Is There Anything Republicans Won’t Block?

Everything in this bill fits what Republicans claim to favor, so this block makes sense only one way.

A single senator — Christopher Bond, Republican of Missouri — is blocking a bill that would ensure a reliable supply of medical isotopes while reducing the risk of nuclear terrorism. The Senate leadership needs to pry it loose.

The American Medical Isotopes Production Act has two sound objectives. It seeks to create domestic capability for making a radioisotope, molybdenum 99, whose decay products are used tens of thousands of times daily in the United States to diagnose cancer, heart disease and other ailments. There are no reactors in this country that make the isotope, so supplies have to be imported, primarily from aging reactors in Canada and Europe.

It also seeks to eliminate the use of weapons-grade uranium in making the isotopes. Foreign manufacturers obtain most of that uranium from the United States, and there is an ever-present danger that it might be diverted or stolen to make nuclear weapons.

The bill would address both those problems by subsidizing domestic production of isotopes using only low-enriched uranium and by phasing out American exports of highly enriched uranium to pressure foreign suppliers to convert their reactors to use L.E.U.

The legislation has been endorsed by medical organizations that use radioisotopes and by national-security groups that worry about controlling the spread of bomb-grade materials. It was approved by the House by a thumping 400-to-17 vote in November and unanimously approved, with some amendments, by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in December. Then Mr. Bond, taking advantage of Senate rules, placed a “hold,” preventing floor debate and a final vote.

His rationale is weak. He favors creating domestic capacity to produce medical isotopes but warns that a ban on exports of highly enriched uranium to foreign producers could lead to shortages. The bill allows 7 to 13 years before exports would be cut off, which seems ample time to build domestic capacity and convert some foreign reactors to low-enriched uranium… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

Bond is not acting his own.  He clearly could not object to anything in this bill, and, as a rule, Senate Republicans won’t even fart, unless they are goose stepping in lock-step with Regime orders.  The only reasons for opposing this needed bipartisan is to prevent the passage of anything for which Democrats might take credit and to sabotage the legislative process to keep the Senate from America’s needed business.