Would that be difficult to isolate that or to account for them in a different way?

Isn't the power value protected by the PSC already being utilized then?

Madame Chairman, thank you first of all for conducting this hearing including my bill on the agenda this morning.

The comment has been made that the Administration has failed to meet the timeline for the implementation plan which I understand was due July 31.

Let's continue talking about the consent based approach because I think as we've discussed this that's a logical, certainly more doable way to achieve the goal here when we're talking about our nuclear waste repository.

States will have no significant or serious option to protect themselves if they make such deals without 1, meaningful regulatory authority and 2, a linkage that you've created in your very sequenced and adaptive legislation that allows for…

I remember, as many do, exactly where I was on this day 11 years ago. On that Tuesday morning the United States suffered a terrible attack that resulted in almost 3,000 immediate deaths. When we think of 9/11, we remember the shock, horror…

We kept coming back to how do we insure, to the greatest extent possible that there is an insulation from politics, from political manipulation.

we would also like to thank the sponsor of this bill: Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)

If you can provide us a better estimate. Are we a month away? Are we 6 months away or a year away? I think that would be helpful.

Do you know who in the Administration would be able to give us better guidance on that?

It's not clear. I mean, legally the NRC cannot issue those licenses that would depend on that waste, the confidence determination.

If the implementation due date or the implementation plan due date was July 31 and you have now missed that by 2 months. When do you expect that you might be able to produce that?

Right now, we don't have any rules of the road, so to speak.

I think the recognition is that there is an expanding role in so many different sectors.

the importance of these cutters actually being underway, conducting the mission, and the fact that the outside cutters are spending 25 to 30 days underway every deployment

The world may seem to be growing smaller, but its seas are growing bigger, particularly in the great north where a widening water highway beckons both with resources and challenges.

It is appropriate that we note it is not only the commercial shipping traffic.

Until the Polar Star is back in the water, I sure hope that we are able to keep Healy up here and not send her down on a research mission to Antarctica.

They are not only significant, they are also heroic, in many ways.

Had you made the decision another way, when the people of Nome needed help, needed assistance at a very difficult time, we would not have been able to provide the level of assistance.

I think it is significant that when Healy was escorting the Renda north, you're looking to find that path of least resistance through the ice.

I appreciate the need, the desire, to get our new vessels on, but, again, I'm worried about the gaps, where we have ships that are decommissioned without that replacement vessel on-site in the water.

In my time in the United States Senate, I can honestly say that there is no other colleague in the Senate that has more of a commitment and a passion to our Coast Guard than you, perhaps maybe me.

Madam Chairman, they are essentially mapping an area that has not been mapped since Captain Cook was sailing these shores in the 1800s.