Energy Secretary Rick Perry told a Senate panel Tuesday he would like to end his agency’s uranium barter program, possibly as soon as fiscal 2019.
Testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on DOE’s $30.6 billion budget request for fiscal 2019, Perry said trading excess government uranium is a bad policy and should be suspended or ended as soon as possible. But Perry also told Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) the practice, which helps fund cleanup at DOE’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio, shouldn’t end until Congress appropriates enough money to avoid any disruptions there.
“I think this uranium bartering process has to be on my list of the most poorly designed policies I’ve ever come across since becoming secretary of energy,” Perry told Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who has placed a hold on the nomination of Anne Marie White to be assistant secretary of energy for environmental management over the barter issue.
Perry last May reduced the scope of the Energy Department’s annual uranium barter from 1,600 metric tons to 1,200 metric tons. The policy pits two important interests — the domestic uranium mining industry and remediation of old uranium enrichment facilities — against each other without serving either very well, he said Tuesday.
The community around Portsmouth needs assurance cleanup will continue apace without layoffs to the remediation workforce. But this assurance should come without the federal government undercutting uranium producers, Perry said.
In response to questions by Portman, Perry said he is committed to cleaning up Portsmouth, but would prefer “the old-fashioned way” through budget appropriation. But if that does not happen, Perry seemed to suggest the uranium barter could remain a backup option.
For fiscal 2019, the Trump administration is requesting $6.6 billion for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, up from the $6.5 billion for fiscal 2018. The Portsmouth cleanup budget would increase to $415 million, or $33 million above 2017 enacted spending.