Barbara Cubin: “Currently over 20 percent of America's electricity is supplied by nuclear power, which requires roughly burning 50…”

“Currently over 20 percent of America's electricity is supplied by nuclear power, which requires roughly burning 50 million pounds of uranium as nuclear fuel each year. As our Nation's energy needs grow, so must all of our sources of energy in the future, including nuclear. Uranium, much like our current dependence on foreign oil, is increasingly produced outside the United States. Uranium domestically produced is currently 3 million pounds or just 6 percent of the Nation's nuclear fuel. Remember, 20 percent of our electricity is supplied by nuclear. The vast majority of that uranium that is produced is owned by foreign countries. Over the last 5 years, the domestic uranium production industry has faced the loss of the uranium market due to government inventory sales, resulting in the decline of sales and income, market capitalization, and massive asset devaluation. In my home State of Wyoming, uranium suppliers over the past several years have been forced to reduce a healthy workforce from several thousand to just 250 people, all this in a State that has just under 480,000 total population.”