WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (ENR), and Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) introduced a bill to prohibit Russian and Belarusian foreign nationals from working in Department of Energy (DOE) research facilities for as long as Russian troops, or their allies, remain on Ukrainian soil.

“Russian and Belarusian nationals should be barred from access to cutting-edge research at our national laboratories,” said Ranking Member Barrasso. “Our legislation will prevent these foreign nationals from working at DOE research labs until Russia ends its brutal war in Ukraine. It will help protect American innovation from theft by Russia and its primary ally in the war. It is more important than ever to ensure that our sensitive research does not fall into the hands of our adversaries. We cannot allow these countries to benefit off the backs of American taxpayers.” 

“The United States needs to be applying maximum pressure on Russia in response to their unprovoked invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine, and that includes safeguarding our national laboratories. As the government’s leading scientific agency, the Department of Energy is involved in sensitive research fields such as artificial intelligence, supercomputing, quantum information, and nanoscience,” said Senator Marshall. “With hundreds of Russian and Belarussian scientists working alongside our DOE scientists, we must ensure bad actors do not have access to American resources and scientific data so long as the atrocities in Ukraine continue. This bill will ensure those who may have split loyalties do not have intimate access to our nation’s scientific research.” 

Read the text of the bill here.

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