DOE REPROGRAMMING LIKELY MOVE FOR USEC RD&D PROGRAM

The balance of a Department of Energy research, development and deployment program supporting USEC’s American Centrifuge could be funded by a DOE reprogramming, USEC CEO John Welch said late last week. The RD&D program is set to wrap up at the end of 2013, but current funding runs out at the end of the fiscal year in October, leaving a gap of about $48 million. “They have the authority to reprogram Fiscal Year ‘13 funds to fill that gap,” Welch told RW Monitor following USEC’s annual shareholders meeting Thursday. “So if there is a Continuing Resolution, they would probably look at some sort of method to continue that same level of effort that has been going on.”

In the past, DOE has supported USEC through administrative actions involving uranium transfers that have garnered criticism from some lawmakers, but its Fiscal Year 2014 budget request asks for authority to transfer up to $48 million from other DOE funds. That move has already been approved by House appropriators in the spending bill that cleared committee last week. Notably, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said earlier this month that he would work with Congress to secure any remaining funding what asked at a House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee hearing about the Department’s plans. “We are going to have to have that discussion with Congress on the funding. I very much want to see that demonstration completed because I think that’s a critical decision point for the path forward,” Moniz said at the June 13 hearing.