The subsidy costs for nuclear to build 20 percent of our electricity from carbon-free would be about $17.5 billion over 10 years.

So my question will be why not have a clean energy standard or a base-load standard that includes nuclear?

Thanks, Madam Chairman. Let me welcome Senator Warner, especially, and the entire group of witnesses. I look forward to that.

Thank you very much for taking time to be here.

I think we should incentivize and support a broad diversity of different types of energy in our country.

For some reason, new nuclear power is not allowed to be included in this legislation in terms of meeting renewable energy standards.

We should not, however, as a Congress, make the decision that we will pick the winners and losers.

One example, in terms of constructing a new nuclear plant, between 1,400 and 1,800 jobs per plant are created.

If nuclear energy produces 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity, and our goal is to reduce carbon, why is it not at the top of your list?

Under the Price-Anderson Act, the taxpayers never paid a penny for a nuclear accident.

The Government has enacted a Production Tax Credit so narrowly defined it is mainly a windmill tax credit.

We have got to put a price on carbon and a cap on carbon emissions across the whole economy without picking winners or losers if we really want America to compete and to get these innovations into the market quickly.

When I think of jobs, I think of my State. So here is what is going on in my State: people are looking for cheap energy.

Here is our policy. We have a low cost, rather than a high cost, clean energy policy.

Should nuclear also be supported by the Production Tax Credit, by the Investment Tax Credit?

If we wait a decade to get America in this race, we are out of it. It is gone.

The fact of the matter is, taxpayers have never paid a penny as a result of that.

I want to talk, and I am honestly trying to understand this, I am trying to get the bottom of this.

And the way to create the largest number of those green kinds of jobs, or those kinds of jobs, would be to build 100 new nuclear plants in 100 years.

We would like to electrify our cars and trucks for conservation.

This was Washington, once again setting the rules and, as Senator Lamar Alexander loves to say, sending the bill to the States.

You disagree with that?

I believe climate change is a problem, that I have introduced legislation to cap carbon from coal plants.

If we had an effective low-carbon fuel standard, why would we need to apply an economy-wide cap-and-trade?

Do you think anyone will change their driving habits based on a 2 cent increase in the gallon of gasoline?