Jeff Fortenberry: “First of all, it is my understanding that our chairman, Chairman Simpson, as well as Ranking Member Kaptur actually…”

“First of all, it is my understanding that our chairman, Chairman Simpson, as well as Ranking Member Kaptur actually support this amendment. I want to express my gratitude to the chairman for working with me and thinking critically as to how we make our nuclear nonproliferation architecture more robust. What this amendment does is it moves $13.8 million from the mixed oxide portion of our nonproliferation account over to the nuclear smuggling and detection account and the research and development account as well. Nuclear smuggling and detection is an important part of our nonproliferation regimen, and research and development into better techniques to detect the illicit movement of fissile material or technology has to be one of the more robust policy considerations moving forward, not only in this appropriations bill but as a body here, ensuring that we, again, are focused singularly on the nonproliferation threats that are occurring throughout the world as this technology spreads and as fissile material potentially becomes more available to those who would use it for potentially great harm. I also want, in the amendment, to point out why this money is taken from the mixed oxide program. Currently in the bill, we are spending about $345 million on this program. But MOX is expensive, and its future is unclear. We have to come to some policy decision here. We keep digging this hole and digging this hole.…”