The vote is on the Uranium Revitalization, Tailings Reclamation and Enrichment Act (S. 2097), a bill which absolves the uranium industry of most of the debt incurred by the federal uranium enrichment program and switches operation over to a new government corporation. The legislation is essentially a $9 billion bailout for the nuclear industry. The uranium enrichment program, run by the Department of Energy, originally supplied uranium solely for military purposes. It now supplies enriched uranium to be used for commercial nuclear energy as well. Under S. 2097, taxpayers would be partially responsible for the bill to clean up active uranium mills in addition to the abandoned mills which were covered in the original Uranium Mill Tailing Radiation Act.

The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 62-28 on March 30, 1988. It has not yet been voted on in the House. No is the pro-environmental vote.