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USA Energy Dept broke laws to help uraniumcompany

GAO: Feds broke laws to help uranium company By Steven Mufson, The Washington Post June 9, 2014 WASHINGTON – The Energy Department, in an effort to prop up a troubled uranium enrichment company, arranged for uranium transfers that failed to comply with laws about fair pricing, national security determinations and limits to prevent the department from flooding the domestic uranium market, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released to the public Monday.

The company, USEC, ceased enrichment activities in May 2013 and declared bankruptcy in March 2014, battered by weak demand from nuclear plants, its outdated enrichment facility in Kentucky and a shortage of capital to invest in new technology and a plant in Ohio.

The GAO examined four transfers of uranium by the Energy Department in 2012 and 2013 that indirectly provided USEC with operating cash. ……….

“Our government has kept this uranium company on life support, wasting money and flouting the law, even though it was clear that it would end up in bankruptcy,” said Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who sits on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and who requested the study with Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas. “This is the kind of government waste that Americans just don’t understand. It’s time to commit this junk technology to the junk bin.”……..

the company has struggled. Its Paducah plant consumes as much electricity as the city of Memphis, and work on its new American Centrifuge technology at a plant in Ohio has stalled.

The entire Ohio congressional delegation and the Energy Department have defended USEC, saying it provides jobs and that it is needed as the only American-owned enrichment company to supply material to make tritium for U.S. weapons. Many experts dispute this, saying that the military has enough tritium to last a couple of decades.

USEC closed at $3.45 a share Monday, less than 1 percent of its May 2007 peak. The company is valued at $17 million……..http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2014/06/09/gao-feds-broke-laws-help-uranium-company/10266125/

June 11, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized