There are numerous “legal concerns” with several recent Department of Energy uranium transfers that supported USEC, according to a Government Accountability Office report released yesterday that sparked strong disagreement from DOE. The Department undertook four uranium transfers in 2012 and 2013 largely to help fund USEC’s American Centrifuge technology, as well as provide enriched uranium that can be used for national security purposes. “GAO identified legal concerns with all four of DOE’s uranium transactions. For the largest transaction—DOE’s transfer of tails to a third party for re-enrichment—GAO believes that DOE likely did not have authority to transfer tails under restrictions imposed by the USEC Privatization Act,” the GAO report states. In another case, DOE gave uranium back to USEC in 2013 that it had originally taken over liability for from the company in 2012. “DOE transferred ownership of uranium material that it previously obtained to meet national security needs, without obtaining a presidential determination that the uranium material was no longer necessary for national security needs, as GAO found is required by the USEC Privatization Act,” the report states
However, DOE has fought back against GAO’s legal conclusions. “The heart of the GAO draft report is that two elements of the USEC Privatization Act … by their silence have repealed express provisions of the Atomic Energy Act that explicitly authorize DOE to engage in certain transactions involving uranium and other materials,” DOE Deputy General Counsel Eric Fygi said in an April 18 letter to GAO in response to a draft report. It adds later, “Such patently erroneous legal contentions cannot contribute to meaningful assessments of the Department’s performance of its various responsibilities.” But GAO said that DOE’s response “has offered no compelling reason to reach different conclusions than in our report. GAO and DOE therefore continue to disagree,” according to the report.
GAO also found that DOE has not done enough to ensure that there is no market impact from its uranium transfers, and has also never applied a consistent value to the depleted uranium tails used in the trades. While GAO recommended increased transparency and engagement with stakeholders on the issue, the call for DOE to outline legal authority for its transfers was opposed by DOE. “We find it difficult to reconcile DOE’s unwillingness to improve publicly available information about its uranium transactions with the stated objectives of DOE’s 2013 uranium management plan, which seeks to provide current information and enhanced transparency to the general public and interested stakeholders regarding DOE’s management of its uranium inventory,” the GAO report states.
