Shareholders of the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) have approved a reverse stock split (artificially raising the share price by reducing the number of outstanding shares) in order to avoid being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). USEC has one mission: construction and operation of its American Centrifuge Project in Portsmouth, OH—a nearly $5 billion experimental uranium demonstration project.

Since 2011, USEC’s stock has repeatedly fallen to less than $1 prompting a delisting notice from the NYSE in May 2012. In its annual stockholder meeting in late June USEC won the support of its stockholders for a 1-25 reverse stock split which will take effect July 1, 2013. As with the recent closing of its Paducah gaseous diffusion plant, the reverse stock split is one more sign that USEC is in major financial trouble and the Department of Energy should avoid any handing over any additional taxpayer subsidies. At the closing bell Thursday (June 27), USEC’s stock prices had fallen 10 percent.