On Tuesday, the Senate voted unanimously to ban imports of Russian uranium by 2028, setting the stage to wean U.S. power plants off the imported fuel this decade.
The Senate approved a bill that the House passed in December and which would make Russian uranium illegal in the U.S. by Jan. 1, 2028. U.S. utilities widely use uranium fuel from the federation to power commercial nuclear plants.
Companies including Centrus Energy Corp. broker Russian uranium to reactor operators and have for years.
But lawmakers’ appetite to tolerate Russian imports has dried up two years after the federation invaded Ukraine for the second time this century. In an attempt to justify another territorial grab on NATO’s eastern flank, Moscow claimed that it was protecting ethnic Russians in Ukraine from a hostile Ukrainian government.
Under the bill now awaiting a signature from President Joe Bide (D), some imports of Russian uranium could continue until 2028, provided the importers get a waiver from the Department of Energy.
The bill’s passage follows recent talk in Washington of a unilateral executive-branch ban on Russian uranium.
The Joe Biden administration had supported a ban on Russian uranium but had opposed going cold-turkey until there was a domestic enrichment industry to replace the gap an import ban would create. For that reason, the White House wanted to parcel any ban on Russian uranium with a cash infusion of billions for U.S.- or ally-owned enrichment infrastructure at home.
The investment the White House sought arrived in March as part of the appropriations package that funded the Department of Energy and other federal agencies for the remainder of fiscal year 2024, which runs through Sept. 30.