The Federal Politics of Importing Spent Nuclear Fuel: Inter‐branch Bargaining and Oversight in the New Russia

Abstract

IN JULY 2001 PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN took the controversial step of signing legislation that permitted the import into Russia of foreign origin spent nuclear fuel.1 Over the preceding two years national parliamentarians, regional politicians and local civic and non-governmental groups had actively opposed the campaign by the Ministry of Atomic Energy (Minatom) to import irradiated material for indefinite storage and reprocessing, fearing government abuse and the environmental risks. Putin's approval ostensibly ended the formal debate over the strategic, political, social and economic merits of the programme and positioned Russia to earn a projected $21 billion in foreign contracts over the ensuing decade. Notwithstanding lingering technical uncertainties, the passage of the spent nuclear fuel legislation is held up as testament to President Putin's success at recentralising the Russian political landscape and taking back power from the regions. Symptomatic of reinvigorated 'vertical control', the lower chamber of parliament (State Duma) folded under executive branch pressure, and the newly reconstituted upper chamber (Federation Council) backed down from repeated threats of forcing a showdown. The approval also seemed to confirm dark suspicions of the Putin team's political instincts, as the government arbitrarily disregarded the public's overwhelmingly negative attitude towards importing radioactive waste, and quashed national and regional petitions for referenda on the programme. In their haste to side with the President, politicians across Russia revealed deep cynicism and disdain for grass-roots political activism and environmental protection. Simply put, the politics of amending the spent fuel legislation seemed to epitomise executive domination of policy making and growing distance between the state and public interest in the new Russia.2 What is often overlooked, however, is that both Minatom and President Putin made considerable substantive and political sacrifices to secure legislative approval of the spent nuclear fuel programme. The new legislation obliged Minatom to share future profits among affected regions and an array of social causes, and to submit the programme to intrusive oversight. Early government attempts to exploit loopholes and ambiguity in the new laws failed miserably at home and abroad. The inability to land concrete contracts for over two and a half years following passage of the legislation dampened subsequent enthusiasm among proponents and prompted more circumspec-