Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chair, having been a former chairman of this committee, and either ranking member or chairman for the last 9 years, I guess, when I left, people asked me repeatedly, ``What kind of chairman will Mr. Fleischmann be of this committee?'' whether it was people from the Idaho National Laboratory, PNNL, or other places.
I told them I thought he would be a great chairman, and this is why: He cares about the Department of Energy's lab complex, not just Oak Ridge, which he represents, but all the labs throughout the complex. He has been to a lot of them, visited them, and found out what they do. He cares about nuclear energy, which is important to me and important to him also, and many other aspects within the Department of Energy.
I thought he would be a great chairman, and he has done a masterful job of putting this bill together.
This bill contains many things that are vitally important to the future of this country, whether it is nuclear power or fusion energy, as we have talked about, or the next-generation reactors that are going to be developed; whether it is high-speed computing--Oak Ridge is probably the leader in high-speed computing, and all other agencies kind of depend on the Department of Energy's high-speed computing to do work for them; whether it is cybersecurity, and a lot of that is done at the Idaho National Laboratory and at other laboratories; whether it is renewable energy and the facility in Colorado. All of those things are important.
What a lot of people forget about this bill is that about a third of it--36, 38 percent, something like that--is the defense part of this bill, NNSA, whether it is the nonproliferation that was mentioned by the ranking member, whether it is the defense cleanup portion of it, whether it is the weapons modernization program, or whether it is the part that I kind of like, which is the naval reactors program.
When they started the naval reactors program at the Idaho National Laboratory, when they fueled the first submarine with nuclear energy, it lasted about 18 months, and then they had to refuel it. Because of the work they have done out there, we now fuel ships for the life of the ship. That is an amazing process that they have done, and it is because of the work that is done by the NNSA.
However, that is just on the energy side of this bill. We could talk about that for a long time. The other important part of this bill is the water part of it. It is energy and water.
The Army Corps of Engineers is funded through this bill, and they do the dredging for our ports and waterways throughout this country. Whether it is the Corps or the Bureau of Reclamation, I will tell you, every Member of Congress, I believe, has an Army Corps of Engineers project within their district. Therefore, this bill is important to them.
I think the chairman has done a masterful job of putting this bill together.
I enjoy listening to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and they are good friends. We have worked together in a cordial way for many years, both Chairwoman DeLauro and Ranking Member Kaptur, who used to be chair of this committee, also. It goes back and forth.
I enjoy their conversation on where we haven't spent enough money on this bill, and they have talked about how we can spend more money in certain areas to address certain things and that kind of stuff. The one thing they didn't mention, when they were talking about the fact that we need more money in these bills, is the $33 trillion deficit we have.
I will guarantee you, it is easier to write bills when you are just expanding spending and have more money than you know what to do with to throw at all the different bills, which is the way it has been for the last couple of years. If they didn't have enough money, they took things out and made it emergency spending. We are having to deal with that.
It is more difficult to write a bill where you have to actually reduce spending. I think everyone in our Conference on this side of the aisle realizes that we have to reduce spending if we are ever going to address the $33 trillion debt. It is just a small part of it, but it is an important part of it. That is what we are trying to do in a responsible manner. That is what Chairman Fleischmann has done in a responsible manner.
I find it kind of curious that as I have heard the ranking member of the full committee and the subcommittee talk, they have said that we have to spend more money because families are struggling, and then they say this is the best economy we have had in years and years. Which one is it? I don't understand. Is it both? Interesting. When can we address the debt and deficit in this bill? It is a challenge that we face.
Again, I congratulate the chairman of the subcommittee for his work on this, and I also would be remiss if I didn't say something about the staff. They have done a fantastic job. They work incredible hours to get these bills ready for the floor, and they have done a good job on this one, too.
Mr. Chair, I congratulate them and thank them for their work.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source