South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has written to U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz demanding a shipment of weapons-grade plutonium en route to her state from Japan be turned back or sent elsewhere, according to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters.
The demand has the potential to embarrass the Obama administration a week before it hosts an important summit on nuclear nonproliferation and undermine what so far has been viewed as a success in keeping weapons-grade material safe.
The ship loaded with weapons-grade plutonium left Japan for a Department of Energy site in South Carolina on Tuesday in what is the largest such shipment of the highly dangerous material since 1992, the environmental group Greenpeace said.