Posted on Thu, Jul. 27, 2006

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Lawmakers scramble to save MOX plant

S.C. congressional delegation rallies for SRS program

By JAMES ROSEN

Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON — Senior U.S. nonproliferation officials urged lawmakers Wednesday to save a post-Cold War program aimed at slashing American and Russian stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium left from dismantled nuclear arms.

A House bid to block $368 million for the Savannah River Site to convert the plutonium into fuel for nuclear power plants galvanized the South Carolina congressional delegation to salvage the program.

Rep. John Spratt, a York Democrat, convened a House committee hearing also attended by Republican Reps. Joe Wilson of West Columbia and Gresham Barrett of Westminster. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham hosted an urgent meeting Tuesday of South Carolina and Georgia lawmakers with Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and White House budget director Rob Portman.

Energy Department workers have already broken ground for a plutonium-conversion plant on the sprawling Savannah River Site complex in Aiken County. If the program to convert plutonium to mixed oxide, or MOX, fuel is ended, it would cost thousands of promised constructions jobs, and hundreds of permanent ones, for South Carolina and Georgia workers.

It would also saddle South Carolina with tons of highly toxic plutonium from nuclear arms made at the Savannah River Site and other government weapons factories elsewhere in the country.

“Without a MOX fuel-fabrication plant, South Carolina will be stuck with tons of weapons-grade plutonium with no clear pathway for disposal,” Spratt said at a session of the House Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces subcommittee.

Duke Energy is already burning MOX fuel from Europe, where it is widely used, in a test project at its Catawba Nuclear Station in York.

But, upset by delays, cost increases and changes by the Russian government since the 2000 inception of the program, the House in May removed $368 million in funding for the project from a massive energy appropriations bill.

Almost $418 million for the program remains in the Senate’s version of the funding measure, and the two chambers will have to settle their differences before final passage later this year.

Wilson said backing away from the MOX program would cost Americans more money and harm U.S. standing in the world.

“MOX is the best form of disposition for the American taxpayer,” he said. “Building this facility sends a clear signal to the international community that we are serious about maintaining our commitment to dispose of excess plutonium.”