FRANK LEWIS

PDT Staff Writer

A six-month spending bill that is going to the U.S. House of Representatives this week and to the U.S. Senate next week, carries with it $100 million to keep alive the Research and Development phase of the American Centrifuge Project at Piketon. The House Rules Committee could debate the measure as early as today (Thursday).

“It is in the continuing resolution to keep the government operating,” Paul Jacobson, Vice President of Communications for USEC, Inc., said. “The government doesn’t have a budget for fiscal year 2013, so they pass these continuing resolutions to keep everything operating.”

Jacobson said that $100 million would be the next round of funding to keep the project moving forward.

USEC entered into a $350 million cooperative agreement with the Department of Energy this summer and has, to date, received $110 million as a part of an 80/20 split, to keep the plant operating through November. The goal, however, is to keep the program operating and at the same time, keep hopes for a $2 billion loan guarantee alive. Jacobson said the House bill would provided a much-needed boost for the project but isn’t sufficient to bring the program to completion.

“In that bill we have another victory for USEC, saving jobs once again,” U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown said Wednesday. “The bill contains $100 million to keep the project on track to receive the ($2 billion) loan guarantee that would help create an estimated 4,000 jobs in southern Ohio. So that’s a huge victory for all of Ohio, especially that part of the state.”

Frank Lewis may be reached at 740-353-3101, ext. 232, or at flewis@heartlandpublications.com