Russia Bites Back: U.S. Could Face Energy Brownouts From Russian Uranium Ban

Russia has abruptly moved to block uranium exports, a move that now poses the threat of creating energy brownouts across America over the coming months, according to a new report.

"It puts us in a real bind, because ... I just talked to a nuclear expert just before our call to get the specifics on this, and he told me that this decision will lead to brownouts, because there simply won't be enough nuclear fuel for certain states to run their reactors to generate electricity," explained Fred Fleitz, former Trump National Security Council chief of staff.

His comments came during the John Solomon Reports podcast, according to Just the News.

He continued, "So this is going to be a pretty vital issue for President Trump to deal with, and I wonder whether Putin did this to get some leverage in peace talks on Ukraine."

The problem dates back to the schemes of Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, a time period when the U.S. agreed to purchase uranium from Russia.

"It was a terrible decision to make us dependent on imports of uranium from Russia," he said.

Just the News explained, "The U.S. nuclear energy sector's dependence on Russian uranium created during a failed Obama-era reset with Moscow is coming back to bite Americans as the Kremlin moves to block future exports of the vital fuel."

Vladimir Putin announced the new limits on uranium exports to the U.S., just as Russia's war in Ukraine has been escalated by Biden's decision to allow Ukraine to use U.S. missiles to launch into Russia.

The report noted, "It's the latest fallout from a series of foreign policy decisions crafted by Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton that inexplicably strengthened Putin's ability to wage economic warfare with energy supplies such as natural gas and uranium."

"Everything the Democrats have done has emboldened Russia and their ability to actually leverage their dirty gas production," Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., said during a "Just the news, No Noise" television program.

Nuclear power plants account for about a fifth of America's electricity, and they depend on enriched uranium. They get about one quarter of the nation's uranium supply from Russia.

The report noted that the book "Fallout: Nuclear Bribes, Russian Spies, and the Washington Lies that Enriched the Clinton and Biden Dynasties" outlines the deals signed by Clinton and Obama that positioned the U.S. to be dependent on Russian uranium.

"The United States used to produce its own nuclear materials for bombs and then for nuclear energy, and it was the Clinton administration they made this deal with the Russians way back in the 90s to purchase all of this down blended material from, you know, the decommission nuclear warheads from Russia," book co-author Seamus Bruner said.

The result was a dependence on Russian supplies and the loss of a domestic industry.

Bruner said the crisis is because Obama's "Russian Reset" agenda cemented that dependence.

"And so now we're in this tough spot. Now we do have domestic producers, who are, you know, producing uranium for our energy needs, but there are no way, there's no way they're going to catch up," Bruner explained.

The report noted while U.S. Democrats were dealing the nation into a dependence, Putin was moving to take control of the global uranium supply through his company Rosatom.

"The Russian company's efforts to acquire a Canadian company, Uranium One, became a scandal for the Obama administration because it saw the virtual elimination of U.S. domestic production of uranium and raised corruption concerns about some of its chief officials," Just the News confirmed.

Production by Uranium One including that from Wyoming, Utah and other states accounted for about 20% of U.S. uranium capacity at the time, when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sat on a committee and approved the sale.

"The acquisition became a scandal that plagued her 2016 presidential campaign after investigative author Peter Schweizer and his Government Accountability Institute found nine Uranium One shareholders funneled $145 million into the Clinton Foundation before the deal was set to be considered," the report said.

Further, under Joe Biden, a move to counter the dependency on Russian uranium was adopted, but created a wide-ranging "waiver" system for companies to continue their purchases.

"We don't have enough enriched uranium here," Chris Gadomski, an analyst, told Bloomberg News. "They should have been stockpiling enriched uranium in anticipation of this happening."

Originally published at WND News Center