I will look forward to a private discussion with Senator Sanders, and I would love to present him with the National Academy of Sciences study that shows just the reverse.

I too believe it is important for our country to have a full complement of members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Do you agree that we should move ahead on parallel tracks?

Do you support the idea of moving ahead with small nuclear reactors?

I will be asking you about what you intend to do about that; what your manner and attitude will be in terms of leadership.

I will be asking about used nuclear fuel, nuclear waste; what are we going to do about it.

So our thought with the appropriations bill was, can we take a step or two while we work out the comprehensive piece, or legislation, which would then take over the whole process.

Our sense is that there are things that can be done within existing authority at the Department of Energy to get started on this track.

In the proposal in the Appropriations bill, of course, any site that is chosen, even as a pilot site, would have to be approved by the Congress.

As I said in my opening remarks, whether you are for Yucca Mountain or against Yucca Mountain, we need to break the stalemate.

I had the same experience with prisons when I became Governor. We couldn't locate one, and I announced that we only had one, and we would have a competition.

It is important to protect Tennessee, I know, from the unilateral action of getting a nuclear site.

Do you agree or disagree that if we in the Congress try to move as aggressively as we can to pass a comprehensive piece of legislation, that it is prudent to go ahead with the language in the Appropriations bill that allows the Department…

We are going to work together, Mr. Chairman, with you and others to try to break the stalemate, address the issue and begin to implement the best ideas from this report.

For a long-term repository, I would think that the Federal Government would want the Governor and the State legislature to pass a law approving it.

I think your consent-based recommendation just clears the air, it doesn't resolve Yucca Mountain for now.

We have had a stalemate here for about 25 years, as you have said in your report. And we in Congress have caused some of that.

We need consolidation sites and we need a second repository or more.

No policy or process involving nuclear waste can be successful unless it is consent-based along the way.

This has been very helpful and very, very interesting.

We have conclusively demonstrated that we have a big difference of opinion over Yucca Mountain.

To think about using windmills when we have nuclear reactors would be like General Scowcroft going to war in sailboats when we had a nuclear navy available.

I wonder if you could tell me how successful that was, whether some of that is still going on or not in terms of our border control activities.

Re-equipping the Guard is one of the biggest challenges facing the Department of Defense.

The President's proposed budget doesn't adequately support the Guard and Reserve.