Lamar Alexander

My impression is that the President's firmness on his NATO support helps send the message to Putin that destabilizing those countries is a stupid thing to do.

So your agreement with Idaho is you are supposed to be out of there by when?

Such as Yucca Mountain?

I think in most commercial settings that is true.

The quickest way to do it seems to be and the cheapest way to do it seems to be to continue to open Yucca Mountain

When we have our discussions over the next few weeks, we need to be accurate about that

I think we ought to try to present this in the most accurate light.

Well, they might, but they will have to come back and get you to approve it.

The studies that have been done... have not shown any correlation with increased thyroid cancer.

Let me ask this way: Have those studies found that anyone was hurt as a result of the Three Mile Island accident?

In a recent discussion with Secretary Perry, he and I talked about forming a small working group of relevant agencies to identify the remaining challenges to bringing small modular reactors to market in the United States.

I would think, though, it is an opportunity, since you are already familiar with this kind of reactor, to review your application process and look for ways, while maintaining your gold standard safety requirements, of streamlining your…

If we can move ahead more quickly on an interim storage site authorized by the legislation that Senator Feinstein and Murkowski and I and Cantwell will introduce, or if we can move ahead more quickly with a properly licensed private site…

This is an unacceptable stalemate, and it is a symptom of--and in my own view, and, obviously, Senator Feinstein's expressed herself, it makes no sense to me for us to take the view that if we can't move on one, we can't move on anything.

We are either going to have to persuade the Senate to move ahead with Yucca Mountain or the House to move ahead with interim storage.

Do you have an estimate of how long it would take between here and the license for Yucca Mountain?

I'm out of time, but let me conclude my question this way: You said a moment ago that you would stand by your estimate of about 3 years to review the application for a license for the private facilities in Texas and in New Mexico.

You have $30 million in your budget for Yucca Mountain. What are the next steps on Yucca Mountain?

Do you believe that we would be able to place used nuclear fuel in a private consolidated storage site more quickly than we would be able to place it in Yucca Mountain?

So the answer would be yes----

Do you have sufficient funds in your budget to do what you need to do if you--on both of these applications, should--this year?

But, fundamentally, when you finish your work, if you approve the license, we then have a licensed facility ready to receive used nuclear fuel; is that correct?

So that would mean that as soon as they have a license to do that, they can--if the department--then their relationship moves to the Department of Energy, right?

Is the result of your review, if you approve it, does that mean they have a license?

But we need support from the nuclear industry, for example, as Senator Feinstein says, for the position which we think is correct, which is that we should move ahead on all fronts.