David Vitter

Standing alone, the June 16, 2014 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement appears worthy of celebration.

I want to reState what I said. The Chairman was sort of suggesting that I was saying that a decommissioned site, a run of the mill industrial site doesn't need concern, doesn't need a lot of careful regulation.

The obvious question is, why not?

I want to commend the Commission for basing their recent vote to eliminate further generic assessments to expedite the transfer of spent fuel from pools to dry storage on facts and sound science.

While the President's efforts to kill coal fire generation are obvious and already underway, I am really concerned about another and somewhat more subversive and under cover effort which is ongoing to really cripple the nuclear industry.

I am concerned that taking so long to move on in that area really clutters your table and doesn't allow you to properly focus on the Tier 1 recommendations, the high priority recommendations.

I think it is a lot of semantics being used, quite frankly, to confuse and scare the public.

I would urge the Commission to face that.

I am not suggesting that, but it does seem reasonable that there is a significant difference between a nuclear plant that is operating and a nuclear plant that is shut down.

It is also my understanding that staff has studied the safety of the pools ten times now and has consistently concluded that the fuel pools are safe.

Today, I want to urge our commissioners to be precise and direct with your thoughts on these initiatives.

I think that would really be unfortunate.

Thank you, Chairman Boxer, for convening today's hearing and I want to thank our NRC commissioners for your work, your dedication and for being here to testify.

I share Chairman Boxer's and Senator Whitehouse's understanding of section 4014, and will address subsection (d) of that provision, ``Request for Projects.'' Subsection (d) is an important provision because it requires approval by the…

The legislation would remove some aspects of federal oversight under the FPA that potentially could cripple the many benefits provided by the Project.

Senators David Vitter (R-LA) and John Cornyn (R-TX) are also original sponsors of this legislation.

I think some of this is semantics. You could go about it a different way.

I assume there are big differences between one and the other.

Certainly the regulations enforcing security and safety standards during decommissioning are very important to the country and certainly those who live and work right around these facilities.

In terms of SONGS in particular, obviously the NRC has looked at this issue of the location of the fuel.

I think it is important since these three bills were just filed to focus on the ideas behind these three bills.

Reclaiming my time, or reclaiming the floor, since my unanimous consent request----

I thank Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member Hatch for holding this hearing.

We should preserve investment levels and not increase the overall tax burden on taxpayers.

We must work to maintain the user-based system.