"Moniz Visit Puts Spotlight On Controversial Uranium Company"

"The Department of Energy's relationship with uranium enrichment company USEC Inc. will be under the microscope this week, when Secretary Ernest Moniz visits Capitol Hill to defend the agency's budget request.

Nicknamed the "United States Earmark Corporation" by critics in Congress, USEC has engaged in hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of financial transactions with DOE since it was privatized in 1998, including funding for the $5 billion American Centrifuge Plant (ACP) project in Piketon, Ohio.

The facility laid off 60 employees this week as Centrus Energy Corp., USEC's successor following bankruptcy, demobilized. Centrus started winding down operations last year after the Obama administration cut its contract."

Hannah Hess reports for E&E Daily March 1, 2016.