In what could be a bid to save a major nuclear-nonproliferation project in his state, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) was to meet Monday with President Donald Trump in Washington, sources said.
Earlier this month, McMaster — an early political supporter of the president — said he wanted to appeal to Trump personally to save the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Fabrication Facility (MFFF). The Department of Energy wants to cancel the unfinished plant’s plutonium-disposal mission and instead convert the MFFF into a factory to produce up to 50 nuclear warhead cores — or pits — each year by 2030.
The planned meeting, which McMaster’s office would not confirm, would be the governor’s chance to voice his concerns directly to the man who carried South Carolina by 14 points in the 2016 presidential election. If the appeal fails, McMaster has not ruled out suing the Department of Energy to stop it from canceling MFFF.
McMaster met Friday with South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) regarding the path forward for the MFFF. Graham and Wilson’s offices confirmed the lawmakers spoke to McMaster on Friday about the facility, but would not comment further.
McMaster and members of South Carolina’s congressional delegation are open to taking on DOE’s plutonium pit mission — previously to be handled solo by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico — but not if it means canceling the MFFF’s nonproliferation mission. The governor has said it will take years for jobs associated with the pit plant to materialize, whereas the MOX project is already a major employer for nearby Aiken, S.C., and surrounding areas.
The MFFF is intended would turn 34 metric tons of weapon-grade plutonium into commercial reactor under an arms-control pact with Russia. The plant was supposed to be finished in 2016 and is, by its prime contractor’s estimate, about $5 billion over budget after $5 billion spent, and more than a decade behind schedule.
The Energy Department says it will cost about $50 billion to dispose of the plutonium using the MFFF, and only about $20 million for an alternative called dilute-and-dispose, which Congress has yet to fund.
