The United States Enrichment Company (USEC) received bad news this week in the form of a delisting notice from the New York Stock Exchange. With this uranium enrichment company’s stock prices trading at less than a dollar per share for weeks now, it’s hardly surprising. But while most investors are treating it as radioactive, there’s one sucker considering the bet. Despite its clear financial troubles, USEC is still in line to receive a $2 billion loan guarantee from you, via the Department of Energy (DOE). 

That’s right; taxpayers may be forced to back a company that is clearly not able to pay back their loans if they default. The way the DOE loan guarantee program works, taxpayers effectively cosign a loan for the applicant, in this case USEC. If USEC’s project fails, and they can’t pay their creditors, taxpayers do. And you thought after the housing crash, it was getting harder to get taxpayer-backed loans? But, then again, since they are asking for the money from the same flawed program that funded Solyndra, the failed solar panel company, I guess we can’t be that surprised that USEC still might get a loan guarantee nearly four times the size of Solyndra’s.

USEC’s financial troubles are nothing new . In 2009, Moody’s Credit Rating Service gave them junk bond status, after four consecutive downgrades. Today the company is valued at less than $100 million—far less than the money their congressional supporters are trying to secure for them. Their stocks, valued now at about 75 cents/share, have been coming in under a dollar for nearly a month, which is what invoked the delisting notice from the NYSE. Any way you slice it, USEC is in dire financial straits.

Besides its financial troubles, the massive uranium-enrichment project that USEC is trying to deploy continues to run into technical hurdles. Recently, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported that six of the project’s centrifuges failed. USEC has already spent ten years and over $2 billion to develop these machines but still needs $3 billion to finish.

You might think with all these red flags Congress would steer clear of this project, but instead they’ve been working backdoor earmarks to get it more money. Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) take credit for inserting $150 million for the company into the transportation bill that is currently in conference negotiations and could trigger the fastest influx of cash for them, if enacted into law. The Appropriations Committees in the House and Senate have slated $100 million and $150 million respectively, into their Fiscal Year 2013 Energy and Water spending bills. But that’s not all. The House Armed Services Committee also stuck $150 million for USEC into the Chairman’s mark of the National Defense Authorization Bill and defeated efforts led by Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM) and Ed Markey (D-MA) to remove it. Although none of these add-ons have been enacted into law, USEC and their backers are hoping this buck shot approach will end up getting them a hit that sticks somewhere.

And USEC may be successful in getting their money. They, with the help of their strong political ties, have an unbelievable ability to turn lemons into lemonade. USEC received $118 million in the stimulus, even after DOE waylaid their loan guarantee application citing concerns that the project may face “either major cost overruns or reliability problems or both.” DOE caved to political pressure, allowing USEC to stay in line for the guarantee. DOE also awarded them an additional $45 million on top of the stimulus cash pile—a hefty consolation prize.

Congress and the Administration should stop the USEC gravy train, if USEC gets more taxpayer dollars, it will once again be because of their political clout—both from House and Senate leadership, and on down the line. Facing a $15 trillion debt, it’s time Congress stops enriching this parochial boondoggle before we lose big.