Jon Kyl: “let me take a moment to say that I totally agree with Senator Schumer that we need to restore existing law in this area.…”

“let me take a moment to say that I totally agree with Senator Schumer that we need to restore existing law in this area. The reason is because highly enriched uranium is used to build bombs. We want to be very careful how we export that. In the case of the production of medical isotopes, we do need to export it because that is all that is available right now to produce medical isotopes in relatively large quantities. Low enriched uranium for a target for these isotopes is a process that scientifically works. We are trying to work out whether or not it can happen on a large-scale production basis. Current law says we will continue to export highly enriched uranium as long as the recipient of that highly enriched uranium is working with the United States cooperatively to try to get to the production of these isotopes with low enriched uranium. That is a goal that I think everybody agrees with. We need to have that incentive so that when we export this, we are exporting it to somebody that is cooperating with us. What the Energy bill did was to eliminate that requirement of cooperation. It is stricken from the language. That is wrong. If we want an incentive for people to continue to work with us, we have to retain the existing law's language. That is why the Schumer amendment is critical, to ensure that we can both continue to produce these medical isotopes, but also to do so in a way that does not proliferate highly enriched uranium around the world.…”