The Revolving Door Goes Nuclear
by Michael Smallberg
Project on Government Oversight, April 21, 2015
After years of investigating the well-oiled revolving door between the federal government and the businesses it oversees, we thought we’d seen it all.
But even our jaws hit the floor when we learned that Daniel Poneman had taken a job as the head of Centrus Energy Corp.
Poneman served from May 2009 to October 2014 as the number two official at the Department of Energy (DOE), in charge of more than 100,000 federal and contractor employees and a budget of just under $30 billion. Less than six months after leaving his government post, Poneman was named the president and CEO of Centrus, where he’ll be making as much as $1.7 million a year. He took charge of the company earlier this month.
If the name Centrus doesn’t ring a bell, that’s because it was known as the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) until last March, when the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Before it went under, USEC had enjoyed decades of special treatment from DOE and other government offices. Like its predecessor, Centrus is likely to need a lifeline from U.S. taxpayers in order to stay afloat. With Poneman now on board, the company may be able to utilize his cachet to attract future government bailouts, no matter the potential taxpayer losses.
Poneman’s rapid transition to a high-paying job with Centrus has drawn scrutiny on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are questioning whether government ethics rules are strong enough to safeguard the integrity of DOE actions that affect the company’s bottom line. Company and government records reviewed by the Project On Government Oversight add to the picture, showing how Poneman and DOE took positions—on issues such as the downblending of highly enriched uranium (HEU) that has been declared excess to military needs—that favored USEC/Centrus, a supplier of low enriched uranium (LEU), and the nuclear power industry in general. The records show how the revolving door blurs the lines between the government and the corporate world, enabling an official in Poneman’s position to enrich himself and the industry he used to oversee.
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http://www.pogo.org/our-work/articles/2015/the-revolving-door-goes-nuclear.html
Money is why "Integrity is for Paupers."
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