An embattled uranium enrichment project in Ohio that has garnered support on both sides of the aisle would receive up to $150 million under the Obama administration's fiscal 2013 budget proposal.

The White House included the one-time expenditure within the National Nuclear Security Administration's budget to allow the government to develop uranium enrichment gas centrifuge technology at the $5 billion American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. The plant would be the first to use domestic gas centrifuge technology to produce low-enriched uranium for reactors and tritium for nuclear weapons.

The U.S. Enrichment Corp., which operates the DOE facility, has been warning the administration and Congress for months that the plant would be closed without federal support. Reacting to that warning, Energy Secretary Steven Chu pledged $44 million in January to support continued operations at the facility (E&ENews PM, Jan. 17).

Critics of the project have repeatedly pointed to financial and technical problems that prevented USEC from obtaining a $2 billion federal loan guarantee to support the project.

Thomas D'Agostino, who serves as NNSA's administrator and the undersecretary for nuclear security, said yesterday that DOE is mainly interested in securing a domestic site for producing tritium for weapons and the budgetary proposal is "not a prop-up for USEC."

NNSA expects to release a plan "very soon" that will outline how the money will be used to support developing the technology. It is crucial that the United States have its own domestic source of the gas, he said.

"It's about having unencumbered uranium in order to do that," D'Agostino said. "It has to be domestically sourced uranium."

But D'Agostino would not say how much support lawmakers will show the president's proposal, saying that he has "learned never to speculate what Congress will do."

John Welch, USEC's president and CEO, said yesterday that support from the White House shows the plant is "a national priority" but quickly added that USEC still needs funding to get through the current fiscal year.

"It's important to remember that interim funding for this program is only available through March 2012 and we must still get RD&D funding for the remainder of government fiscal 2012 to ensure that we can continue this vital activity," Welch said in a statement.

Even so, the project has strong support among Ohio lawmakers, including House Speaker John Boehner (R). Ohio is a critical swing state in the upcoming presidential election, so President Obama's support for the USEC project could be a boon to him politically. But it has historically enjoyed bipartisan support in the state.

Ohio Sens. Sherrod Brown (D) and Rob Portman (R) introduced a measure last year that would shift existing funds at DOE to support the American Centrifuge Plant. Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) introduced a similar measure last year that would have given DOE the authority to assess the viability of technologies at the Ohio plant (E&ENews PM, Jan. 17).

Brown said yesterday that DOE's support will bolster USEC's chance of securing a federal loan guarantee and create 4,000 jobs.

"This takes us one step closer to realizing the 4,000 jobs that would be created through the American Centrifuge Project, but our fight for these jobs is far from over," Brown said in a statement. "I will continue working with business and community leaders to ensure that there is a path forward for ACP."

The Ohio plant would also receive more than $120 million in cleanup funds through DOE's Office of Environmental Management program under the president's budget proposal, Brown said.