The House Armed Services Committee should get access “in the very near term” to 810 authorizations the Department of Energy granted to still-unidentified U.S. companies to export nuclear-power technology to Saudi Arabia, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administrator (NNSA) said in congressional testimony.
“The Department is moving aggressively to provide information and I guarantee you that it will be done in the very near term,” NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty told Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, during a Tuesday hearing.
“I believe that some of the [subcommittee] staff have already been briefed on the Part 810s to date,” Gordon-Hagerty said, adding that the NNSA would be “as responsive as we can be to the committee.”
Congress broadly opposes exporting nuclear power technology to Saudi Arabia, and lawmakers of both parties have called on the White House to cease its drive to make a nuclear deal with Riyadh because of its alleged role in the October murder of journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
On Wednesday, Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) filed a bill with a bipartsan group of three co-sponsors that would require DOE to file regular reports with Congress about applications for, and approvals of, 810 authorizations. The Energy Department can presently approve such applications unilaterally, and without telling anyone outside the agency.
Asked by Cooper whether DOE “had any opportunity to check the beneficial ownership of any of the entities that were involved with those filings,” Gordon-Hagerty said “yes.”
“I have made that request and the lawyers are looking at that right now, as we discussed,” Gordon-Hagerty said. “I took your point, and we are looking into it right now.”
In late March, Energy Secretary Rick Perry told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the United States wants to sell nuclear power technology to Saudi Arabia because the Kingdom would otherwise acquire the knowledge and materials to start a nuclear program from China and Russia, which “don’t give a tinker’s dam” about nonproliferation.
Part 810 authorizations, named for a section of the Atomic Energy Act, allow “technology transfers and assistance related to certain nuclear fuel-cycle activities, commercial nuclear power plants, and research and test reactors,” according to DOE’s summary of the Atomic Energy Act.
The Energy Department has said its 810 authorizations did not authorize export of “nuclear material, equipment or components” to Saudi Arabia.
