Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Chairman, my amendment would reinforce the Department of Energy's already existing legal obligations when it sells or transfers excess uranium from the Federal inventory.

One of these legal obligations is called the ``Secretarial Determination'' that the uranium transfers will not have an adverse material impact on the domestic uranium industry. The other obligation is to comply with the public notice and comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act.

The Department's actions regarding uranium have come under justified scrutiny, so I will take both of them in turn.

First, my amendment reinforces the required Secretarial Determination that uranium transfers do not adversely impact the domestic uranium industries.

Congress decided to require a Secretarial Determination because, if the government dumps too much uranium onto the market, it can artificially distort the market and hurt domestic uranium industries. These include uranium mining, uranium conversion, and uranium enrichment industries, all crucial to developing a more robust domestic uranium supply chain to feed our nuclear power plants.

Right now, 90 percent of the uranium used to provide electricity in this country is imported, but it doesn't have to be that way. Here in the United States, including my home State of Wyoming, we have abundant uranium resources. With uranium from American soil and through American jobs, we can correct this imbalance; but the task is made difficult, if not impossible, with the Department of Energy's cavalier uranium transfers.

The Secretarial Determination process has, unfortunately, become a sham. Instead of protecting domestic uranium industries, it has become a tool to destroy them. Prior to the May 15, 2014, Secretarial Determination, the Department commissioned a market analysis that concluded the uranium transfers would reduce employment in the domestic uranium industries by 4 percent and reduce the spot price for mined uranium by 8 percent. That is what their own market analysis provided. Yet the Department is ignoring the results of its own study and is proceeding anyway, based on other information and analysis it decided not to share with the public.

My amendment uses the power of the purse to reinforce existing statutory law, lest the Department flaunt the law, rendering it meaningless.

Second, my amendment reinforces the Department's obligation to comply with the public notice and comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act. The Department of Energy has used its excess uranium as a slush fund, selling or bartering uranium to subsidize failed companies like the U.S. Enrichment Corporation or to fund other programs without having to come to Congress for the money. This program has operated in the shadows, making a mockery of our budget process.

I want to quote a recent GAO report on the Department's uranium transfers. It says:

We believe transparency is a fundamental tenet of good government and that our recommendations support actions needed to enhance DOE's transparency.

The GAO identified uranium transfers at below market value to prop up USEC, shortchanging the taxpayer and further distorting uranium markets. The report documented shortcomings in the Department's market analysis of how the transfers would impact uranium markets and the failure of the Department to adequately consult with the domestic industries. Unfortunately, on GAO's Web site, all of their recommendations to the Department to increase the transparency of its uranium transfers remained unfulfilled.

My amendment simply reinforces the existing obligation of the Department to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act. Like any other agency, they have a legal obligation to engage in reasoned decisionmaking, not shadowed and arbitrary uranium transactions.

My amendment barely touches the legislative reforms needed to fix this broken program, but I want to thank Chairman Simpson for helping me at least identify a way to address this issue that might be suitable to the appropriations process.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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