Government & Policy Roundup

The Department of Energy says it will allocate up to $1.6 million this year for industry studies on the best ways to produce hydrogen with existing commercial nuclear reactors. DOE proposes to partner with industry on feasibility studies using small-scale equipment at reactors for up to three years to examine the economic implications and environmental impacts of producing hydrogen in this manner.

Samuel Aronson will become interim director of Brookhaven National Laboratory when the current director, Praveen Chaudhari, steps down on April 30. Aronson, a physicist, is the lab's associate director for high-energy and nuclear physics, overseeing the relativistic heavy ion collider and the lab's physics department.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ordered FDA to make a decision on the application for the generic human growth hormone Omnitrope. Sandoz, the generic drug unit of Novartis, sued FDA for taking almost three years to act on the company's application. Federal law says FDA must act on applications within 180 days.