Heidi Alexander: “I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for his idea. This is a creative idea on his part. I would like to give credit to…”

“I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for his idea. This is a creative idea on his part. I would like to give credit to Senator Crapo and Senator Risch from the State of Idaho. Idaho has our nuclear laboratory, among our 17 National Laboratories, and the work that we are talking about would be done in Idaho. The Energy and Water Development appropriations bill, which was approved almost unanimously in the Appropriations Committee a few weeks ago, approved $10 million for the kind of work that Senator Whitehouse just described. It is a pilot program to recycle the Navy's spent nuclear fuel and use the recovered uranium to supply high-assay low- enriched uranium for advanced reactors. That is already in the bill. This amendment by Senators Whitehouse, Crapo, and Risch would add an additional $5 million to the pilot program. The additional $5 million is being reallocated from fuel cycle research and development and does not increase the overall spending in the bill. In looking ahead to tomorrow, the leaders' offices are still talking, but our expectation is that we will have at least two votes tomorrow at about 10 o'clock. One would be on the Crapo-Whitehouse-Risch amendment, which we have just described. The second would be on the Baldwin- Portman amendment, which has been considered. Hopefully, we will have other appropriations amendments during the day.…”