Mike Simpson

My job is not only to do the appropriation for the energy and water appropriations bill, but it is to help make you the most successful secretary of the Department of Energy that we have had.

You obviously are in charge of a very important department, in my opinion.

Mid-April is approaching relatively rapidly. Have you made a decision yet on what you are going to do in operating--what you said earlier.

Did the B&W announcement concern you?

You know, I look at, what, $14, $15 billion we spent drilling a hole in the ground in Nevada that is, I guess, a good place to store their records, in a hole in the ground.

The administration stands ready to work with Congress and TVA stakeholders to explore options to end Federal ties to TVA, including alternatives such as the transfer of ownership to state or local stakeholders.

Have you had discussions with USEC on what they will do, because, if they are, in fact, as you know, in mid-April going to be running out of money, they are going to have to send out layoff notices to their employees.

Do you still believe there is a national security need for domestic enrichment?

So you are going to have to renegotiate with Russia?

We can certainly arrange some of those meetings between all of us and so we can get together and knock heads and find out where we are.

The energy issue is not new to me, and frankly, I have never seen the cost overruns and schedule slips that I now have learned have been endemic at the Department of Energy.

I cannot emphasize this point enough, and as I look back after the last 40 years, I say to myself, have we really been serious since the formation of your department?

I have never had a clear vision of where we want to go with this department and why we do some of that neat stuff.

If we are going to ensure that our electrical system remains reliable and our country prosperous, then your department needs to be doing more to address our current fleet of power plants.

I am not an enemy of renewable energy. Heck, the city of Boise in my district operates the largest direct use geothermal system in the country, but coal and nuclear plants are being shut down across the country.

This country needs a strong Department of Energy.

Your department's credibility has been sorely damaged by proposing cost plans which are rapidly exceeded.

How are we going to fund these roads and bridges? We have a $700 billion backlog in water and sewer projects in this country.

The infrastructure needs in this country are the biggest problems that we face.

And we need to work with the water users there to make sure that they understand what is going on here between the two federal agencies.

Increasing storage is going to be, I think, vital in trying to address some of these long-term droughts in the West.

I do not see us, frankly, building an awful lot of new dams in the West for increased storage.

That is just something that we need to know as a Committee, as we are planning our budgets.

Well, I would advise you to do something like that, because it would be helpful to this Committee--because then we know--we are also looking at five years on, if we start this project--because a lot of the projects that you guys do are not…

I appreciate you all being here. I thank you for the work that you do.