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The Senate passed on Saturday a House measure that includes an amendment by retiring Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) to create new incentives for Russia to keep blending excess military stocks of weapons-usable high enriched uranium (HEU) down to civil low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel after 2013.
Senators passed this measure, a so-called "continuing resolution" (CR) to fund government until early March 2009, in a 78-to-12 vote. The House passed the CR on Wednesday in a 370-to-58 vote.
Moscow is already downblending 500 metric tons of Soviet-era military HEU under the terms of its 1993 accord with Washington that led to the creation of the Megatons to Megawatts program. But this accord, which correspondingly obligates the U.S. to sell this downblended LEU to American nuclear power utilities on behalf of Russia, is set to expire in 2013.
Russian LEU imports into the U.S. outside of Megatons to Megawatts are strictly limited by the Department of Commerce.
According to the Department of Energy, roughly 50 percent of the nuclear fuel used by U.S. civil nuclear power reactors comes from the Megatons to Megawatts program's downblended Russian LEU.
Posted by Robert at September 27, 2008 6:58 PM