On the recordJune 22, 2010
I appreciate my colleague commenting about energy. There is a bipartisan energy bill that I hope the President discusses tomorrow. It came out of the Energy Committee on a bipartisan vote. It doesn't increase cap and trade. I certainly agree with my colleague on nuclear power, although we have some disagreement about wind. We have some nice places in Kansas for wind energy generation. I talked with the operators of the Smoky Hills Wind Farm last week. It operates between 40 and 45 percent of the time--the highest operating unit in the world. This company is a global wind-producing company. It is a very nice operation. I am not saying you can power it all off of wind. I am a nuclear supporter myself. I also believe we have nice places to do wind power and a nice generation capacity that is complementary to the rest of the energy grid in the United States. Kansas is the second windiest State in the country. There are many times I have been in Kansas and have wondered, who else could be windier? We have a lot of consistent wind. There are places we can produce wind power on a very advantageous basis for the rest of the country. It is my hope that we can have those on a complementary basis but that we don't do a cap-and-trade system; rather, that we go with the bipartisan bill that passed the Energy Committee.
