Financial Services Association, April 30 (Editor: Xiaoxiang) According to relevant sources familiar with the situation, the Biden administration is considering personally using executive power to ban imports of Russian enriched uranium due to the stalemate in the US Congress's efforts to block imports of Russian uranium.

The above sources said that officials from the White House National Security Council, the US Department of Energy, and other government departments have recently been negotiating restrictions on Russian uranium imports. For example, the House of Representatives passed a legislative ban on Russian uranium imports last year.

The White House National Security Council said in a statement, “We continue to urge Congress to act, which will reassure industry, America's allies and partners that the US has made a clear decision to establish a safe nuclear fuel supply chain unaffected by 'hostile forces' over the next few decades.”

No patience to wait for Congress?

In fact, in December of last year, the US House of Representatives approved a bill prohibiting the import of enriched uranium from Russia. The Act stipulates that the import of enriched uranium produced in Russia or produced by enterprises registered in Russia will be restricted. At the same time, the bill also authorizes the US Secretary of Energy, the US Secretary of State and the Secretary of Commerce to negotiate a temporary exemption from the ban if other sources of uranium are unavailable or if Russian energy is in the national interest of the United States.

However, the Senate's subsequent efforts to quickly follow up on the bill were blocked by Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz (Ted Cruz), and the reason for his obstruction was quite “ironic” — it had nothing to do with the bill itself, but was affected by debating other issues. It is not uncommon for US senators to set aside legislation while “bargaining” on other matters.

Due to procedural rules, the next best way for Russia's uranium ban to be passed in the Senate is in addition to a piece of legislation that must be passed to re-authorize the Federal Aviation Administration. The legislation will be discussed in the Senate this week. However, Senator and Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell said earlier that the Russian uranium ban is unlikely to be attached to this legislation.

“At the leadership level, they don't want to add much else to the bill,” Cantwell said in an interview on Thursday.

To further complicate matters, the number one Republican on the Senate Transportation Committee is precisely Cruz.

Of course, what is certain now is that the White House has yet to make any final decisions on this issue. According to people familiar with the matter, the US government and the nuclear industry still want the matter to be handled by Congress, because if this ban is to be overturned in the future (for example, if Trump comes to power), abolishing a congressional legislation would be much more difficult than overturning actions taken using executive power.

When asked about this issue at a House hearing last month, US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm (Jennifer Granholm) said that it is “possible” to use the president's executive power, but it is preferable for Congress to act.” If Congress acted, it would clearly reinforce this ban more concretely. I hope we can see this.”

Uranium ore stocks have jumped one after another

It is worth mentioning that, driven by this breaking news, uranium stocks listed in the US jumped overnight in the intraday market. Cameco Corporation, the world's largest listed uranium company, uranium mining company Uranium Energy Corp, and Sprott Uranium Miners ETF generally surged higher.

The White House previously stated that establishing a domestic nuclear fuel enrichment supply chain is a top priority for US national security, and that reliance on Russian uranium resources “poses a risk to the US economy.” Currently, nuclear power accounts for about 20% of America's energy supply.

Earlier this year, the US Congress provided $2.7 billion to establish a domestic uranium industry on the condition that laws or administrative measures be passed to restrict or ban the use of Russian enriched uranium, which also added to the urgency of the issue.

According to statistics from the US Department of Energy, Russia is still supplying enriched uranium for use as raw fuel to more than 90 commercial nuclear reactors. It is America's largest supplier of enriched uranium, accounting for about a quarter of the total supply. US nuclear power plants spend at least $1 billion a year on Russian uranium enrichment. The image below clearly highlights the extent to which US nuclear power plants depend on Russian uranium:

Obviously, replacing these Russian supplies could be a difficult challenge, and the industry expects that this could increase the cost of US nuclear power plants to enrich uranium by about 20%.