Introduction
Thank you Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Graham, and members of the committee and staff for affording me the opportunity to testify before you today. I am truly honored to be here.

My name is Jim Bernhard and I am the CEO, Chairman of the Board, and founder of The Shaw Group. With The Shaw Group corporate headquarters, and indeed my home of many years, located in Baton Rouge, I would particularly like to thank the Senator from the great state of Louisiana, Ms. Landrieu.

The topic for today’s hearing – Nuclear Power Generation — is one that is particularly important to me, the Shaw Group, and indeed the nation as a whole. Providing for the nation’s growing energy demands, safely, securely, at reasonable cost and with minimal impact to the environment is a challenging goal. Luckily, the nation’s 103 operating nuclear power plants are up to the task and performing at record levels. Just last year nuclear power provided over 20% of America’s electric supply or an estimated 762 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. It did so with exceptional levels of safety and security and with near-record high capacity factors approaching 90%. The Shaw Group and its Stone & Webster subsidiary have played a leading role in helping the industry obtain those impressive numbers.

I founded The Shaw Group in 1987 in Baton Rouge as a small pipe fabricator dedicated to supporting the power and process industries. Through the years, The Shaw Group has grown, internally and through strategic acquisitions, to become the nation’s number one supplier of fabricated piping to the power, process and petrochemical industries. Shaw fabricates specialty alloy and standard carbon and stainless steel piping, fittings and pipe supports used throughout modern nuclear and fossil power plants. Our nine domestic shops and four international fabrication shops currently have the capability to produce an aggregate of 42,000 pipe spools (9,000 tons of product) per month using the latest manufacturing and pipe bending technology.