Responding to the Department of Energy’s arguments for continuing uranium transfers, uranium conversion company ConverDyn believes the Department’s Secretarial Determination was “fatally flawed from the outset,” according to a court filing this week. Last month ConverDyn filed in federal court a request for a preliminary injunction to block transfers scheduled to start this month, claiming DOE did not meet a requirement to ensure they won’t negatively impact on the company’s business. However, DOE responded that greater harm would come from halting the DOE programs largely funded by the transfers. “DOE, dead-set on making uranium transfers to meet contractual obligations and to fund its various programs, failed to reasonably determine that the transfers will not harm the U.S. conversion industry,” states the July 14 ConverDyn filing in the U.S. District Court for D.C. “DOE also failed to refute the grim evidence of harm to ConverDyn identified by DOE’s own experts. Contrary to DOE’s arguments, ConverDyn will suffer serious and irreparable harm due to irreversible market impacts if DOE completes the transfers starting on July 31.”
The Department’s transfers of excess uranium are used to largely fund cleanup work at the Portsmouth site and a highly enriched uranium downblend program. Those could come to a halt if the transfers are stopped, DOE has argued. But ConverDyn says DOE hasn’t proven the harm it would suffer from stopped transfers. “DOE has not established that funding for the two programs identified in its brief cannot be found elsewhere, either through additional appropriations or reprogramming funds, as it is legally allowed to do,” the filing states. “Nor has it explained why ConverDyn should bear the burden of funding these programs when Congress has repeatedly declined to fund them through the normal appropriations process.”
DOE took on a risk when it decided to largely fund the programs through uranium transfer, according to ConverDyn. “DOE knew that additional transfers might not occur if they would harm the U.S. conversion industry, yet it committed to transfer uranium anyway,” the filing states. “DOE should not now benefit from its poor choices by shifting that burden onto ConverDyn. Having gambled and lost, the government is ‘hoist on its own petard.’”
