US-Saudi nuclear deal close, Congress briefed on details

(Bloomberg)– National Security Council officials briefed members of Congress on a long-sought nuclear technology sharing deal with Saudi Arabia that could allow U.S. companies to build reactors in the kingdom, lawmakers said.

Members of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee received a classified briefing Tuesday on the contours of the deal, Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat who is on the committee, said in an interview.

A senior U.S. official said last month that the deal was all but finalized after years of negotiations. Although it could boost Westinghouse Electric Co. and other U.S. nuclear companies, it has alarmed nonproliferation experts and some members of Congress who fear it could allow the Saudis to enrich spent uranium into nuclear material. military grade.

“I fear that Saudi Arabia – a nation with a terrible human rights record – cannot be trusted to use its civilian nuclear energy program only for peaceful purposes and enrich uranium and seek to develop nuclear weapons,” said Senator Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts. , wrote last month in a letter to President Joe Biden.

Past nuclear technology sharing agreements with countries like Japan have explicitly prohibited the enrichment and reprocessing of spent uranium. The senior U.S. official said the Saudi deal included nonproliferation elements and was drafted with input from the Defense Department, Energy Department and State Department. A spokesperson for the National Security Council did not respond to a request for comment.

Once a deal is reached, Congress will have 90 legislative days to pass veto-proof legislation rejecting the deal or adding conditions to it before the measure automatically takes effect, said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Center for Nonproliferation Policy Education.

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