we got to finish yucca mountain. we already spent enough to open it up but there is no reason to wait for yucca mountain. one thing i would mention about waste management. the backing of the fuel cycle is the one part that is not in the private sectors and is in the governments hands. and go incidentally are not, it's the one part where we see the most problem. we have an alternative proposal that would essentially put responsibility for ultimate storage of the waste in the hands of those companies that produced the energy in the first place. we feel they would come up with practical solutions. of course, subject to government safety oversight, but that would be the way to solve things rather than waiting eternally for yucca bound to eventually open. >> mr. chairman, i have another line of questioning, but you may want to jump in and take a few moments. i will take another turn. >> you. yeah, now i've lost my train of thought. i was just waiting for you to finish. >> and you thought i never would. >> no, i just got w

there is no reason twait for yucca mountain. one thing i would mention about waste management is that the back end of the fuel cycle is the one part that is not in the hands of the private sector. it is in the hands of the government. it is the one part where we see the most problems. we have an alternative proposal that would essentially put responsibility for ultimate storage of the waste in the hands of those companies that produce the energy in the first place. we feel they would come up with practical solutions. of course, that would be subject to government safety oversight. that would be the way to solve things instead of waing interminably for yucca mountain to open. >> i have another line of questioning. you may want to jump in and take a few moments. then i will take another turn. >> yeah. i have lost my train of thought. i was waiting for you to finish. >> you thought i never would. [laughter] >> no, i just wrapped up in mr. lieberman's comment. go ahead. it will come to me and then i will interrupt you. >> the public

my state has yucca mountain. yucca mountain was not the answer for nuclear waste. it was a huge waste of money. we have to recycle nuclear waste, but we have to invest more in nuclear power. if the french can have nuclear power, we should have nuclear power. [applause] lastly, the issue of energy is critical, not only to the economic security of the united states, but our national security as well. i do not know about you, but in looking at who we buy a lot of oil from, they are not exactly our friends. hugo job as from venezuela -- chavez, ahmadinejad, they are not exactly friends to the united states. we should be independent of foreign sources of energy in the united states. we have the energy. if we have the will, we can do it, and we can do it together. [applause] this is an issue that you do not hear republicans talk a lot about. i believe it is an issue we can actually take from the democrats. it is the issue of education. it has been said that education is the new civil right in america. i believe that. to compete in the 21st century, our kids need the best

we actually open up yucca mountain -- right now bureaucrats in washington are blocking our ability to put the spent fuel in the mountain where the taxpayers have spent billions of dollars to build that facility to store the nuclear waste, and yet bureaucrats in washington are blocking us from using the facility that we spent billions of dollars to build. we open it up and remove the hurdles and also recycling spent fuel. in europe they recycle a great deal of their waste so you can use it to create more energy instead of having to put it in a storage facility. we are addressing that in a comprehensive way so we can change some of the policies that you think are destructive. host: she has a question about storage of nuclear waste -- yucca mountain, that has been one of the controversial elements of energy policy. are you confident the american people -- you will have to store it somewhere. will you build new or facilities? and what your constituents want a nuclear waste facility? guest: right now every facility stores its own waste on site. everywhere where there is a facility, they ar

alternative proposed by the house republicans continues the same failed policies, including the yucca mountain project, it doubles the amount of nuclear waste that can be shipped to nevada and jams twice as much of this junk down our throats. it would only double the danger ofamilies in nevada and across our nation. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. ms. berkley: i urge my colleagues to support the bill. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: i yield one minute to a distinguished member of the ways and means committee and the ranking member on the house budget committee, the gentleman from wisconsin plmbing ryan. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. ryan: i thank the gentleman for yielding. mechanic, this -- mr. speaker, this bill is not about science and costs and benefits, it's about ideology. if you look at the costs and benefit the goal of this bill is to reduce warming by .2 of a degree over 100 years. hit our economy with this massive tax increase on homeowners, on people buying gasoline, heating their

if i was involved at duke energy for -- pin building but yucca mountain facility that senator harry reid is blocking -- it is below a former atomic testing site in nevada. it is 1 mile below the earth. that is where we should be storing nuclear waste instead of storing it in places in south carolina. a lot of what is hoisted upon us is virtual reality for people very narrow purposes. host: let us hear from michael on the independent line from chicago, eleanor. caller: good morning. i agree with mr. hackett -- about 90 percent of what he described. i will mention what i disagree with. but to the point of global warming, the language has actually changed because it has been a lot colder. i think we are having historic lows in temperatures around the globe so now it is changed to global climate change. the sunspot activity that you talked about earlier, many scientists completely agree with that and we are at a historic low with respect to sunspots and obviously it is a lot colder. there is some concern, and i would like to ask you moving forward, there are programs out there to curtail glo

and while that repository does not need to be yucca mountain, and it may very well have been -- may be a poor choice to follow right now, it remains to be seen on what the future holds. as far as your initial -- your question about cost, about two years ago, before they came in and said they could build a 2,000 metric ton through-put on the order of 15 to $20 billion. there's a lot of money and there's various ways to finance that. there's several questions surrounding the nuclear waste fund that have yet to be, frankly, even addressed let alone even answered where that money should be going and best leveraged but one of the points that we have made at the chamber is that perhaps restructuring the entire management -- management mechanism at the department of energy and taking it away from the day-to-day role at the department of energy into a government-like corporation and then empowering that corporation with the ability to enter into long-term contracts whereby which that entity could finance the construction of a processing recycling facility -- it could very well be economical bu