I thank our witnesses for being here today and look forward to your testimony.

We must find a path forward to begin the process of moving nuclear waste out of these communities.

This bill prioritizes the removal of spent nuclear fuel from decommissioned nuclear plants in areas with large populations and high seismic hazard.

I appreciate your moving forward on examining legislative reforms that can help to restart this process.

I commend Representative Matsui for her efforts and leadership on this issue.

If CPSC's authority doesn't allow it to respond quickly and completely to new hazards, we should consider revising that authority.

The more money diverted from that fund to interim storage, the more ratepayers - or taxpayers - will have to pay in the future for permanent disposal.

For the sake of the communities holding stranded commercial fuel wishing to redevelop their sites and others holding high-level defense waste, we must move forward and allow Nevada's technical concerns with Yucca Mountain to be heard by…

It should not take a congressional hearing or an accidental disclosure of information to get a deadly product off the shelves.

Only by showing the public the full information from this process can we build the trust in the sites, the decisions we make, and the eventual success of our nuclear waste program.

Politicizing this issue has stymied progress for far too long. We must allow the science, not politics, to guide us forward.

It will be very difficult to gain acceptance for interim storage if it is not directly linked to permanent disposal.