Since my speech at Harvard in 1997, I’ve spoken on many occasions about the importance of maintaining a strong viable nuclear energy option for our nation’s energy supply. Over the last few years, I worked to provide Congressional leadership on a broad suite of issues relating to the impact of nuclear technologies on mankind.

This Summit brings together many of the national and world leaders in this important area. I hope that your meeting here strengthens your resolve to bring the benefits of nuclear energy to bear on the world’s growing energy needs.

In 1997, it was a real challenge to find a headline talking about the future of nuclear energy. There was little optimism for re-licensing, and any talk about a new plant would have been dismissed as lunacy. We’ve come a long ways, to the point where the possibility of new construction in the U.S. is, I’m told, quite real.

Many factors contributed to this dramatic shift. Industry’s performance was vital. I think that Harvard speech helped. Congressional initiatives also helped and support in Congress is now much stronger. The President’s strong support for nuclear energy is a key development.

I think there’s a good consensus today that our nation and the world are facing immense shortfalls in energy, both in the short term and even more so in the long term. Today there’s real enthusiasm for expanded use of nuclear energy.

In my remarks today, first I’d like to discuss some of the areas that comprise my current legislative agenda for nuclear energy. Then I’ll close with a more detailed discussion of some of the key challenges facing the industry today.

Current Agenda
1) Provide effective responses to the concerns about nuclear energy raised by international terrorism. I’ll discuss this area more later, but if studies show that more protective measures should be instituted, then I’ll certainly support them. In the longer term, we may need to include still more measures directly into plant designs.

2) Renew Price Anderson legislation, maintain progress at Yucca Mountain, continue the excellent performance at the NRC, and continue strong support for research and development supporting nuclear energy. We started some good programs in the last few years, we need to nurture and build them.

3) Lay the foundation for a public/private joint demonstration of a new generation of nuclear power plant and move as quickly as possible to actually implement this program. I hear increased optimism that the increasing demands for energy and the environmental impacts and uncertain cost future for fossil energies are leading our utilities to seriously explore construction of new nuclear plants. I realize that the economics in this country may still be on the marginal side, but I’d like to help change that equation.

4) Recognize the linkage between management of all nuclear materials on a global scale and the future of commercial nuclear power. We have programs to help control the Russian weapons materials, but they could be making much faster progress. The threat of international terrorism should lead us and our Russian partners to rapidly expand efforts to secure both military and civilian sector materials. Progress on interim storage is critical here.

5) Reward the emission avoidance benefits of nuclear power. The inescapable fact is that nuclear energy is making a vital contribution to our environmental health and security. One approach to accomplish this was included in my comprehensive nuclear bill. However, this is a very complex area for legislation, because most approaches that would benefit nuclear energy endanger a political consensus by increasing costs of other energy sources. This is an area where I’m most open for good ideas from the group assembled here tonight.

6) Rapidly move ahead with a next-generation fuel cycle that generates far less waste and extracts the full energy benefit from each gram of fuel. This is a long term effort, but it needs strong research programs today.

Challenges
I’ll focus my remaining comments on the challenges associated with expansion of nuclear energy.

Terrorism
September 11 changed many national policies overnight. Fears of new attacks have spawned quite an industry of “experts” suggesting the next target. Some question the safety of nuclear plants in light of those recent attacks.

I concur that it is appropriate that we carefully evaluate the safety of all major nodes of our critical infrastructures – chemical plants, electrical transmission systems, pipelines, oil tank farms, and nuclear plants, to name a few. But we need to remember that nuclear plants are probably the most hardened commercial structures in the world.

In addition, critics of nuclear energy need to remember that we and our allies control the fuel supplies for nuclear energy. That’s in stark contrast to petroleum-based fuels where the fuels are largely controlled by sources outside the United States who will consider their own best interests ahead of ours.

Legislation has been proposed that would require that each plant be able to respond to a vast array of potential threats. Some have characterized that approach as requiring each plant to have their own army, navy, and air force. To me, it’s far more realistic to ensure that protection of all critical items of infrastructure is thoroughly coordinated with our military forces.

In my view, it just doesn’t make sense to conclude that any potential target that can not be hardened against any and all acts of war should be abandoned, as some of the anti-nuclear groups might suggest for nuclear plants. With that line of reasoning, we should be abandoning airplanes and high buildings.

I think the President’s leadership is taking us on precisely the correct course – to work diligently to root out the causes and sources of terrorism around the world. Only then can we return to enjoying the lifestyle that we value and that we want to preserve for our future generations.

Management of Spent Nuclear Fuel
I congratulate the Secretary for his announcement that he’s recommending Yucca Mountain to the President as the site of our nation’s first repository for high level waste. I also appreciate that the President has requested a very significant budget increase for Yucca Mountain.

While I support progress at Yucca Mountain, I’ve frequently suggested that our single-minded focus on this “solution” for spent fuel involving permanent disposition does not serve our nation well. It is simply not obvious that permanent disposal of spent fuel is in the best interests of all our citizens.

It’s even less obvious to me that we should equate the terms “spent fuel” and “waste.”

Since Yucca Mountain can’t accommodate all the spent fuel from our current generation of nuclear plants, we clearly either need a better solution or more repositories. Given the level of local public support enjoyed by Yucca Mountain, I don’t think any of us should relish the prospect of creating more Yucca Mountains.

Depending on our future demands and options for electricity, we may need to recover the tremendous energy that remains in spent fuel. And strong public opposition to disposal of spent fuel, with its long-term radiotoxicity, may preclude use of repositories that simply accept and permanently store spent fuel.

For these reasons, I favor prompt development of centralized interim storage in a monitored, highly secure, fully retrievable, configuration as well as research on alternative fuel cycles, which include reprocessing and transmutation. We need to do the research today that can allow tomorrow’s leaders to decide whether these options can lead to economical and safe systems with better energy efficiency, reduced risks and enhanced benefits.

Transmutation, as part of an integrated national or international strategy for spent fuel, could dramatically alter the radiotoxicity of final waste products destined for a repository and allow recovery of much of the residual energy in spent fuel. This option might involve systems utilizing both existing or new reactors, plus accelerators, to enable a new fuel cycle. I successfully championed a major research program for this effort, funded at $50 million this year.

If this program is successful, we can recover the residual energy in spent fuel. We would also produce a final waste form that is no more toxic, after a few hundred years, than the original uranium ore. I was very pleased that the President specifically endorsed these studies in the National Energy Policy.

Legislative and Budget Picture
Last year, when I have introduced extensive legislation to support and encourage future nuclear energy development, I found many Senators eager to help. Eighteen Senators joined me in cosponsoring this bipartisan legislation – a most impressive number.

As you probably know, we may be about to start floor debate on a comprehensive energy bill – a bill developed in a most unfortunate, strongly partisan, way. Senator Daschle chose to strip the Energy Committee from jurisdiction over the bill, thus no hearings have been held on this new bill. This is an extremely poor way to start debate on a bill that is critically important to our homeland security.

The current version of this new bill has some provisions supportive of nuclear energy, particularly in the R&D areas. But it now has a version of Price-Anderson coverage that does not include new nuclear power plants. I’m very hopeful that will be amended with strong bipartisan support. There will be other bipartisan amendments to strengthen support for nuclear energy as well.

On a brighter note, I’m very pleased that Congress significantly strengthened our nuclear energy research programs for the current year. In so doing, we significantly increased the President’s requests for fiscal year 2002. Now we have the President’s budget request for fiscal year 2003, and I have to admit to surprise over its support.

The best news in the President’s nuclear energy budget is in the Nuclear Energy Technology program, which increases from $12 million this year to $46.5 million for 2003. This includes the ten-nation Generation IV Initiative and a new Nuclear Power 2010 initiative to pursue advanced gas-cooled reactor technologies and continue the Early Site Permit demonstration project. This program could evolve into the public-private partnership, which I mentioned earlier has my support.

But beyond that one area, I’m quite concerned. The Nuclear Energy Research Initiative is scaled back and support for university programs is held constant. The Nuclear Energy Plant Optimization program is zeroed.

My sentiments are considerably beyond the “concern” level for the Administration’s proposal for zero funding for alternative spent fuel strategies involving advanced reprocessing and transmutation. It took a major Congressional initiative last year to reach $50 million this year. This cut is all the more puzzling when the President’s National Energy Policy specifically singled out this area for study. I fear that we are shortchanging the public by slashing this budget and seriously undercutting the long-term future for nuclear energy.

Future Vision
Before closing, I’d like to mention my vision for a major future role for nuclear energy. It involves the increasing globalization of the world’s economies. I don’t believe that the world can develop in the peace and harmony that we all want unless the large differences between the “have” and “have-not” nations are addressed.

The standards of living for billions of people lag the Western world by extremely large factors. Reliable sources of electricity underpin the economies of the developed world. They are one of the factors determining each nation’s standard of living and are certainly one of the prerequisites for modernization in all developing nations. As you are well aware, there is now a vast gulf in energy usage per capita between Western nations, especially the United States, and the developing world.

I firmly believe that globalization offers immense benefits to the American people. We benefit from a network of global trading partners. These partners help create markets for our high technology products. But this will happen only if the rest of the world increases its standards of living to levels that closely match our own. And that won’t happen unless they have access to clean, reliable, low cost sources of electrical power.

Nuclear energy, appropriately designed to avoid proliferation concerns and operate in absolute safety, can play a major role in energizing the rest of the world. It can be one of the solutions to providing global energy needs and helping to bring many of the poorer economies into the 21st century.

Your group will be the ones to help achieve this vision. You’ll have my continued enthusiasm and encouragement to help bring the benefits of nuclear technologies to the entire world.