Westinghouse got roped into a brewing political battle in Washington this week, when the Democratic-controlled House Oversight and Reform Committee ordered the White House to turn over records of the Donald Trump administration’s exploration of possible nuclear-power exports to Saudi Arabia.
Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) directed the administration to by March 5 produce any records of communication, or attempted communication, between Westinghouse and the White House, dating to Jan. 20, 2017: the first day of the Trump administration. That would include communication between the company and Trump himself, if any.
Cummings demanded the communications in a Feb. 19 letter to acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, in which the House’s lead executive watchdog also demanded records of communications with many other parties. Among these: former National Security Advisory Michael Flynn and the former deputy manager of the Trump presidential campaign, Rick Gates. The latter pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and conspiracy as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of foreign interference in the 2016 general election.
Cummings said he launched his investigation because recent whistleblower disclosures left him concerned that the Trump administration wanted to fast-track nuclear technology exports to Saudi Arabia without first obtaining a so-called 123 agreement with Riyadh.
Such agreements, named after Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act, require an importing nation to build only peaceful nuclear power programs, with strict safeguards to prevent technology from being weaponized. If a potential importer signs a 123 agreement, Congress can only object to the associated technology transfer by passing a joint House-Senate resolution.
A Westinghouse spokesperson deferred requests for comment to Brookfield Business Partners of Canada, which acquired the company in bankruptcy. Brookfield did not reply to a request for comment. Westinghouse manufactures nuclear reactor technology and is a returning player to legacy nuclear-weapon cleanup in the United States.
At the center of Cummings’ probe is Flynn, who resigned as national security adviser in February 2017 after less than a month on the job when he admitted to lying about pre-Inauguration Day contacts with Russia. Cummings on Tuesday highlighted previous media reports that Flynn, and his company called IP3, had pushed for U.S. nuclear exports to the Middle East to prevent regional powers from acquiring the technology from Russia or China.
Among other things, Cummings demanded a copy of a letter he said IP3 wrote to Saudi Arabian Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2017, around the time Westinghouse declared bankruptcy. In the missive, the company broached the idea of partnering with Riyadh to acquire Westinghouse. Brookfield ultimately acquired the reactor manufacturer in 2018.
IP3 is still around. Last week, it was widely reported that the company organized a meeting between White House officials and nuclear industry players including AECOM, BWXT, Centrus Energy Corp., Exelon, General Electric, Lightbridge, Nuscale, TerraPower, Westinghouse, and X-energy.
Cummings had not scheduled any public hearings about his investigation, at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
There is persistent bipartisan worry in Congress about exporting nuclear power technology to Saudi Arabia, which some lawmakers worry could be priming for an arms-race with its nuclear-interested neighbor, Iran. The latest formal expression of this concern appeared last week, when Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), outspoken nuclear doves, and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) banded together on a nonbinding resolution “requiring any civilian nuclear deal between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to be held to the highest possible nonproliferation standard,” per a Merkley press release.
Last year, Markey and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) issued another bipartisan rebuke to the administration’s effort to export nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after the White House refused to condemn the kingdom’s reported role in the murder of U.S. resident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Turkey in October. The bill, which lapsed after the end of the 115th Congress on Jan. 3, would have changed U.S. law to require congressional approval of all future 123 agreements.
Editor’s note: the story was changed to include Mick Mulvaney’s correct title.
