The US moves to stop buying uranium from Russia and start producing it at home
Barrels stored at the Energy Fuels White Mesa Mill uranium production facility in Blanding, Utah, on June 12th, 2023. | Photo: Getty Images
President Joe Biden signed a new law that bars the US from importing uranium from Russia in the hopes of jumpstarting domestic mining to fuel nuclear reactors. The law also unlocks $2.7 billion in federal funding to shore up that domestic supply chain, which Congress previously approved pending limits on imports from Russia.
Russia has historically been one of the biggest suppliers of uranium to the US and other countries. When the US banned coal, oil, and gas imports in response to the war in Ukraine in 2022, it excluded uranium from its sanctions, which showed how much the US depends on foreign imports of uranium, particularly from Russia and its allies.
Since then, there’s been a bipartisan push to kickstart domestic uranium mining…
