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Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, we heard a lot about Russia here. We heard a lot about enabling and empowering Vladimir Putin, empowering him financially.

I am here today to offer and support legislation that will defund Vladimir Putin; that will take a billion dollars of U.S. money out of his pocket. I am here today and rise in support of H.R. 1042. It prohibits Russian uranium imports.

For years, Russia's state-owned nuclear monopoly has dumped artificially cheap uranium into our American market. And as a result of all of this, Russia and Putin have gained a commanding share of the whole world's nuclear fuel supply chain.

Russia has driven America's nuclear fuel suppliers out of business-- completely out of business--and Russia has put Americans out of work. That is what I am bringing here today because we are sending, roughly, a billion dollars a year to Russia for uranium. We need to stop that. We need to block it.

We are now at a point where the United States cannot even fuel our own next generation of advanced nuclear reactors. If Congress doesn't step in, these advanced reactors will have no other choice than to be dependent on Russian uranium.

To make matters worse, we now know that Vladimir Putin is using Russia's nuclear monopoly--to use that money to fund this brutal invasion of Ukraine that we have just been discussing here on the Senate floor. Russia's nuclear monopoly has also helped Putin evade sanctions and provide equipment and materiels to Russia's military in Ukraine.

None of this should surprise us. That is who Vladimir Putin is. He has created--created--Russia's nuclear monopoly. We shouldn't be shocked that he has turned it into his piggy bank and his toolkit for his regime.

It is time the American people in this country stop funding Russia's nuclear monopoly. We can do this, and we could do it right here today, by ending Russian imports of uranium into the United States.

Ending Russian imports would provide certainty to America's nuclear fuel suppliers--those suppliers that Russia cannot undermine again. We cannot allow that to happen. It would also ensure that we are not financing and continuing to finance Putin's war in Ukraine.

On Monday, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1042 with unanimous support. This bill would end imports of Russian uranium within 90 days and, therefore, end this billion dollars a year of American money going to fuel Russia's war machine.

H.R. 1042 is a companion to a bipartisan bill that I have introduced along with my bipartisan cosponsor, Senator Manchin, as well as Senator Risch--both of whom are on the floor right now.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee unanimously passed out our bill in May. It is a bill that we developed in collaboration with America's nuclear industry and the Department of Energy and other Agencies.

As I get ready to offer a unanimous consent request, I would yield to Senator Risch for a brief statement.

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Mr. BARRASSO. Thank you, Senators.

1042, which was received from the House; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Mr. BARRASSO. You do.

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