nuclear-news

USA to sell nukes to China. Profit for corporations versus national security

Congress’s Other Nuclear Test A pending 30-year deal with China requires oversight too. WSJ 26 July 15  “……The deal’s basic purpose is to allow China to keep buying nuclear power plants from U.S. suppliers such as Westinghouse Electric, a slice of bilateral trade responsible for thousands of U.S. jobs, according to industry estimates. Yet civil-nuclear business carries proliferation risks, as technology used in power plants can also serve various military purposes.

Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton oppose the deal given China’s record of proliferating to Iran, North Korea and Pakistan. China has also secretly diverted U.S.-produced nuclear-reactor cooling pumps to make its naval submarines more quiet and therefore more stealthy, as confirmed in Congressional testimony by Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman in May. Such diversion violated China’s commitment to “peaceful use” of imported nuclear technology……..

A House amendment to the defense spending bill would require that the DNI and the Chief of Naval Operations weigh in on interagency approvals of future civil-nuclear sales to China, with the aim of mitigating risks of military diversion.

The Nuclear Energy Institute and other industry lobbyists protest that this provision would add needless bureaucratic review. …http://www.wsj.com/articles/congresss-other-nuclear-test-1437910661

July 29, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA