Revolving Door, Nuclear Power Edition

[Octafish]

Revolving Door, Nuclear Power Edition

AllGov.com, Tuesday, March 24, 2015

The former No. 2 official in the Department of Energy (DOE) has accepted a million-dollar job with a nuclear company, prompting criticism from good government advocates over the revolving door of officials taking lucrative deals after they leave government service.

Daniel Poneman was the Energy Department’s second most powerful official for five years before he resigned last fall. He now will become the president and CEO of Centrus Energy Corporation, which previously operated as United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC). Centrus will pay Poneman $1.7 million a year.

Created by Congress in 1992 as a way of privatizing DOE’s uranium enrichment operations, USEC had considerable dealings with DOE, receiving lucrative contracts and federal aid to produce enriched uranium for use in nuclear power plants. Since 2012 it has received more than $440 million from the U.S. Congress to keep it operational.

In early 2014 USEC filed for bankruptcy following the collapse of uranium prices in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in Japan. In September, the company re-emerged as Centrus.

SNIP...

Ed Lyman, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Politico that the new job gives “the appearance” that it is “some sort of reward for the favorable treatment they were getting from DOE.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/revolving-door-nuclear-power-edition-150323?news=856054

[Octafish]

1. This company, itself, started as a taxpayer financed business that got piratized...

USEC began as a "Private Federal Corporation," which means it operated off-the-books as far as Congressional oversight went and distributed money the way it saw fit.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/United_States_Enrichment_Corporation

Of course, that all changed when it went private in 1998.

Wake up, America. You're being had by the biggest crooks on the planet.