Alan Simpson: “Having been a former chairman of this committee, and either ranking member or chairman for the last 9 years, I guess…”

“Having been a former chairman of this committee, and either ranking member or chairman for the last 9 years, I guess, when I left, people asked me repeatedly, ``What kind of chairman will Mr. Fleischmann be of this committee?'' whether it was people from the Idaho National Laboratory, PNNL, or other places. I told them I thought he would be a great chairman, and this is why: He cares about the Department of Energy's lab complex, not just Oak Ridge, which he represents, but all the labs throughout the complex. He has been to a lot of them, visited them, and found out what they do. He cares about nuclear energy, which is important to me and important to him also, and many other aspects within the Department of Energy. I thought he would be a great chairman, and he has done a masterful job of putting this bill together. This bill contains many things that are vitally important to the future of this country, whether it is nuclear power or fusion energy, as we have talked about, or the next-generation reactors that are going to be developed; whether it is high-speed computing--Oak Ridge is probably the leader in high-speed computing, and all other agencies kind of depend on the Department of Energy's high-speed computing to do work for them; whether it is cybersecurity, and a lot of that is done at the Idaho National Laboratory and at other laboratories; whether it is renewable energy and the facility in Colorado. All of those things are important.…”