The Donald Trump administration has not “committed wrongdoing” by authorizing U.S. companies to share nuclear-energy technology with Saudi Arabia, Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform said this week.
The committee minority on Monday published the conclusion in a nine-page report posted online almost six months after the House Democratic majority announced it was investigating the administration’s interest in exporting nuclear energy technology to Riyadh.
“In the course of the Committee’s oversight, the Committee has received no documents proving that the White House rushed any transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia,” according to the report.
The majority had not published a final report on the topic at deadline for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor. A spokesperson for committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) did not reply to a request for comment. The GOP finding was a response to an interim staff report Cummings published in February, in which the chairman revealed that White House whistleblowers were concerned the administration might be trying to short-circuit U.S. export control law.
Cummings said he launched his investigation because 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 the nation.
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.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry has since 2017 given seven U.S. companies 810 authorizations to share nuclear-power knowledge with the Saudi government. The 810 Authorization gets its name from another part of the Atomic Energy Act.
Congress is broadly skeptical about exporting nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, which says it is exploring peaceful nuclear power as an alternative to domestic oil. Nonproliferation hawks worry nuclear energy might be a gateway drug to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, where Riyadh’s regional competitor, Iran, already has the capability to enrich uranium and develop a nuclear power program.
Israel already possesses nuclear weapons, though the country does not admit this officially.
