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U.S.-Russian Plutonium Disposal Effort Stalled
A U.S.-Russian agreement to eliminate 68 tons of weapon-grade plutonium has stalled, leading to increasing concerns over the Bush administration’s commitment to the effort, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, April 27). In 1998, the United States and Russia agreed to each eliminate 34 tons of weapon-grade plutonium. Agreements to build parallel plants to convert the plutonium into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel, though, expired last year (see GSN, July 25, 2003). The plutonium disposal effort has been held up by a U.S.-Russian dispute over liability in the event of an accident or act of sabotage at a Russian facility, according to the Post. In March, U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said that the Bush administration hoped to resolve the issue by this spring and said that the matter “is being worked at high levels.” “How a little issue of indemnification can hold this up is beyond me,” Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) told top Energy Department officials at a recent congressional hearing. “This is a way to get rid of a huge chunk of nuclear-grade plutonium,” he said. In threat-reduction agreements signed during the mid-1990s, Russia agreed to take responsibility for accidents or acts of sabotage in return for foreign assistance in disposing of Soviet-era nuclear weapons, according to the Post. With the plutonium disposal project, however, Russia has taken the position that if U.S. contractors are to blame for an incident, then either they or the U.S. government should be responsible for damages and possible prosecution, the Post reported. “They [the Russians] kept saying, ‘Hey, you can hire Chechen rebels under contract and they could blow up our facilities, and we would be powerless to prosecute,’” said an administration official. “We said that’s ridiculous. We don’t hire people who will conduct sabotage,” the official said. The Bush administration is divided on the issue of liability protection, with the Defense and State departments seeking more stringent protections while the Energy Department is satisfied with a less rigorous formula, according to the Post. “What you would have thought was an incidental legal issue looms so large,” said Leonard Spector, head of the Washington office of the Monterey Institute of International Studies’ Center for Nonproliferation Studies, who suggested sharing the burden, a structure established in the civilian nuclear power sector. “Everybody is frustrated that an additional hurdle is being presented that has to be overcome,” he said (Peter Slevin, Washington Post, May 10).
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