Government gave billions to energy company with no business model

Washington Examiner:

A chronically failing nuclear energy company using a technique one-twentieth as efficient as its competitors' has wrangled billions of dollars in cash, materials and research from the Department of Energy in deals that dwarf the Solyndra loan scandal. 

The United States Enrichment Corp. has facilities in Kentucky and Ohio, home states of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner, respectively.

The company has received support from those lawmakers, as well as from professed small-government stalwart Sen. Rand Paul, who also hails from Kentucky. All three men are Republicans, but USEC has also enjoyed backing from prominent Democrats, including President Obama.

USEC’s goal is to enrich uranium to produce fuel for nuclear power plants. But for the last 15 years, the company has relied on a World War II-era technique called gaseous diffusion.

Originally created as a federal agency, USEC was born in 1998 when President Clinton and the Republican-led 105th Congress privatized it in hopes that the new operation could spur technological innovations.

Instead, USEC executives got a $325 million “emergency supplemental” appropriation only three months after being after the privatization, and saw hefty raises.

Federal money kept USEC’s 1,000-employee Paducah, Ky., site operating long after it was clearly a losing proposition, bolstered by USEC promises that with a little more time and government money,
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There is much more about this failure to manage taxpayer money wisely.  All of these lawmakers and government officials should be asked to explain this failed business model.