Eugene Kiely reports that the 2010 deal allowed Rosatom, the Russian nuclear energy agency, to acquire a controlling stake in Uranium One, a Canadian-based company with mining stakes in the Western United States.
Uranium One has two licensed mining operations in Wyoming that amount to about “20 percent of the currently licensed uranium in-situ recovery production capacity in the U.S.,†according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In-situ recovery is the extraction method used by 10 of the 11 licensed U.S. uranium producers. Uranium One also has exploration projects in Arizona, Colorado and Utah. But the deal required multiple approvals by the U.S., beginning with the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States. Under federal law, the committee reviews foreign investments that raise potential national security concerns.
For this and other reasons, Kiely has written that Trump is wrong to claim that Clinton “gave away 20 percent of the uranium in the United States†to Russia. Clinton could have objected, as could the eight other voting members, but that objection alone wouldn’t have stopped the sale of the stake of Uranium One to Rosatom. “Only the President has the authority to suspend or prohibit a covered transaction,†the federal guidelines say.
No Uranium One, Inc.-produced uranium has been shipped directly to Russia and the U.S. Government has not authorized any country to re-transfer U.S. uranium to Russia,†the 2015 letter said. “That 2015 statement remains true today,†David McIntyre, a spokesman for the NRC, told us in an email.
Uranium One, which is now wholly-owned subsidiary of Rosatom, sells uranium to civilian power reactors in the United States, according to the Energy Information Administration. But U.S. owners and operators of commercial nuclear reactors purchase the vast majority of their uranium from foreign sources. Only 11 percent of the 50.6 million pounds purchased in 2016 came from U.S. domestic producers, according to the EIA.
Although Uranium One holds 20 percent of currently licensed uranium in-situ recovery production capacity in the U.S., the company was responsible for only about 11 percent of U.S. uranium production in 2014, according to 2015 congressional testimony by a Department of Energy contractor.
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