Graham Discusses Importance Of The MOX Program

thank you madam chairman and I'll try to do this in six minutes but ms Harrington will have a discussion here moment Galatea the

chair women the ranking member know about my concern about the monks program back in the nineteen nineties under the Clinton administration South Carolina agreed to accept thirty four metric tons of up with Tony him weapons

grade plutonium an excess of our defense needs person agreement negotiated between the Clinton administration and

the Russian government where we would take thirty four metric tons of plutonium in excess of our defense needs weapon material and

the Russians would take thirty four metric tons and when we need her dispose of it we've been dealing with this issue for

over a decade now well over a decade and the Obama administration comes along and they actually began to

build the mox facility and I'm sure you're aware of it chassidic power but %HESITATION in case people are not there's

a technology that's been tested and works where you can take weapons grade plutonium blend it down and

make commercial grade fuel out of it so you're taking a sword and making it a plan share and the man toward halfway being completed and

last year the statute that senator Thurman wrote when he was in the because they're so much push

back in South Carolina about accepting this plutonium the fear was stuff and well guess what yucca mountain shut down so

marks gives you a way forward it becomes commercial grade fuel but the statue burrowed back in in

the early part of the century I believe to %HESITATION required a hundred million dollar fine to delete they didn't stay on track well

last year there were off track in terms of the timetable placid and with Obama administration said listen we don't want under me as

we want the amount silly and so we extended the time period for two years I can assure you I would not have done that if

are into thousand and ten the agreement was amended to say that %HESITATION

the disposition path would be mocks is that correct that is correct rejected vitrification because

if we do something other than marks how can we meet our obligations under the treaty first

I'd like to clarify that in this assessment pause that

we are we have included in the budget box remains clearly

on the table of it is not that we are disregarding box as an alternative option I

don't mean to be rude and you're very smart lady is not on the table yes the pathway forward it's not subject to debate I went ahead I

year later whether or not Marxist away to go I don't want the hundred million dollars I want to get the stuff off

the table in America emphatically in Russia given the times in which we live in so what I would suggest to you is

that the the two billion dollar overrun concerns me too I met with a devilish secretary of energy and here's what I'm willing to do I'm willing to sit down with the department of energy in the contractor try