Political Quotes

“As a Navy veteran, I believe in focusing our limited resources toward efforts that will make our forces more effective, reliable, and efficient. I oppose this amendment that would decrease the National Nuclear Security Administration's budget by $20 million and allocate the money to a program to develop low-enriched uranium fuel for submarines and aircraft carriers. Drawing on my 20-year Navy experience in the supervision and operation of naval nuclear propulsion systems, it makes little sense to divert these resources. Our highly enriched uranium reactor design has successfully powered our submarine fleet, delivering a critical leg of our nuclear deterrent and our aircraft carriers, providing our unique sustained forward presence capability for nearly seven decades. There is no need for this amendment. Top Navy leadership and the Secretary of Energy clearly state that a low-enriched uranium design for naval nuclear propulsion ``would result in a reactor design that is inherently less capable, more expensive, and unlikely to support current life-of-ship submarine reactors.'' Meanwhile, Admiral James Caldwell, Director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, says that investing in LEU would negatively impact reactor endurance, reactor size, and ship costs, and its success is ``not assured.'' I have no doubt that we could eventually develop a reactor design using LEU, but would it continue to meet our operational and strategic defense needs? No.…”