2024-05-08 06:45:00
RUSSIAN, FRANCE'S NUCLEAR COOPERATION
REUTERS - May 7, 2024 - Two influential Republican U.S. lawmakers have urged President Joe Biden to prevent a French company from working on civil nuclear power projects with Russia's state-owned nuclear company Rosatom, saying doing otherwise would help fund Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.
In a letter seen by Reuters, Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, and Senator Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urged Biden to not waive sanctions on Russia, saying it would allow French-owned Electricite de France, or EDF, to engage in nuclear power projects with Rosatom.
The sanctions, which Biden issued by executive order in 2021 and later amended, address national security threats posed by foreign activities of the Russian Federation.
"This waiver will result in more money in Putin's coffers to fund his brutal war of aggression against Ukraine and suppression of democracy," the lawmakers said in the letter, dated May 6. "We urge you to reject this proposal."
"We believe the only way to influence the administration’s decision is to go public," a spokesperson for Risch told Reuters.
Biden last month signed into law an aid package with nearly $61 billion in military assistance for Ukraine. He is expected to sign a ban recently passed by Congress on imports of Russian enriched uranium.
The lawmakers said exempting EDF from U.S. sanctions would allow it to purchase a subsidiary of a U.S. company that had been engaged in nuclear power projects with Rosatom in Hungary, Turkey and Egypt, projects that have been suspended for years due to sanctions.
The lawmakers said over-dependence on Russian energy poses a threat to transatlantic security, and "it is incomprehensible that your administration would consider actively perpetuating this dependence."
The White House's national security council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Earlier:
2024, April, 3, 06:50:00
RUSSIAN NUCLEAR RECORD
During the two days of the forum, the role of nuclear power in the energy, industrial, ecological, logistic, digital, health, scientific and educational fields were discussed in more than 30 parallel sessions.
2024, March, 13, 06:35:00
RUSSIAN NUCLEAR FOR TURKEY ANEW
The Turkish government has decided that Rosatom will build the country’s second NPP,
2024, February, 13, 06:50:00
RUSSIA, INDIA NUCLEAR COOPERATION
Kudankulam, about 100 kilometres from the port city of Tuticorin in the state of Tamil Nadu at the southern tip of India, is already home to two operating Russian-VVER 1000 pressurised water reactors: Kudankulam 1 has been in commercial operation since 2014 and Kudankulam 2 since 2017.
2024, January, 22, 06:30:00
RUSSIAN ARCTIC NUCLEAR
The joint plans of Rosatom and the region include projects for the development of energy infrastructure and the construction of a shift village, landing strip, roads and sea pier, as well as the construction of the world's first low-power nuclear power plant with a Shelf-M reactor of up to 10 MWe.
2024, January, 9, 06:35:00
FRANCE, SWEDEN NUCLEAR COOPERATION
France and Sweden will "promote a regulatory, industrial and financial framework favourable to the realisation of nuclear installation projects with a high level of safety and ensuring institutional support for nuclear energy in compliance with the principle of technological neutrality and with the objective of strengthening Europe's sovereignty and energy security".
2023, October, 27, 06:35:00
FRANCE, GERMANY NUCLEAR DIFFERENCES
The EU’s 27 members are divided. Central and eastern European countries that have their own nuclear expansion ambitions are supporting France while non-nuclear powers including Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Austria, are backing Germany.
2023, October, 13, 06:40:00
FRANCE'S NUCLEAR VETOES
Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire faced a difficult decision between maintaining France as an attractive investment destination and maintaining sovereignty over strategic technology, but finally decided to veto the takeover.
