Energy and Water

Worker health and safety is one of the most important elements in meeting the Department's mission. In particular, given the materials and facilities under EM's charge, the potential human and financial losses that can come from having an unsafe worksite are mindboggling. I appreciate that you take seriously your charge to ensure the safety of the Department's projects and look forward to discussing in detail your office's progress on this front.

Given the constrained fiscal environment, it is particularly important that we strategically plan each major program area to ensure we are proceeding in a deliberate and thoughtful manner, increasing or maintaining our lead in the areas where we can and limiting our investment where we cannot.

I am convinced that the commercial nuclear energy sector in the U.S. is safe and effective. That being said, we must ensure that the lessons learned from last year's tragedy at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility are heeded and we enhance the safety and emergency protocols at America's nuclear reactors.

While it is impossible to entirely prevent some natural disasters, I believe that many are exacerbated by the dramatic underinvestment in our nation's infrastructure. We need to make preventative and proactive investments because in almost every circumstance, it makes more fiscal sense to prevent a disaster than to respond.

Mr. Administrator, at your appearance before the Subcommittee last week, I applauded the hard choices NNSA made in its budget request regarding nuclear weapons. However, I cannot do the same today. I have yet to be provided with any compelling reason for including the funding for USEC within Nonproliferation. Further, I must point out that the increase in the account for USEC roughly corresponds to the drastic reduction in the Second Line of Defense program. I cannot fathom an explanation that will be satisfactory for these changes given the importance of this mission, but I am here to listen to your justification.

Our responsibility is to ensure that the dollars provided by the American taxpayer for the weapons complex are spent pursuant to a coherent strategy and as wisely as possible. I want to make clear to you that there is nothing I take more seriously in my role as a Member of Congress than the issues surrounding the decisions of war and peace in general, and nuclear weapons in particular.

I am pleased that President Obama continues to recognize the energy challenges facing this nation with this budget request and I appreciate the budget's strong statement that America 'will not cede leadership in clean energy.'

This bill starkly illustrates the shortsighted nature of the spending cap set by the House budget. The allocation for Energy and Water is simply insufficient to meet the challenges posed by the economic downturn and to guarantee our national security.