Richard Burr: “I have all the respect in the world for my colleague, Senator Kyl. I think it is reasonable in life that two people can…”

“I have all the respect in the world for my colleague, Senator Kyl. I think it is reasonable in life that two people can disagree on what something says. In this particular case, an entire committee looked at it, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. When the question is asked, Who asked for change? the answer is simple: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This is with over 10 years of working with the current language. And as time has gone on and technology has changed, and as the requirement for the size of what we needed in radioisotopes has changed, it was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that, in fact, suggested they needed Congress's help. Let me address the last fact Senator Kyl brought up. One, only Argentina currently produces medical isotopes using LEU target technology, which is unable to even meet the current needs in Argentina medical community. Indonesia has ceased any further testing of the U.S.-developed LEU through the technical obstacles. We all want low- enriched uranium. After this is over, I hope this body will take on that challenge, the challenge of domestically producing medical isotopes and the Department of Energy will probably have a hold of the tiger that we give them when we instruct the Department to go back to what they dropped in 2000, after they have reviewed it, and look at our reactors here and how we accomplish production, whether we can make money at it or not. I want to go back to health, though.…”