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U.S. uranium production dropped to a 70-year low in 2018, but that could change if Congress approves the President's budget request to prop up the domestic uranium production industry by spending $150 million annually over a ten-year period to establish a uranium reserve. Critics are decrying the reserve as a subsidy for a declining industry with an acutely toxic legacy in the southwestern United States that continues to impact the health of communities today.
One of the proponents of the reserve is Energy Fuels Resources, a uranium mining company with operations in Utah that was instrumental in advocating for the reduction of Bears Ears National Monument. Incidentally, Energy Fuels Resources is a former client of Andrew Wheeler, the current Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
According to emails revealed in a Freedom of Information Act request, Mr. Wheeler requested a meeting with his former client and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to discuss a boundary adjustment to Bears Ears just before the Trump administration announced the national monuments review, showing that once again, David Bernhardt's former lobbyist fingerprints are all over another secret sweetheart deal for an extractive industry client.
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The United States doesn’t need additional uranium. This is a ploy to avoid the inevitable. There isn’t demand for the product; there hasn’t been for decades. They [uranium producers] want to protect their bottom line with taxpayer dollars.”
