Ed Markey: “this is a great amendment. Do you remember the old horror movie, The Night of the Living Dead, where the dead came back…”

“this is a great amendment. Do you remember the old horror movie, The Night of the Living Dead, where the dead came back from their graves to stalk the Earth again? Well, that is what this program is, it is a dead government program. We killed almost the identical program last year, but Adam Smith spins in his grave as we stand out here trying to figure out how to give subsidies to Westinghouse and General Electric and other Fortune 500 companies, for them to figure out how to develop nuclear energy electrical generating capacity, when they have been in that business for 50 years. It would be one thing if they are starving. They are the wealthiest companies in the United States. The electric utility industry is the wealthiest industry in the United States. Over a 50-year period, we here on the floor of Congress have given this industry $47 billion in subsidies. What is the net result? We are now debating here in Congress, and in every State legislature in the country, something called stranded investments in electrical restructuring. What does stranded investments mean? Well, it is a euphemism for the word nuclear power plant, meaning how do we get this off of our books? How do we have ratepayers subsidize this boondoggle?”