Nevermind WMD, we've got bomb-grade uranium to sell

[charlie]

While the media scares the pants off everyone with talk of a nuked-up Al Qaeda, Congress inserts an amendment (already rejected in June) into the Energy Bill, to save a few bucks for a Canadian company that already has enough weapons-grade uranium for 2 Hiroshima bombs and doesn't have to meet Energy Dept standards for security.

A provision tucked into the 1,724-page energy bill that Congress is poised to enact today would ease export restrictions on bomb-grade uranium, a lucrative victory for a Canadian medical manufacturer and its well-wired Washington lobbyists.

The Burr Amendment -- named for its sponsor, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) -- would reverse a 13-year-old U.S. policy banning exports of weapons-grade uranium unless the recipients agree to start converting their reactors to use less-dangerous uranium. The Senate rejected the measure last month after critics in both parties warned that it would accelerate the worldwide proliferation of nuclear materials, but a House-Senate conference committee agreed this week to include it in the final bill.

The amendment is just one of dozens of obscure special-interest provisions included in the energy bill, which the House passed yesterday and the Senate is expected to pass today. The amendment's supporters say it will ensure a steady supply of medical isotopes, which are used to diagnose and treat 14 million Americans every year, including patients afflicted with cancer, heart disease and epilepsy. But it will also be a boon to the world's leading producer of those isotopes, an Ottawa-based company called MDS Nordion, which would otherwise have to spend millions of dollars to retrofit its reactor for low-grade uranium.

...

"I've never done that before, but this is outrageous," Markey said. "To save one Canadian company some money, we're willing to blow a hole in our nonproliferation policies."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/28/AR2005072801961_pf.html

Senator Blanche Lincoln was a supporter of the amendment.

Edit: the forum software strips "form" out of the document address. The contact link is http://lincoln.senate.gov/webform.html

[Starfury]

1. Amazing....just when I thought I'd seen it all....sigh. n/t

[nicknameless]

2. Nominating, kicking ... pounding head against wall.

"Congress is poised to ... ease export restrictions on bomb-grade uranium"

A nation governed by sadistic psychopaths.

:kick:

[charlie]

3. Getcher redhot uranium

:kick: *kick*

US policy was set in 1992. In order to obtain a license to purchase Highly Enriched Uranium, a company had to make a good faith effort to do the conversion to Low Enriched Uranium processing. So...

MDS Nordion since 1996 has been constructing an Ontario production plant that would use only HEU, according to Grant Malkoske, the company's vice president for engineering and technology. He said the company is studying alternatives but remains unconvinced that the plant can be "converted economically" to low-enriched uranium.

"This isn't a proliferation issue; it's a health care issue," Malkoske said, explaining that the new provision would give the company "clarity" about its ability to keep making isotopes with HEU.

...

The firms have long sought an exemption from a requirement to develop new production techniques, with U.S. government help, that use low-enriched uranium -- an action U.S. officials say will initially cost each firm millions of dollars but could lead to lower operating costs.

http://www.fairopinions.com/news/index.asp?id=190277