WASHINGTON — The Trump administration formally transmitted its proposed nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia to Congress this week, kicking off the 90-day review process required under the Atomic Energy Act — and, in the process, giving nuclear nonproliferation experts something they have wanted for a long time: a deadline.

The deal, which would allow the kingdom to build up to 17 civilian nuclear reactors, includes a uranium enrichment pathway, which is the part that has nonproliferation experts answering their phones, according to CNBC’s reporting on the transmission.

The administration’s framing is simple: the agreement is still contingent on Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords, which makes it, in the White House’s telling, less a nuclear deal and more a peace deal with a very expensive appendix.

“Let’s be clear about what this is,” one administration official who has followed the negotiations said. “This is the deal where the most powerful country in the Middle East gets to be a good neighbor — and the price of the good-neighborhood is a normal, boring, standard nuclear cooperation agreement.”

It is the enrichment clause that has drawn the most attention. Enriching uranium is, in the nuclear world, the step where “civilian” and “not civil enough” hold a very polite conversation, and the presence of the pathway in a bilateral agreement has nonproliferation specialists describing the administration’s position in a range of adjectives that mostly start with “c.”

CNN reports the administration sent the agreement to Congress on Monday, with officials emphasizing the Abraham Accords condition. ABC News reported the same sequence, with the administration stressing that the deal “still hinges on the Kingdom joining the Abraham Accords.”

"The enrichment pathway is, frankly, a routine element of modern nuclear cooperation. What is unusual is how many people are worried about it. I've seen this clause before. I've seen it in three other agreements. Nobody said a word then."

The quote is from a senior fellow at a think tank that has, on at least one occasion, described a uranium centrifuge as “a very efficient way to make a problem.”

The congressional review itself is the part the administration is counting on. Under the Atomic Energy Act, the deal gets 90 days in committee, a process designed to give both parties the chance to read the document. Both parties are, by all accounts, enthusiastic about the chance.

THE DEAL, AT A GLANCE

  • Reactors: Up to 17 civilian nuclear plants
  • Enrichment pathway: Included
  • Condition: Saudi Arabia joins the Abraham Accords
  • Congressional review: 90 days, per the Atomic Energy Act
  • Proliferation experts consulted: "Many"
  • Proliferation experts quoted in this article: One, voluntarily

Supporters of the agreement describe it as the deal that finally puts a price on the region’s most persistent question. Critics describe it as the deal that answers the region’s most persistent question with a different, more expensive question. A bipartisan group of senators has requested a briefing on the deal, which is as close to unified as the two parties have been since the cafeteria tray redesign.

At press time, the 90-day clock is running, the briefing has been scheduled for a Tuesday, and the think tank fellow quoted above was still “reviewing the text,” a phrase that in his field means he has read it four times and is waiting for someone else to have an opinion first.