On the recordDecember 14, 2023
I also rise to join my friend from Wyoming Senator Barrasso and my friend from Ohio. And I know that my friend from Texas has some concerns, but it is something different. The only thing I would say about this is, as troubled as our House colleagues are--435--they passed this unanimously, unanimous consent. They can't agree on anything. They passed this because of the need for what we are trying to do here. What we are trying to do is build initiatives I worked to include in the Energy Act of 1020. What we are doing is operating nuclear powerplants that are dependent on Russian enrichment. We are operating our nuclear fleet based on Russian enrichment and conversion capacity, which represents half of the global capacity. We let them capture the market. Russia is currently the world's only--I will repeat. They are the only commercial source of high-assay low-enriched uranium--or, as we refer to it, HALEU--which is the fuel needed for advanced reactors, such as the SMRs and the micros that were coming in, the new technology. It is shameful and dangerous to our country, which led the world in developing nuclear energy--we led the world--and once was capable of producing all the fuel that we could ever need, and it has become reliant on one of the most notorious adversaries we have ever had, Russia. Uranium production in the United States peaked in 1980. And since 1992, the majority of uranium purchased by the U.S.…
