Bizarro policy: Blessing Iran’s enrichment program while crippling our own

The day after Senate Democrats blocked a GOP resolution rejecting the Iran nuclear deal, the Obama administration announced that it would cut off funding for the only U.S. uranium enrichment facility capable of serving the country’s national security needs.  Located in Piketon, Ohio, the facility is home – at least for now – to a classified, highly advanced technology that represents our best chance to restore America’s capability to enrich uranium for critical national security purposes.   If the White House is successful, most of that technology, in a few months, would be systematically dismantled.

Given the fact that President Obama had requested full funding for the U.S. enrichment technology program through the remainder of his term, this policy shift shocked many people.  Why would the White House decide, seemingly overnight, to end a program of such vital national importance without any public discourse?

{mosads}Enriched uranium is primarily used as a fuel for civilian nuclear reactors, and the ability to sell it is viewed as a strategic, national asset in many parts of the world – with the notable exception of the United States.  Foreign-owned enterprises, largely if not entirely backed by their governments in Western Europe and Russia, jockey daily to gain a monopoly over the international market.  In this fight, the United States, which has the world’s largest fleet of civilian nuclear reactors, is by far the biggest prize.  Without its own enrichment capability, the United States will have no plans to counter foreign commercial competition in this strategic space – a point that would certainly surprise the vast majority of the American public.  After all, the U.S. nuclear fleet generates roughly 20 percent of U.S. electricity.

Perhaps more importantly, enriched uranium is also used for national security and nonproliferation applications, including the production of tritium to increase the potency of nuclear weapons.  Nonproliferation agreements and treaties require nuclear-weapons countries, like the United States, to use uranium enriched by their own technology for national security purposes. Accordingly, nuclear fuel produced by foreign technology – even if those foreign companies owning that technology have plants in the United States, like the Urenco facility in New Mexico – is off limits for such U.S. purposes.

Not surprisingly, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has said very little about the decision in public and likely hopes the decision escapes scrutiny.  However, the limited explanation they have thus far provided simply raises more questions.  For example, the Department acknowledges that delaying the program would cost the federal government an additional $3 to 8 billion. This government estimate is certainly highly optimistic given the need to develop and deploy a new skilled workforce, expertise, and other required critical assets.  Recruiting a person who can work in a uranium enrichment plant is not the same as hiring a cashier at a fast food restaurant.

This most recent decision follows the unfortunate shutdown of America’s last remaining commercial uranium enrichment plant, located in Paducah, Kentucky, in 2013 – primarily because of excessive energy costs.  EPA greenhouse regulations on power plants and the resulting premature shutdown of coal plants providing electricity to Paducah made it even more impossible for operations to continue without significant federal government support.  Thus, since the beginning of the Obama administration, the United States has lost its only commercial enrichment facility and potentially its only viable replacement technology – leaving the United States without any real pathway or strategy regarding uranium enrichment.

In this case of apparent Bizarro World decisions – when nothing appears to make sense, it’s easy to fall for conspiracy theories. But whatever the reasoning, it certainly appears that the current administration wishes to limit the options of the next president — regardless of political affiliation – to rapidly restore America’s enrichment capability.  The Department of Energy has informed Congress that it doesn’t plan to get an enrichment capability back on line for perhaps two decades.  While the next president could resurrect the program more quickly (and probably will have to in order to meet U.S. national security requirements), the task will be more difficult and more expensive as a result of the ill-considered decision to cease operations at the Piketon plant. Such a significant policy shift that could cripple U.S. uranium enrichment policy – and possibly future U.S. defense capabilities – should not be determined in the final year of any administration, particularly when the decision appears to be irrational on its face and without the input of the public.  Our next president should have the flexibility to weigh the costs and benefits of pursuing such action, particularly given current global security uncertainties.

There is good news.  The omnibus funding legislation passed by Congress includes the funding needed to continue the demonstration program in Ohio.  The administration only needs to use it, and quickly, before the plant is shuttered, the equipment destroyed, and the skilled workforce scattered to the winds.

Given the security threats that face the United States today, now is no time to abandon U.S. uranium enrichment.

Banks is the executive vice president with the American Council for Capital Formation.