Top Biden aide invited CCP leaders to key national security site, Republicans want answers

Allowing foreign enemies to inspect nuclear testing sites will "lead to our own destruction," warns GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is under pressure from a group of 18 House Republicans led by GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) who are concerned about the agency's offer for foreign enemies to see a sensitive U.S. nuclear testing site, as Fox News reported.

Stefanik and the other Republicans criticized Granholm in a letter delivered Thursday morning for giving China and Russia "unprecedented access" to the DOE's Nevada National Security Site.

Access Granted

According to a September Bloomberg story, the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration allowed Chinese and Russian officials to tour the facility to show that the US is adhering to a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing that has been in place for three decades.

"I am leading my colleagues in demanding that President Biden revoke this misguided invitation to our adversaries in Beijing and Moscow that grants them unprecedented access and insight into our nuclear weapons," Stefanik told Fox News Digital.

"Inviting Communist China and Russia to have a front row seat for our sensitive nuclear weapons tests will give them invaluable information on how to defeat our nuclear capabilities and improve their own," she added.

"At a time when our adversaries are growing their nuclear stockpiles to undermine America’s leadership, allowing them access to one of our nuclear test sites will only advance this pursuit and lead to our own destruction," Stefanik continued.

During the most recent meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) reportedly offered to invite its Chinese and Russian counterparts to tour the Nevada site, where sensitive nuclear experimentation is done.

Quick Acceptance

Senior NNSA official Corey Hinderstein noted that neither China nor Russia responded quickly to the offer.

"There are no ongoing discussions with Russia or China on visits and no invitations have been made," a DOE spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

"DOE has not conducted an explosive nuclear test in more than 30 years -- and has no plans to do so. The U.S. is committed to our nuclear testing moratorium and we have no issues proving it, but any potential transparency measures with Russia and China have to be met with reciprocity."

U.S. officials' offer came months after Russian President Vladimir Putin pulled his country out of the last nuclear arms limitation treaty with the U.S. Worsening relations between the two countries are reflected in Putin's recent decision to withdraw Russia's ratification of a global treaty forbidding nuclear weapons tests, which was swiftly condemned by the State Department.