ADVOCACY GROUPS: USEC FUNDING COMES AT EXPENSE OF NONPRO PROGRAMS

As the Nuclear Security Summit continues in Seoul, South Korea, a coalition of advocacy groups is urging Congressional appropriators to shift money that the Administration has requested for USEC to nonproliferation programs facing cuts. The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget request included $150 million in its nonproliferation account for a research and development program for USEC’s American Centrifuge project, while at the same time slashing funding for programs that detect and secure nuclear materials. “USEC is a private company and should be treated as most other private companies, not propped up repeatedly by the federal government,” states a letter by 16 advocacy groups including the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Friends Committee on National Legislation sent last week to the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee. It continues, “At a time that the Obama administration is proposing to cut funds to other truly essential nonproliferation programs, the proposed funds for USEC represent the worst kind of corporate welfare and protectionism. They not only take taxpayers’ money that would be better spent in the private sector to create jobs, they actually undermine U.S. nonproliferation goals.”