Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I first thank Senator Alexander for the great efforts he has undergone to bring this legislation forward. The Senate is working as it should. We are processing amendments. Hopefully, we will make it through all of our appropriations bills this year and go back to regular order so that we avoid the kinds of collisions we have had all too often in the past few years as we try to accomplish the business of our government. As we have been told, the next amendment planned to be voted on in the next few minutes, we hope, is the Crapo-Whitehouse amendment. This amendment is one that focuses on our nuclear energy in the United States. Nuclear energy is a carbon-free emissions source of energy. It is becoming recognized as one of the more important parts of the energy solution in the United States, and our amendment does a very simple thing. It creates a pilot project at the Idaho National Laboratory to begin perfecting and implementing the process of processing spent naval fuel into fuel that can be utilized in our new, advanced reactors. Currently, when naval fuel from our reactors in our Navy ships is spent, it still has about 80 percent of its value or its energy in it. The new, advanced reactors need about a 20-percent level. So we can literally get about four times as much fuel out of a spent naval fuel rod for new, advanced reactors as is in the rod itself, once it is ready for processing.…”