Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, many experts agree that the National Ignition Facility has no relevance to its goal of maintaining the nuclear arsenal. Edward Teller, better known as the Father of the Atomic Bomb when asked about the NIF's usefulness in maintaining nuclear weapons he replied, none whatsoever. Los Alamos's theoretical weapon physicist Rod Schultz wrote that the NIF supposed importance to the weapons stockpile does not reflect the technical judgment of the nuclear weapons designed community. Eliminating funding for the National Ignition Facility does not cut funding for research and development for any future commercial energy technology. Mr. Chairman, our future energy path is clearly in renewable technologies, such as fuel cells, wind and solar power. As the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) has said, NIF is a budgetary black hole. The Department of Energy's initial estimate of NIF's cost overruns were about $350 million, but current cost overruns estimates from the DOE stand between $750 million to $1 billion, 100 percent more than originally estimated.”