Westinghouse got roped into a brewing political battle in Washington on Tuesday, when the Democratic-controlled House Oversight and Reform Committee ordered the White House to turn over records of the Donald Trump administration’s exploration of possible nuclear-power exports to Saudi Arabia.
Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) ordered the administration to by March 5 produce any records of communication, or attempted communication, between Westinghouse and the White House, dating to Jan. 20, 2017: the first day of the Trump administration. That would include communication between the company and Trump himself, if any.
A Westinghouse spokesperson did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the matter. Cummings demanded the communications in a Feb. 19 letter to White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, in which the House’s lead executive watchdog also demanded records of communications with many other parties.
Cummings said he launched his investigation because recent whistleblower disclosures left him concerned that the Trump administration wanted to fast track nuclear technology exports to Saudi Arabia without first obtaining a so-called 123 agreement with Riyadh.
Such agreements, named after Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act, require an importing nation to build only peaceful nuclear power programs, with strict safeguards to prevent technology from being weaponized. If a potential importer signs a 123 agreement, Congress can only object to the associated technology transfer by passing a joint House-Senate resolution.
At the center of Cummings’ probe is former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, who resigned in disgrace after less than a month on the job when he admitted he had lied about pre-Inauguration Day contacts with Russia. Cummings on Tuesday highlighted previous media reports that Flynn had pushed for U.S. nuclear exports to the Middle East to prevent regional powers from acquiring the technology from Russia or China.
There is persistent bipartisan worry in Congress about exporting nuclear power technology to Saudi Arabia, which some lawmakers worry could be priming for an arms-race with its nuclear-interested neighbor, Iran. The latest formal expression of this concern appeared last week, when Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), outspoken nuclear doves, and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) banded together on a nonbinding resolution “requiring any civilian nuclear deal between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to be held to the highest possible nonproliferation standard,” per a Merkley press release.
