treat and dispose of elemental 

mercury waste. 

b. Your expected (existing or planned) 

annual throughput capacity (i.e., metric 

tons of elemental mercury per year 

treated and disposed). Describe your 

ability to scale up processes, if required, 

to achieve T&D of (a) 1,500–2,000 MT 

during a 5-year PoP, or (b) 2,500–3,000 

MT during a 5-year PoP. 

c. For the existing (or planned) 

capacity identified in 2(b) above, 

describe the proposed facilities and 

processes and whether new 

construction or modifications would be 

required to treat and dispose of the 

requested quantities. 

d. Capabilities to safely manage 

compromised (e.g., leaking, damaged) 

containers of elemental mercury, 

including the ability to open containers 

for transfer to new containers, as well as 

interim products (e.g., cinnabar). 

e. Capabilities to process offspecification waste forms to allow 

disposal. 

f. Management and disposition of 

secondary wastes generated during 

processing or handling. 

g. Disposal facility receipt, handling, 

staging, and emplacement of the 

equivalent of the masses of elemental 

mercury identified above, accounting 

for volume increase due to treatment to 

produce an acceptable waste form for 

disposal. 

h. Capabilities to monitor the 

performance of disposal (e.g., 

monitoring wells, leachate collection 

and treatment, etc.) in accordance with 

regulatory requirements to identify and 

mitigate potential leak/release paths. 

3. Identify any challenges and risks in 

meeting the PWS elements of this RFI in 

providing T&D service for elemental 

mercury waste and any actions your 

organization would take to address 

those challenges and risks. 

4. Describe your approach to 

managing the infrastructure at the 

planned facility or facilities to provide 

segregation and control processes (e.g., 

administrative, procedural, and 

physical) of DOE MEBA elemental 

mercury through all activities, including 

transportation, handling, treatment, and 

disposal. 

5. Discuss your experience in 

implementation of environmental, 

safety, and health plans related to your 

(and any teaming partner’s) work, 

including any prior relevant experience 

with work on or with DOE facilities, and 

your approach to addressing the 

requirements under 10 CFR part 851, 

Worker Safety and Health Program, as 

applicable. 

6. Provide a brief Experience and 

Performance Record (within the past 15 

years). Identify all DOE, other 

Government, or other commercial 

experience relevant to this RFI (include 

dollar value, contract type, role in the 

effort [i.e., prime contractor or 

subcontractor] date, scope, duration, 

and client). 

7. DOE may require a leasehold 

interest in the real property or 

properties offering T&D services. 

Discuss any impacts this may have to 

your ability to respond to a request for 

proposal. Discuss any relevant 

experience with leasehold 

arrangements. 

8. Highlight any factors that would 

make competing for this contract 

desirable or undesirable for your firm, 

including input on proposal evaluation 

criteria. Discuss any issues that DOE 

should consider when developing the 

solicitation for this proposal. Identify 

any Organizational Conflicts of Interest 

(OCI) concerns and/or potential OCI’s 

that you or your teaming partners may 

have pertaining to the work described in 

this RFI. Additionally, please identify 

and describe any areas in the major 

elements of scope believed to be missing 

or in need of clarification. 

Any additional information that 

would assist in the evaluation of the 

RFI. 

IV. Response Guidelines 

All interested parties are invited to 

submit a capability statement/response 

to this RFI. Responses to the RFI must 

be in writing and submitted no later 

than March 3, 2025 via one of the 

methods provided in the ADDRESSES

section. Electronic responses are 

preferred and can be provided as an 

attachment to an email. Please provide 

submittals as Microsoft Word (.docx), or 

PDF files. Respondents may use 

formatting that best presents the 

information, but submittals of 15 pages 

or less are requested. Respondents may 

answer as many or as few topics as they 

wish. A response to this RFI will not be 

viewed as a binding commitment to 

develop or pursue projects, ideas, or 

proposals discussed. 

This RFI is solely a request for 

information and is not a request for 

quote or proposal. DOE will not pay for 

any information that is provided in 

response to this announcement, nor will 

it compensate any respondents for the 

development of such information. DOE 

may contact firms responding to this 

announcement to clarify a respondent’s 

responses or capabilities and other 

matters as part of this regulatory 

research process. 

DOE reserves the right to use any, and 

all, information submitted by the 

responding party in any manner. DOE 

intends to utilize the information 

provided in response to this RFI to 

inform potential future T&D acquisition 

activity and fee rulemaking planning 

activities. Respondents are advised to 

avoid including any information that 

might be considered business 

confidential and/or proprietary 

information (CBI), if possible, in their 

submission. DOE will endeavor to 

protect such information to the extent 

legally permissible. If required to do so 

as part of the regulatory process, DOE 

would try to make the information 

available to the public in a manner that 

is not directly attributable to the 

responding party. 

Confidential Business Information 

Pursuant to 10 CFR 1004.11, any 

person submitting information that he 

or she believes to be confidential and 

exempt by law from public disclosure 

should submit via email two wellmarked copies: one copy of the 

document marked ‘‘confidential’’ 

including all the information believed to 

be confidential, and one copy of the 

document marked ‘‘non-confidential’’ 

with the information believed to be 


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4730 Federal Register / Vol. 90, No. 10 / Thursday, January 16, 2025 / Notices 

confidential deleted. DOE will make its 

own determination about the 

confidential status of the information 

and treat it according to its 

determination. 

Signing Authority 

This document of the Department of 

Energy was signed on January 8, 2025, 

by Candice Trummell, Senior Advisor 

for Environmental Management, 

pursuant to delegated authority from the 

Secretary of Energy. The document with 

the original signature and date is 

maintained by DOE. For administrative 

purposes only, and in compliance with 

requirements of the Office of the Federal 

Register, the undersigned DOE Federal 

Register Liaison Officer has been 

authorized to sign and submit the 

document in electronic format for 

publication, as an official document of 

the Department of Energy. This 

administrative process in no way alters 

the legal effect of this document upon 

publication in the Federal Register. 

Signed in Washington, DC, on January 13, 

2025. 

Treena V. Garrett, 

Federal Register Liaison Officer, U.S. 

Department of Energy. 

[FR Doc. 2025–01034 Filed 1–15–25; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6450–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Environmental Management SiteSpecific Advisory Board, Northern New 

Mexico 

AGENCY: Office of Environmental 

Management, Department of Energy. 

ACTION: Notice of open meeting. 

SUMMARY: This notice announces an 

online virtual combined meeting of the 

Consent Order Subcommittee, Public 

Outreach Subcommittee and Risk 

Evaluation and Management 

Subcommittee of the Environmental 

Management Site-Specific Advisory 

Board (EM SSAB), Northern New 

Mexico. The Federal Advisory 

Committee Act requires that public 

notice of this meeting be announced in 

the Federal Register. 

DATES: Wednesday, February 12, 2025; 1 

to 3 p.m. MST. 

ADDRESSES: This meeting will be held 

virtually via WebEx. To attend, please 

contact the Northern New Mexico 

Citizens Advisory Board (NNMCAB) 

Executive Director (below), no later than 

5 p.m. MST on Monday, February 10, 

2025. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Bridget Maestas, NNMCAB Executive 

Director, by phone: 505–709–7466 or 

email: bridget.maestas@em.doe.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Purpose of the Board: The purpose of 

the Board is to provide advice and 

recommendations concerning the 

following EM site-specific issues: cleanup activities and environmental 

restoration; waste and nuclear materials 

management and disposition; excess 

facilities; future land use and long-term 

stewardship. The Board may also be 

asked to provide advice and 

recommendations on any EM program 

components. 

Purpose of the Consent Order 

Subcommittee: The subcommittee 

reviews the 2016 Compliance Order on 

Consent, evaluate its strengths and 

weaknesses, and draft recommendations 

for the full Board’s consideration as to 

how to improve it. 

Purpose of the Public Outreach 

Subcommittee: The subcommittee 

involves stakeholders more directly in 

EM cleanup decisions, by reaching out 

to them to share their opinions by 

becoming involved in cleanup 

discussions and federal decision-making 

regarding clean-up. 

Purpose of the Risk Evaluation and 

Management Subcommittee: The 

subcommittee drafts external citizenbased recommendations for the full 

Board’s consideration on human and 

ecological health risk resulting from 

historical, current, and future hazardous 

and radioactive legacy waste operations 

at Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

Tentative Agenda: 

• Presentation on the Budget Process 

and Fiscal Year 2026 Budget 

• Discussion on NNMCAB 

Recommendation on Fiscal Year 2026 

Budget 

Public Participation: The online 

virtual meeting is open to the public. To 

sign up for public comment, please 

contact Bridget Maestas at 

Bridget.Maestas@em.doe.gov, no later 

than 5 p.m. MST on Friday, February 7, 

2025. Written public comments may be 

filed with the Committees either before 

or within five days after the meeting by 

sending them to Bridget Maestas at the 

aforementioned email address. The 

Deputy Designated Federal Officer is 

empowered to conduct the meeting in a 

fashion that will facilitate the orderly 

conduct of business. Individuals 

wishing to make public comments will 

be provided a maximum of five minutes 

to present their comments. 

Minutes: Minutes will be available by 

emailing or calling Bridget Maestas, 

NNMCAB Executive Director, at 

bridget.maestas@em.doe.gov or at (505) 

709–7466. 

Signing Authority: This document of 

the Department of Energy was signed on 

January 13, 2025, by David Borak, 

Committee Management Officer, 

pursuant to delegated authority from the 

Secretary of Energy. That document 

with the original signature and date is 

maintained by DOE. For administrative 

purposes only, and in compliance with 

requirements of the Office of the Federal 

Register, the undersigned DOE Federal 

Register Liaison Officer has been 

authorized to sign and submit the 

document in electronic format for 

publication, as an official document of 

the Department of Energy. This 

administrative process in no way alters 

the legal effect of this document upon 

publication in the Federal Register. 

Signed in Washington, DC, on January 13, 

2025. 

Jennifer Hartzell, 

Alternate Federal Register Liaison Officer, 

U.S. Department of Energy. 

[FR Doc. 2025–01052 Filed 1–15–25; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6450–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Environmental Management SiteSpecific Advisory Board, Idaho 

Cleanup Project 

AGENCY: Office of Environmental 

Management, Department of Energy. 

ACTION: Notice of open meeting. 

SUMMARY: This notice announces an inperson/virtual hybrid meeting of the 

Environmental Management SiteSpecific Advisory Board (EM SSAB), 

Idaho Cleanup Project (ICP). The 

Federal Advisory Committee Act 

requires that public notice of this 

meeting be announced in the Federal 

Register. 

DATES: Thursday, February 20, 2025; 9 

a.m.–3:30 p.m. MST. 

ADDRESSES: TownePlace Suites, 175 

Avenida Del Rio Drive, Twin Falls, 

Idaho 83301. This meeting will be open 

to the public in-person at the 

TownePlace Suites and virtually via 

Zoom. To attend virtually, please 

contact Danielle Miller, ICP Citizens 

Advisory Board (CAB) Administrator, 

by email at millerdc@id.doe.gov or 

phone (208) 526–5709, no later than 5 

p.m. MST on Tuesday, February 18, 

2025. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Danielle Miller, ICP CAB Administrator, 

by email at millerdc@id.doe.gov or 

phone (208) 526–5709 or visit the 

Board’s internet homepage at https://

energy.gov/em/icpcab. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 


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