House Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas Blilely has asked the US General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to examine the Department of Energy‚s plan to keep the Portsmouth, Ohio, gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment plant in “cold standby” status for five years and build a demonstration gas centrifuge at the site.
Blilely questioned whether the DOE has the authority to spend funds for these purposes without an authorisation or appropriation from Congress. The DOE plans to use $630 million currently in a miscellaneous receipts account in the Treasury that was created when USEC Inc of Bethesda, Maryland, was privatised in a stock sale.
