Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Michael Burgess (R-Texas) yesterday called on the Government Accountability Office to investigate the Department of Energy’s support for USEC. “We believe that this support is unlikely to result in the successful commercialization of USEC’s domestic uranium enrichment technology, may have been and may continue to be undertaken in contravention of various laws, and is additionally unjustifiable using assertions of this project’s importance to national security,” the lawmakers wrote in a six-page letter to GAO Comptroller General Gene Dodaro. The letter comes after the House passed an Energy and Water spending bill last week providing $100 million for a research, development and deployment program tailored to commercialize USEC’s American Centrifuge Project. Burgess and Markey offered an amendment during floor debate to strip the funding from the bill, but that effort ultimately failed.
The lawmakers also cited the $44 million in uranium tails liability DOE took on early this year from USEC to free up money for the company to spend on the enrichment program. USEC is hoping for additional DOE funding for the project by the end of this week. Additionally, the letter mentions an agreement reached last month involving the re-enrichment of uranium tails in order to keep the USEC-operated Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant running. Among other potential violations the letter alleges, it states that the tails deal may violate the USEC Privatization Act because the law requires DOE to ensure that its uranium transfers do not adversely impact the market. DOE provided a market analysis supporting that decision, which has been criticized by the mining industry. “The Department of Energy has been harming the uranium mining industry for years, dumping excess uranium tails into the market to prop up a failing company that couldn’t stand on its own feet. As a result, thousands of miners from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, Utah, and others, have had their livelihoods put in jeopardy,” Burgess said in a statement. “It is time the Department of Energy is held accountable for their activities. This GAO report will be the first step in bringing justice for an industry still hurting damaged by Department of Energy policies.”
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