Joe Barton

We had the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1982 as amended in 1987. That is 29 and 24 years ago.

The NRC is supposed to serve as an independent watchdog which is driven by science, not politics.

The point is, the President is obligated to follow the law of the land as enacted by Congress and signed by a previous President.

In my opinion, the Administration decided to ignore the science and circumvent the law.

Yucca Mountain is still the law of the land.

Where in the NWPA does it say that social public acceptance is a criteria?

Allowing Americans to purchase coverage across state lines is an idea that has been gaining momentum for good reason.

It is obvious if you allow plans that are covered in one state, that are approved in one state, to be offered across the state line, it is going to promote competition and should lower costs.

We need to get the policy right, but we also need some honest answers from our witnesses about what is going on in the real world.

I don't see that there is any real excuse to not have an interoperable network.

This is the key to the future and once we can mass produce them, the cost goes down.

Thank you, Chairman Pitts and Ranking Member Pallone for holding this hearing today.

It is complete fantasy that this Congress can do anything that would reduce gasoline prices in the very short term.

I am a cosponsor of the natural gas bill that Mr. Sullivan is the chief sponsor of.

I believe if we are prudent and we work together, both sides of the aisle, we can develop a policy for alternative fuel production that would be to the benefit of all of our constituents and the American people as a whole.

I look forward to today's hearing to discuss both the opportunities and the challenges that we face as we attempt to transition to alternative fuels to power our cars and to power our trucks.

I want to tell my good friend Mr. Doyle when he is ready for another hybrid, come see me.

I mean the curve needs to go up fairly rapidly.

We have to not only put money into R&D, but we have to sustain an effort in this country to create a situation here where we can mass produce vehicles that don't use gasoline.

I am glad to see we used some stimulus money and one of the factories by the way is in Pennsylvania that is doing this new battery technology.

To put that into perspective--just doing some back of the envelope calculations, 6.5 million gallons is about 20 minutes of fuel consumption for the United States.

We got to learn to duck. We have got to learn to start building these facilities in the United States of America.

I mean it appears to me that we are just playing a shell game.

The chairman, who is an honorable, decent man, who has been in my office a number of time and I have great admiration for, appears to me to be playing some sort of a foot-dragging game--that is my characterization--because he thinks on…

Is it also true that the Commission directed the board to decide that motion by June of 2010?