Political Quotes

“First, I am a proud cosponsor of Representative Lipinski's amendment, which would direct an increase of $15 million to Argonne National Laboratory's Leadership Computing Facility. The ALCF is a national scientific user facility that provides supercomputing resources and expertise to the scientific and engineering community to accelerate the pace of discovery and innovation in a broad range of disciplines. This money will be well spent. A second amendment, offered by myself, instructs the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to include accelerator-driven systems in its evaluation of future nuclear technology and fuel. There is a bipartisan and bicameral interest in accelerating investment in advanced nuclear reactors, which are walkaway safe and proliferation-resistant and have the potential to burn or minimize nuclear waste. One proposed system uses a proton accelerator, a neutron spallation target, and molten salt fuel, but it remains subcritical, thereby greatly reducing the safety and security risks. It can, without redesign, burn spent nuclear fuel, natural uranium, thorium, or surplus weapons material, such as surplus plutonium. It operates without the need for enrichment or reprocessing and may be used to produce the tritium needed to maintain our stockpile. Madam Chair, I thank my colleagues for their support.”