National Security Watch: Lax uranium rules rile ex-regulators
Former nuclear regulators, citing terrorism concerns and outraged that the new energy bill passed by Congress reverses existing limits on uranium exports, plan to urge Congress to pass legislation that would restore a 1992 law restricting the amount of uranium that can be released from government inventories and sold in international commercial markets.
"At a time when we ought to be tightening the rules, Congress is loosening the rules. This was an opportunity to impose some restrictions, but now Congress is creating a loophole," Victor Gilinsky, commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations, told U.S. News. The $12.3 billion national energy bill was approved by the Senate on Friday afternoon and sent to the White House. A provision in the bill reverses a 1992 amendment that restricts the amount of highly enriched uranium that can be released from government inventories and sold to companies abroad that manufacture medical isotopes—radioactive materials used in hospitals to treat and diagnose illnesses. Four former nuclear regulators warned that loosening restrictions would increase the threat that terrorists could steal bomb-grade uranium.
"This provision never should have seen the light of day, and it should be fixed. We'll just try again next year," said Henry Sokolski, deputy for nonproliferation policy at the Pentagon in the George H.W. Bush administration. Sokolski, Gilinsky, and other former nuclear regulatory officials had sent a letter to Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican and chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Sen. Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, urging them not to loosen the export rules.
The letter was also signed by Peter Bradford, commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the Carter and Reagan administrations, and Fred C. Ikle, under secretary of defense in the Reagan administration and director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the Ford administration. In the version of the bill that was approved by the House before it went to conference committee, Barton had worked out a deal with House Democrats to keep the export restrictions on uranium in place. But later, the conference committee that works out the differences between House and Senate versions reverted to the Senate's language on the provision. The energy plan that was sent to the floor by the committee for the final vote in the House and Senate loosened the restrictions.
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