Douglas Alexander: “today, President Bush made an announcement of something he calls the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. It is part of…”

“today, President Bush made an announcement of something he calls the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. It is part of the President's 2007 budget for the U.S. Department of Energy. In that budget, at a time when there is not much extra money, there is $250 million to deal with the objectives of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. Part of the initiative we have heard about before. It calls for advanced technology for nuclear reactors--reactors from which we can produce clean energy, reactors which are smaller than the reactors that we have today that produce about 20 percent of all the electricity we use in the United States. But I want to call attention to a part of the President's proposal which we have not heard much about before--at least from him--that is the part about reprocessing and recycling the fuel that is used in nuclear reactors. That has been something we haven't been doing in the United States for a long time, except in limited cases, and it is something that requires a great deal of attention. My hope is that, while it is a small part of a large budget, the idea of reprocessing and recycling spent fuel from nuclear reactors would have a significant, measured, and careful bipartisan discussion on the floor of the Senate. Even though it is a small part of the big budget, dealing with the issue of reprocessing spent fuel can make a big difference in the solution to a number of large problems.…”