Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
10/13/2015
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and the Export-Import Bank could help U.S. nuclear energy companies compete in a global civil market that has been characterized partly by Russian and Chinese subsidies given to countries that buy their reactor technology, State Department officials said this week.
“We do not have the same ability, the same integration of state and government that allows exporting countries such as China and Russia to more aggressively offer price discounts and financing deals that are attractive to the [importing] countries that are just starting in the nuclear power industry,” Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation Thomas Countryman said during the American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting and Nuclear Technology Expo in Washington on Monday. “There is hope in the sense that we are moving to renewal of the Ex-Im Bank’s mandate, and there’s a need for aggressive use, also, of OPIC to oversee … investment cooperation, in order for U.S. firms to compete in a process that otherwise is skewed by economic subsidies for governments.”
The Senate and House have both passed a transportation bill that would revive the Ex-Im Bank, whose charter expired on June 30. The two chambers must submit a conference version of the bill to President Barack Obama before it becomes law. The House is on its Veterans Day recess until Monday. The Ex-Im Bank, which is the official export credit agency of the U.S., financing and insuring foreign purchases of U.S. goods for customers who cannot or will not accept credit risk, recently has drawn the ire of conservative Republicans who have called it “corporate welfare.” An Ex-Im Bank spokesperson declined to comment on the possibility that the institution would finance exports of U.S.-origin nuclear technology abroad, because of the bank’s current lapse of authority.
OPIC is a federal government agency that invests U.S.-derived private capital in foreign markets that face development challenges, and provides investors with financing, guarantees, political risk insurance, and support for private equity investment funds, according to its mission statement.
A State Department official with close knowledge of relevant discussions said the concept of using OPIC in 123 Agreements, that is, civil nuclear cooperation agreements with other countries, is in its “infant stages,” as industry officials have floated the concept in recent conversations with Foggy Bottom. “It’s mostly being raised by industry for the [U.S. government] to consider,” the official said in a brief interview yesterday. “This is not OPIC raising it, and this is not the State Department raising it, but this is coming from the industry.” The official said that there were no further details to provide about any possible plans to employ OPIC, because the idea is germinal.
OPIC’s Environmental and Social Policy currently bars the organization from production of or trade in radioactive materials, “including reactors and components thereof”; exceptions to that policy include the purchase of medical equipment, measurement equipment, and “any equipment for which OPIC considers the radioactive source to be trivial and adequately shielded.” An OPIC spokesperson confirmed that while the institution has provided financing and insurance for several thermal and renewable energy projects in the past, nuclear energy has not been part of its portfolio.
Countryman said one of the main countries the U.S. expects to economically compete with on the nuclear front is China; but he also said the recently renewed 30-year-old U.S.-China civil nuclear agreement could support American jobs. “Our civil nuclear agreement with China will allow for future joint U.S.-China supply partnerships, if China were to become a larger nuclear exporter in the future, and those export opportunities for the U.S. could support tens of thousands of high-paying American jobs,” he said. The Nuclear Energy Institute said yesterday the agreement has entered into force following diplomatic exchanges between the two countries, after passing a congressional review period on Aug. 1.
