Sheldon Whitehouse

So this could come home to roost in Alaskan salmon or other fish?

Some of it smells to high heaven and was snuck in by lobbyists at midnight and has real--I mean, it is the kind of thing that makes people go out and get mad as hell in the voting booth. And we should clean it up. It is a swamp.

The approval process at NRC is an obstacle course that is designed for a particular type of technology but is not well suited to technologies that are not that technology.

It should remain, I think, a very high priority goal of this committee and this process to continue to point toward ways to reuse spent nuclear fuel.

I have been to China and heard the reports on the facilities that were designed in the United States but are being constructed over there.

I think it is a tragedy that we are losing some of our nuclear facilities to an economic problem, that there is no payment for their carbon free power.

I would urge my colleagues, you know, we met at Senator Markey's request with a delegation that included a gentleman from the Mexican Parliament.

Clearly, there are several dimensions to the political fight that you are caught in the middle of.

It can be a managed transition in which the harm from the transition, the upheaval from the transition is dealt with in a responsible way, or it can be an abrupt transition.

Unless somebody around here wants to repeal the law of thermal expansion, then we are going to have to really address this problem.

It is really hard to compete with that.

It didn't use to be that way; this used to be a Committee where Republicans and Democrats worked together on environmental issues.

The issue then comes to why haven't we dealt with this issue? What has been the problem?

They are the single greatest force fighting the free market in our country.

We have a United States military that in repeated Quadrennial Defense Reviews... has singled out climate change as a problem for the future.

Finally, finally the Congress acted and passed the law that said, no, you must increase the fuel economy standards.

I guess I would say that I am just a little bit sad at what this committee has become.

They are acting at a hypocrisy level that is historic in size.

We are in unprecedented territory.

Let the free market work.

So I urge my colleagues say what you want about sea level rise, enjoy your jokes and your mockery, but remember that for States like mine it is very, very real.

What are the things that we could best do in Congress in changing the way payments are made so that care planning becomes a built-in, baked-in part of the treatment for all Alzheimer's payments?

Thank you very much, Chairman Collins, and thank you for how relentless you have been in this cause for so long.

I think we are moving in the right direction.

I think there is very broad concern, and I would suggest bipartisan concern, that we not interfere into any kind of pricing strategies that would interfere with the fair and free operation of the market.