I have blogged before about the U.S. interest in selling nuclear power reactors to Saudi Arabia. One of the problems with such sales is the fact that some technologies that can be used to support nuclear power reactors can also be used to help construct nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia has been reluctant to commit to assurances that it will not use U.S. nuclear technology on any weapons projects. The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia has said that Saudi Arabia will construction nuclear weapons if Iran restarts its nuclear weapons program. This has impeded progress in U.S. nuclear technology transfer to Saudi Arabia. The Trump administration has pushed strongly for sales to Saudi Arabia while some members of Congress have pushed back against such sales.
It has just been announced that Rick Perry, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, has approved six secret authorization that will permit companies to sell nuclear power technology to Saudi Arabia. These approvals are known as Part 810 Authorizations. They will allow nuclear companies to conduct preliminary work on the construction of nuclear power reactors in Saudi Arabia before contracts are signed but they will not be able to actually ship nuclear power components to Saudi Arabia. The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) reported that it was the nuclear companies that requested that the Trump administration keep the approvals secret. Previously such Part 810 Authorizations had been made available to the public on the Energy Department’s website.
The NNSA said "In this case, each of the companies which received a specific authorization for (Saudi Arabia) have provided us written request that their authorization be withheld from public release." A spokesperson for the U.S. DoE said that the requests all went through a multi-agency approval process and that one of the reasons for the secrecy was because the authorizations contained proprietary information.
There has been a great deal of opposition to the sale of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia because there are fears that it may lead to a nuclear weapons race in the Middle East. Following the slaying of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi Arabia, there has been an international backlash against Saudi Arabia and the Crown Prince. This has had a strong influence on the discussion of nuclear technology sales to Saudi Arabia.
Representative Brad Sherman asked Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State, to release the names of the companies which had received the Part 810 Authorizations. Pompeo said that he would “look into it.” Sherman accused the Trump administration of trying to exclude Congress from involvement in the discussions for sale of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia.
A few weeks ago, Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives claimed in a report that they had warned the White House that it might be breaking the law as it worked with a nuclear industry group called IP3 in support of a multibillion dollar plan to build nuclear power reactors in some Middle Eastern countries including Saudi Arabia. The report said that the warnings were ignored.
On Wednesday of this week, the U.S. General Accountability Office received a request from a Republican Senator and a Democratic Senator for a probe of the Trump administration’s negotiations over a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia.