GROUPS WEIGH IN ON MOX PROJECT ON EVE OF BUDGET REQUEST

With the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility project expected to face a significant budget cut in the Administration’s budget request, a number of advocacy groups are weighing in on MOX. The Project on Government Oversight yesterday contacted supporters urging them to submit a form letter to lawmakers opposing funding for the project. “The project is a decade behind schedule, billions of dollars over budget and to date has not lined up a single customer. Not one,” the letter states, adding, “But it gets worse. There’s a plan to spend another $1 billion on the program—just to finish the roof over the facility and then mothball it. That is a pretty expensive roof.” The MOX project is undergoing a baseline change, and recent estimates from the Government Accountability Office cite a nearly $3 billion increase in total project cost and a three-year delay in startup of the plant.

The Heritage Foundation made several arguments favoring Congressional funding of the plant in a brief posted Monday. “Congress may proceed in supporting the MOX facility in a responsible way by establishing a policy governing the facility that makes three key distinctions,” it states. That includes emphasis that the program is part of an agreement with Russia to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus plutonium, and not a commercial energy program, that it is an arms control agreement, and that it does therefore not need to be commercially viable. “Thus, Congress should be clear that it accepts that the weapons disposition agreement with Russia will impose a net cost on the U.S. government,” it states. “As a result, Congress should also make it explicit that it will support public funding for the construction and operation of this facility on this basis. The facility deserves the funding and should not be seen as an unwarranted subsidy to the nuclear power sector.”