Washington, D.C. – Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-TX), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, issued the following statement on the announcement from the Department of Energy this week to cut funding for the wasteful American Centrifuge Project.

“For the past decade, the Department of Energy has failed to do its due-diligence when taking hard-earned tax dollars and wasting them on a project in a way that was careless and profligate. While provided an overly generous array of federal resources, including hundreds of millions of dollars in government assistance to continue working on USEC’s flawed centrifuge technology and tens of thousands of tons of free uranium transferred from the Energy Department, USEC failed to carry out its task and thus failed to produce a level of uranium required to meet national security needs,” said Dr. Burgess, a member of the House Energy & Commerce committee. 

“I commend the non-partisan work of the GAO in unearthing the corruption woven throughout the wasteful American Centrifuge Project that will bring justice for an industry still hurting, damaged by Department of Energy policies. I look forward to working on the Energy & Commerce Committee to identify a responsible solution that would more astutely utilize taxpayer money to develop innovative technology to enrich uranium fuel.”

The GAO reports investigating the practices of USEC’s American Centrifuge Project were commissioned at the request of both Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-TX) and Senator Edward J. Markey (D-MA). The two reports can be found HERE and HERE.