WASHINGTON — Chris Wright, President-elect Donald Trump’s (R) pick for secretary of energy, said he would make it a priority to enrich uranium domestically Wednesday at his confirmation hearing.
“We have lost our ability to enrich uranium in this country, to construct plutonium pits, and to do so many critical things that are key to our nuclear arsenal,” Wright told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “I am highly motivated and highly concerned that we need to make progress on the safety and security of the stockpile of our nuclear weapons.”
Wright’s response followed questioning from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), who represents personnel at the Nevada National Security Site, who asked Wright to explain his understanding of the Department of Energy’s role in defense and national security.
“The NNSA as a part of DOE is the critical designer, maintainer and builder through contractors of our nation’s nuclear arsenal,” Wright told Cortez Masto. “This is the ultimate guarantor of our sovereignty. I take that responsibility very seriously together with the coming instabilities in our electrical grid, it is my single biggest concern in this job.”
Later in the hearing, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) asked Wright to expand on his comments on uranium enrichment, and whether he would make it a priority in the US.
“It is a significant hole in the U.S. arsenal right now,” Wright said. “It’s technology we developed, but yet we import most of it from abroad. Most of it that’s enriched in the U.S. is by companies that are not American companies. Yes, we need to build American nuclear infrastructure. On mining, on enrichment, on power production and on waste disposal.”
