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Floor Speech

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Mr. RISCH. Thank you, Senator.

I want to join my good friend from Wyoming in this really important issue.

We are talking here today about enriched uranium, a commodity that is absolutely critical to America. Not only is it an energy security issue, it is a national security imperative.

Right now, we get about one-fifth of our enriched uranium out of Russia. What is that doing? It is doing a number of things. No. 1, it gives Russia control over the supply, but just as importantly, at the same time, it is helping finance Russia's war against Ukraine.

It is past time that we end this dependence on or even use of any kind of Russian-enriched uranium.

Congress took a tremendous step by passing the Nuclear Fuel Security Act, which Senator Barrasso, Senator Manchin, and I introduced to enhance domestic uranium conversion and enrichment capacity, which is desperately needed. Now we have to provide a pathway to enhance domestic nuclear fuel production.

We need to provide certainty both here at home and to the world that a reliance on Russian fuel is over, once and for all. This is our opportunity to do it here.

Russia is going to suffer consequences from its attack on Ukraine for generations to come. I don't think they have fully figured that out yet. But this is just a tip of the iceberg as to what is coming for them. We need to cut it off.

I strongly urge my colleagues to pass H.R. 1042, which, as the Senator from Wyoming mentioned, was unanimously passed out of the House of Representatives earlier this week. It will be a companion to the bill that we passed earlier this year.

This is a really, really good step forward and an incredibly good step forward.

With that, I will yield to Senator Manchin.

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Mr. RISCH. Uranium.

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