Democrats are beginning lay out a legal case against President Trump’s deal-making with Saudi Arabia to supply the Mideast giant with nuclear energy and potentially nuclear weapons if there is not proper oversight of the agreement.
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., raised his fears on a snowy Wednesday at a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s fiscal 2019 budget. The hearing came one day after Trump met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House, where the deal was a key topic of discussion.
Markey scolded Kristine Svinicki, the Republican chairwoman of the NRC, at the hearing Wednesday for the administration’s actions in keeping the Senate “in the dark” over the nuclear energy talks, which he said could result in a nuclear conflict between the Saudis and Iran.
Markey prodded Svinicki to provide details on the talks after he coaxed out of her a detail about her agency’s involvement in a recent meeting in London between Energy Secretary Rick Perry and the Saudis on negotiating a civil nuclear energy cooperative agreement, known as a 1-2-3 agreement.
Svinicki first claimed ignorance on her agency’s participation, but then was advised by staff that the NRC had expert counsel with Perry at the meeting.
“We did have one expert counsel there” in meetings with Perry an the Saudis, Svinicki said. However, the NRC is “not participating in the broader negotiation of the arrangement, senator,” she said after Markey asked Svinicki if she was privy to details of the deal on whether the Saudis are seeking to make plutonium for weapons development.
Markey used the NRC’s disclosure to underscore the fact that the president is pursuing a nuclear agreement with the Saudis in direct contradiction with the law that requires the president to consult regularly with the Senate on any such deal under the Atomic Energy Act.
A ten-year-old amendment requires the president to keep the Senate informed on any deal involving nuclear cooperation. “Yet, the energy secretary leading a delegation to London to discuss a 1-2-3 agreement with the Saudis, so far, has not in any way been given as a brief to any member of the Senate, which is in violation of the 2008 law,” he said.
“To the extent to which the Department of Energy was in the meeting, the NRC was in the meeting, the Department of State was in the meeting, and we still have not been briefed — that is not acceptable,” Markey said.
Markey and other Democrats at the hearing said they want assurances that the nuclear energy agreement keeps strong measures in place, known as the “gold standard,” to ensure the reactors are not used to enrich uranium for weapons manufacture. So far, the Democrats say they have not seen any evidence of this.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., pressed the issue with Svinicki at the hearing after Markey. Van Hollen said the 1-2-3 agreement with United Arab Emirates that was secured in recent years had satisfactory nonproliferation safeguards, and wanted to know if the same safeguards were being discussed in light of negotiations with Saudi Arabia.
“Just want to say this question may be coming before the Senate, I do think on the policy ground we do need to be vigilant in making sure that any sale of nuclear reactors meets the gold standard requirements to prevent nuclear proliferation,” Van Hollen said, noting that the Senate would have a chance to vote on any deal. “And I’m very concerned about a lot of the reporting in the newspapers suggesting that Saudi Arabia would not adhere to the same requirements as we applied to the UAE in that agreement.”
Svinicki could not respond to questions about the Saudi deal, and repeated that her agency is not part of the broader negotiations that are being led by the State Department and the administration.
“We are putting ourselves in the middle of Iran-Saudi Arabia proxy wars that could quickly escalate to nuclear wars if we are not careful,” Markey said. “But right now, the Senate is in the dark, and that is wrong.”
Markey said the Saudi crown prince is more concerned with “megatons” than “megawatts,” in other words, a bomb over nuclear energy.
“They don’t need nuclear power, they have more solar than they know what to do with,” Markey said. “This is about a clandestine nuclear weapons program on their ground, and it is extremely dangerous.”
Markey demanded briefings from the administration on the meetings happening on the sidelines of the crown prince’s visit to the United States, and all other discussions taking place.
“The reason that is not acceptable is the Saudi crown prince said in an interview just in the last few days, ‘Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb we will follow suit as soon as possible,’” Markey added. “Well, President Trump has said he is likely to end the Iran nuclear deal, and as a result we put in place an agreement that allows for uranium enrichment for plutonium processing on the land of Saudi Arabia. It would be potentially disastrous.”
