Isn’t it strange that many Americans are so worried about nuclear power when, every year, our nuclear powered Naval ships are welcomed in about 150 ports worldwide? They are a symbol of just how safe nuclear energy is.

Over the years, our Navy has had 211 nuclear-powered ships. Today, they are responsible for operating 105 reactors in 83 active ships. Ten of those are our biggest aircraft carriers. The Navy has amassed over 5,500 reactor-years of operation without a reactor accident. That's more than twice the experience of commercial plants in this country. The good news is that fewer Americans today are scared of nuclear power. We are making real progress on this front in America. All of your efforts and my efforts over the last few years are changing attitudes. Public acceptance of nuclear energy is increasing and the public is more and more supportive.

There is increasing recognition that our dependence on foreign energy sources drives us to poor choices in the foreign and military policy arenas. Large imports of energy resources are creating an increasing foreign trade deficit. High energy costs are moving jobs overseas.

Atmospheric pollution is impacting public health in our cities and even our national parks no longer have pristine air quality. Even sources of power that we assumed were reliable, like hydropower, are being curtailed as drought in the West cuts water flows. And above all, taxpayers are worried about high gas and oil prices, and they know that our economy is suffering as a result.

Newspaper headlines are helping the public understand the seriousness of our problems. In just the last week, we saw headlines like:

• AS PRICES SOAR, DOOMSAYERS PROVOKE DEBATE ON OIL’S FUTURE,
• OIL AT $50 COULD BRING SHARP PINCH,
• NATURL GAS SUPPLY FEARS RAISE PRICES; and
• HEATING COSTS FOR NATURL GAS TO JUMP.

I think today most Americans know that the nation has serious problems with gas and oil policies. After all, oil and gas are finite resources. Yet we’ve built an economy that is addicted to them. We are making a bad situation even worse when 90% of the new electrical generation in this country relies on natural gas.

The average American also knows that we import far too much oil but fewer know that we are on a track to do exactly the same thing with natural gas. Most Americans understand that we must break our dependence on fossil fuels, but they certainly are not willing to make sacrifices to do so.

In years to come, renewables, clean coal, and nuclear power will be our only energy resources. And while hydrogen will power the cars of the future, we can’t forget that we don t pump hydrogen from the ground – it takes energy to make hydrogen.

All these factors taken together are strengthening the case for nuclear power, and not just here in the United States. From all around the world, national spokesmen – like from Canada, Finland, the European Union, and the United Kingdom are proclaiming the need for new nuclear power. Distinguished university studies from MIT and the University of Chicago point towards a bright future for nuclear power.

One of my favorite recent quotes is from James Lovelock, the noted British environmentalist, who stated that “Nuclear Power is the only green solution” to the world’s power needs. He went on to say that

“Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear fed by Hollywood-style fiction, the green lobbies and the media. These fears are unjustified and nuclear energy has proved to be the safest of all energy sources.”

My book on nuclear power has just come out, and I think the timing is pretty good. Between increasing public interest and serious energy needs, the factors governing new plant decisions are all pointing towards a national mandate for new nuclear power.

I hope that my book can provide the last push to assure that nuclear power really takes off. Our national security requires that we have new nuclear plants powering our communities and industries within the next decade.

In the book, I talk about my vision for nuclear power. I am convinced that our great nation can not maintain its national security, economic security, and environmental security without a strong nuclear energy component of our national energy portfolio.

My vision for nuclear energy extends far beyond our own borders. We need our trading partners to have strong economies – economies that support purchase of our high technology products.

There is a direct correlation between the energy available within a country’s economy and their standard of living. Nuclear energy is one of the solutions to providing power in the developing world, and doing it with minimal environmental impact.

We’re seeing real progress toward new plants today as some of the programs I created are bearing fruit. And I'm delighted that the changes I've pushed at NRC have led to a regulatory body that now operates on firm schedules and no longer is a barrier to progress.

Three companies have now applied for Early Site Permits in the NP2010 program. And three consortia have applied for DOE support of partnerships for Construction and Operating Licenses for new plants. In fact one of my great regrets today is that DOE has not funded all three of those consortia.

I don’t want to imply that there are no bumps in the road between today and those first new plant orders. You’ve witnessed some of those bumps in Congress.

One of them is the proposal to fund Yucca Mountain by taking the Nuclear Waste Fund off budget. That sounds simple, but it is a nonstarter given the opposition of the Nevada Senators in a closely divided Senate. It won’t happen anytime soon.

That proposal has led to a serious problem in funding Yucca Mountain next year. The House Appropriations Subcommittee proposed $131 million next year – an amount probably insufficient for closeout costs.

I made one proposal to keep Yucca on track. It wasn’t greeted by your companies with enthusiasm! Right now I have only one option, a Continuing Resolution to force Yucca Mountain to be funded at last year’s level. That’s not enough to build the repository, but it maintains progress.

That's where we are today. Whether we can move beyond a Continuing Resolution later this year remains to be seen. But I am holding the entire Energy appropriations process hostage to Yucca Mountain funding.

Because of the Continuing Resolution, the draft Senate appropriations bill is not public. Therefore, I can’t show you the great support I've provided for nuclear energy in the draft Senate bill for this fiscal year.

But I can assure you that my levels are well above those you saw in the House proposal or in the Administration’s request for programs like NP2010 the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative, Generation IV reactors and the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative. If and when we get to conference, I’ll work towards solid funding for these programs.

You may be surprised that I'm supporting the Yucca Mountain budget when many of you have heard me express doubt that the strategy of Yucca Mountain – an open fuel cycle – is the right one. I do have real doubts that it is the best long term choice, and my book expands on this point.

But Yucca Mountain is needed now, to provide the nation with assurance that we have a path forward on spent fuel management. Without progress on Yucca, our nuclear power can not progress. You can be assured that President Bush and I do not agree with Senator Kerry about the future of Yucca Mountain.

I'm also convinced we can improve our spent fuel strategy through research on Advanced Fuel Cycles. And as long as spent fuel is retrievable from Yucca Mountain for at least 50 years, there’s plenty of time for this research to be done.

There have been other recent road bumps, like the court ruling on the EPA regulations for Yucca Mountain. The court ruled that EPA was wrong when it set a 10,000 year standard instead of matching the peak dose, which the National Academy suggested might occur in a few hundred thousand years.

I can’t tell you exactly how this challenge will be met. There are several possibilities, ranging from Congressional hearings next year and new legislation to a new EPA standard. Next year I'm confident we’ll move past this issue and resume progress towards licensing.

There’s also concerns now about nuclear proliferation. Since I’ve introduced most of the legislation addressing this issue in recent years, these concerns are no surprise to me. Some would argue that these concerns mean we can not move ahead with nuclear power, I absolutely do not agree.

Instead, we have to assure that nuclear power stations operate under strict international norms. International oversight on enrichment, reprocessing, and disposal is also important.

Let me close with a few comments on uranium fuel, the focus of your conference.
I note in the book that there is vast uncertainty in the available resources of uranium. It has been far too long since a serious survey has been done in this country.

The world is not in a healthy situation regarding uranium production. Uranium requirements have out-run production since about 1985. In the United States, production is less than half of current use and few mines remain open.

The HEU deal with Russia is one of the main supplies filling the gap between production and use. But the HEU deal ends in 2013 and we have no guarantee that Russia will extend it.

The recent MIT study claimed that there are sufficient uranium resources to vastly expand nuclear power. I hope they are right, but I'm not at all sure that they are. In any case, I am positive that we do not have enough data today to be sure and there certainly isn’t enough production.

Increased uranium prices will encourage exploration and creation of new mines. But it takes years to get useful production from a new mine. Thus, I see a strong need for expanded attention to the fuel side of nuclear power.

Given today’s prices, it also seems reasonable to allow additional material into the U. S. from Russia – this is simply not the same environment that existed a decade ago. For that reason, I encourage both governments to allow commercial entities in the two countries to enter into purely commercial agreements to their mutual benefit.

I do not want to see the boom and bust cycle of the past repeated, and so I am cautious not to encourage a deluge of new material to suddenly enter the market. However, at the same time, it does seem that additional material could enter the market without negatively impacting the REU Agreement while providing considerable benefit for uranium consumers.

Ideally, this would encourage price stability and predictability at a level that encourages new production, which should be in everyone s best interests.

I also see a strong need to continue the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, which may enable better utilization of resources. It may, if fully successful, move us beyond the current mentality, which equates “spent fuel” with “waste” and eventually into a new regime where reprocessing and recycle of spent fuel are used here.

In conclusion, public perception of the need for more nuclear is at a peak that hasn’t been seen in decades. We are poised to begin new plants. I'm counting on all of you to assure that those new plants are built on time and on budget. They must demonstrate the highest standards of safety, security, and performance.

With your help, I'm hoping that my book title will be prophetic: Brighter Tomorrow: Fulfilling the Promise of Nuclear Energy.