Ed Markey: “just so everyone can understand what it is that we are debating out here on the floor, this is basically a baby breeder…”

“just so everyone can understand what it is that we are debating out here on the floor, this is basically a baby breeder reactor. The name has been changed to protect the guilty, but it is just the next generation of the breeder reactor, that whole debate we had about the Clinch River Breeder Reactor and all of that. I say to my colleagues, ``If you remember, this miracle technology is going to produce electricity too cheap to meter, and it is also going to solve our reprocessing problem, if such existed.'' The problem with it was that it created two problems. One, it, in fact, cost more than anyone had ever imagined that it could cost to generate electricity; and, second, it blew a hole right through our nonproliferation policy because, as we began the process of constructing a technology to reprocess plutonium, we were sending a signal to North Korea, and Iran, and Iraq, and Libya, and every other country around the world that was contemplating the use of this technology to extract nuclear-weapons-grade fuel and telling them, ``Don't listen to what we say. Don't in any was believe that we are sermonizing on the subject. Just look at this huge amount of money that we are willing to spend on the same technology that we are telling you that you should not in fact invest in.'' So the $18 million which the gentleman from Wisconsin seeks to cut out of this budget goes right to the heart of this debate.”