“The alternative is laying off not just hundreds of people at the plant and about 2,000 people in the supply chain, but also losing a lot of talent. … I’ve talked to a bunch of them who are thinking about leaving because there’s so much uncertainty about funding going foward. And the problem there is you’re not going to have the expertise to have a domestic source of enriched uranium, which I think you have to have as a country.”

A Maryland company, USEC, has applied for a $2 billion dollar loan guarantee from the energy department  to get the project moving. The application is pending, and the energy department said in October that it plans to work with USEC to come up with ways to reduce the technical and financial risks.