mr. barrasso: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. madam president, the president of the united states earlier today was in cleveland. he spoke for 54 minutes, and yet he said almost nothing. at least certainly nothing that most of us have not heard before. it was two years ago this very weekend, two years ago this weekend, that the white house announced the start of what it referred to as the recovery summer. that campaign effort was an effort to convince the american people that the obama administration's policies to create jobs, that the policies were working. david axlerod, the senior advisor to the president said this summer -- the summer of 2010 -- this summer will be the most active recovery act season yet. again, that was the summer of 2010. treasury secretary tim

mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. barrasso: i ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: yesterday vice president biden and other obama administrations hosted taunt, an opportunity to highlight the transparency of college costs. they said these schools were committed to providing key information financial information to all of their students starting next year. madam president, once again transparency took a back seat to politics. in fact, the white house, the white house failed, failed to level with college students about important financial information including how the president's health care law is going to make it harder for many students in terms of their ability to get health insurance through their universities. earlier this week the real story came out, and i will tell you, madam president, it's discouraging. i continue to come to the floor week after week with a doctor's second pitbull opinion -- second opinion about the mchealth care law because i think the healt

mr. inhofe: i ask that we recognize the senator from wyoming, senator barrasso for nine minutes. mr. arrasso: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: madam president, i ask you give me a warning when i have one minute remaining. thank you, madam president. today i rise in support of the inhofe utility mact amendment. this amendment protects communities and jobs in the west, in the midwest and in appalachia, and specifically jobs that depend on coal. these communities depend on coal to heat and cool their homes at an affordable price, to power the factories where they work, to generate revenue that creates additional jobs. we're talking about affordable domestic coal that also pays for the mortgages on their homes, the clothes and food for their children and the medical care for their grandparents. i will tell you, if the utility mact rule is allowed to proceed, it would mandate that virtually no new coal-fire power plants could be built anymore in the united states. many still in existence would have to shut down. it is painful, painful to think

senator barrasso. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. to both of you in the testimony we discussed examples of where consent-based approach has worked. and you visited about the disposal facilities siting for new mexico. are there positive outcomes, spain, finland, sweden? could you tell me about what the key common elements are that made those projects successful? >> well, i would say the key common elements are that the prospects were made to look positive in the eyes of the local communities. and they were an asset to the communities. and as i say, that's why there has actually been in some cases active bidding to hold -- to hold the site. so i think that's the key to it. to make it not a penalty that's being forced on you but an opportunity for the community. and that will differ for different communities, what they find attractive. but it seems to be working very well in all the other countries that we visit. as i say, none of them have the particular complications we do in our federal system. but given that, we're optimistic. >> ta

mr. barrasso: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. i'd like to compliment my colleague from south dakota for his commitment and continuing focus on jobs and the economy and the impact that that has on our nation and our future. i come, as i have week after week, with a doctor's second opinion about the health care law, which is in many ways directly tied to the economy and the economic situation that my colleague from south dakota was commenting on. we have seen continual unemployment of over 8%, now 8.2% unemployment. people graduating from colleges who can't find work who are going back to live with their parents. it's because the president focused on a health care law and the supreme court will rule on it tomorrow, but he focused on that instead of focusing on what people at home were concerned about -- jobs, the economy, getting the economy moving again, bringing the economy back to health. a healthy economy is what people were looking for. so i come to the floor today, madam president, to talk

mr. barrasso: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. i'd just like to commented on that because it doesn't matter how long you're here, all you needed to do was pick up the newspaper, pick up the "national journal," and i agree with my colleague from south dakota. at the beginning of this year, the "national journal," big article, picture of the majority leader and the headline is, "reid's new electoral strategy." forget passing bills is the subheadline. "forget passing bills, the democrats just want to play the blame game in 2012." and, madam president, that's exactly what we saw this morning on the floor of the united states senate. and this isn't some piece of fiction. this is something that actually the majority leader told the 40 democrats from the house about his goal, his intentions for the 2012 year here in congress. goes on to say, "working with the white house, senate democrats are plotting a 2012 floor agenda driven by obama's reelection campaign." it goes on, "senate floor action will be

mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. i come to the floor today as i do week after week, and have since the health care bill was signed into law with a doctor's second opinion about the health care law. i do that as someone who practiced medicine, taking care of families all around wyoming for about a quarter of a century, and continue to hear great concerns from folks back home and across the country about the health care law. and sofpb people ask the -- so often people ask the question does the president really understand the health care law? well, mr. president, last week president obama, i think really shocked a lot of americans when he made a statement -- he was not on the teleprompter. he was off script. what he said was the private sector, he said was doing fine. he said the private sector was doing fine. and he said the weaknesses in our economy had to do with state and local government. well, the words made it very clear to people all around the country that the president really was not in touch with what's happe

mr. orel. >> chairman carper and ranking member barrasso and the distinguished members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify. my name is andrew orel, and regardless of how it's pronounced, i am v the pleasure of serving as the director of nuclear -- >> so it is pronounced orel. >> orel, yes. now we can move on to the bigger problems. >> i still have the pleasure of serving as the director of nuclear energy and fuel cycle programs at sandia national laboratories. throughout my career work on the waste isolation power plan and the yucca mountain project, i've experienced firsthand the meaning of consent-based approaches to repositor projects and the cauldron of public controversy that can surround them. it is from this perspective that i offer my comments today, recognize anything such comments are my own and do not necessarily represent the opinions or positions of the department of energy or of the sandia national laboratories. we're fortunate the united states contains many geologic formations that are considered to be technically suitable for deep geologic disposal of nuclea

mr. chairman. >> i know this is an issue of real interest to you and i'm delighted you're part of this. >> thank you. thank you for having the hearing and to you and senator barrasso, and after we vote, i'll be back to hear what the witnesses have to say and hopefully ask some questions. general, professor, thank you both for your hard work on all of this. my view on nuclear power is pretty well known, i think, not to think about using windmills and have nuclear reactors would be like general skocroft going to war in sailboats. when we had a nuclear navy available. but i won't get into all that today. as the chairman said and as senator barrasso said, we've had a stalemate here for about 25 years as you have said in your report. and we in congress have caused some of that. and we need to break that stalemate. your report told us something we know or should've known, it's the obvious that no policy or process involving nuclear waste can be successful unless it's consent based along the way. so we've tried to break that stalemate. and by we, i say senator binghamton and senator feinstein who are the ranking members on energy and the energy appropriations committee a

mr. howes. we'll get to the questions in a bit. dr. metlay, i'd like to call on you, please. >> thank you very much. chairman carper, ranking member barrasso, senator udall, senator alexander, my name is daniel metlay. i'm a member of the senior professional staff of the u.s. nuclear waste technical review board, an independent federal agency. i thank you for inviting me here today to provide some background information on the international experience related to consent-based programs for sighting facilities for storing or disposing of high-level nuclear waste. i will summarize my remarks and ask that my full statement be included in the hearing record. this subcommittee undoubtedly is familiar with the experiences in the united states both before and after site characterization was limited to yucca mountain. it may be less familiar with the experiences of other countries. these, i believe, can be very instructive, so i will focus my comments on them today. in the last 40 years, a dozen countries, including the united states have initiated more than two dozen efforts to identify potential repository sites. only three of those efforts have

barrasso, thank you very much for coming on the program. you voted against eric holder when he was up for nomination. do you share mr. cornyn's concerns? do you agree with him? >> i have great concerns about the positions he's taken. he's reluctant to come forward with the information on the fast and furious program which was terribly bungled by his justice department, a true tragedy with loss of life and now what we have are these releasees that appear to come from the white house that make the president look like he's kind of a macho man in the run-up to the election. i think he's also caused loss of life and significant security breaches to our nation and i think we ought to have an independent council. >> do you think intelligence leaks from the white house have caused loss of life? >> i absolutely do. when you take a look at what's happening overseas and perhaps not of american citizens, but of others and are putting our people at risk and you take a look at what's happened with the leaks regarding the computer virus in iran, and you talk about that doctor who is now imprisoned in pakistan who aided in helping identify the locatio

mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. i come to the floor to do what i've done since the health care bill was signed into law to offer a doctor's second opinion about a health care law, a law that i believe is bad for patients, bad for providers, the nurses and doctors that take care of are those patients and i believe is terrible for the american taxpayers. i come to the floor today, mr. president, because the supreme court is soon going to rule on the constitutionality of the president's health care law. the court's decision will revolve around primarily the individual mandate, the component of the law requiring all individuals to purchase not just health insurance but government-approved health insurance. never in the history of this country has the federal government required individuals to purchase a product, to come into your home and tell you you must buy -- and tell you, you must buy a government-approved product. why? well, simply because you happen to be a citizen of the united states. the american people are no