history tv. next month, look for the history and literary culture. louisville, kentucky, on c-span 2 and 3. the 15-member commission was created in 2010 to review federal policies on nuclear fuel. this is a little more than two

hours. come to order this morning. welcome, one and all, general, professor pete for son. ladies and gentlemen, we appreciate the efforts of a lot of our witnesses to be here today. today's hearing is really one of several that we hope to hold on the work of the blue ribbon commission on america's nuclear future. specifically today, we'll be

focusing on the consent-based recommendations made by the commission. senators will have five minutes for their opening statements and we'll recognize our first panel of witnesses, two members of the blue ribbon commission. if you go over that, that's okay. but not too far over that. we're following the first panel's statements, one round of questions. and somewhere during this we'll probably start with some votes. we have one vote at 10:30. and so we'll deal with that. and then start right back up. maybe if we're lucky, we'll be able to continue in that session. i'd like to try that. the second panel of witnesses will come forward and their testimony will be followed again by another round of questions. so that's sort of the game plan. we'll see how it works out. this country, we all have 104

currently operating nuclear power reactors. they are providing this nation with clean, reliable power. they provide roughly 20% of the electricity to the people of this country. unlike fossil fuel, they do not emit sulfur dioxide, mercury, carbon dioxide, all of which harm our health and our environment. currently, our nuclear reactors are storing their spent nuclear fuel on site in a safe and reliable manner. i've been told that the technology we have to store spent nuclear fuel called dry cast storage can be safe for another 50 to as many as 100 years, perhaps even longer. however, our nuclear reactors were not designed to keep their spent fuel on site forever. and as our reactors aged and are decommissioned, we must find an ultimate resting place for our nuclear spent fuel.

unfortunately, our country has been on a path to finding a place for nuclear spent fuel for decades. it was over 30 years ago when the congress realized the importance of finding a permanent solution for disposal of our spent fuel and high-level waste. in response, congress passed the nuclear waste policy act of 1982, moving this country forward toward deep mine geological nuclear waste repositories. after years of study and debate, we find ourselves 30 years later in what's really a dead end. we have no functioning nuclear waste repository and none in the foreseeable future. i applaud president obama for realizing that we need to forge a new pathway to dealing with our nuclear waste by forming this blue ribbon committee which is represented here today. i want to thank general scowcroft.

i want to thank congressman lee hamilton, commissioner peterson. the other commissioners for what i'm told is very good work on this effort. i believe the commission did a thorough job reaching out literally to thousands of americans and folks all over the world in searching for the best way to move forward in this front. the blue ribbon commission recommendation provides us i think with an excellent roadmap to enable us not just to find a new path but to go in the right direction. before we start running full speed ahead, i believe we need to make sure we fully learn from our past mistakes and not repeat those missteps. if not, our country may well find ourselves 30 years from now in another dead end situation, the kind we face today. i believe one of the biggest mistakes that we made is that we were unable to get consent from all parties on the location of disposal. somehow we've learned to --

communities, really states across the country to compete with one another for the siting of prisons in their states as opposed to other states. we haven't learned how to get communities compete for our disposal sites for spent fuel. some of my colleagues who've heard me discuss in the past, and delaware, state site prisons is not easy thing to do. very dense population. we find there are a number of other states around the country who figured out part of their economic development plan would be a host, to build prisons and host prisoners from other states. you know, if we can sort of get states to do that, we ought to be able to let them figure out who would like to do -- do what they're doing over in france in providing good paying jobs,

high-tech facilities for spent fuel. that's why i believe out of all the commission's recommendations, the recommendation, consent-based siting, is the most important, and that's why we're having our hearing today on this important issue. as a former two-term governor, and i know senator alexander is a former two-term governor knows this as well, so do our other colleagues. i know any consent-based approach must include a meaningful partnership between federal, local, and state leaders and we also have to have open communications with the people who live and work in and around those communities. only with open communications will we be able to reestablish the public trust and confidence that are needed to solve our nuclear waste disposal issues once and for all. closing, i'm looking forward to today's discussion. especially interested in hearing, as we learn from our mistakes and what we can do different as we examine our consent-based siting might work here in the usa. with that, let me turn to my partner in crime, senator barrasso. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'd like to thank you in joining

the witnesses who agreed to be here to testify, including the two blue ribbon commissioners. most especially, i want to welcome lieutenant general brent scowcroft, the co-chair of the blue ribbon commission. so thank you for your service to our country and for agreeing to testify today. thank you, both. mr. chairman, the issue of the storage of nuclear waste is vital to maintaining and expanding affordable nuclear power in the united states. all of us here know that congress took action 30 years ago to begin addressing the problem of the buildup of nuclear waste stored in nuclear plants throughout the united states. the nuclear waste policy act passed by congress laid out a process that looked at three possible long term storage sites. yucca mountain was deemed the best by the department of energy after a thorough technical analysis.