[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 9]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 12855]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            INTRODUCTION OF NUCLEAR POWER TECHNOLOGIES BILL

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 18, 2008

  Mr. MARKEY. Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce a bill to 
prevent President Bush from sending nuclear power technologies and 
materials to Saudi Arabia, one of the most energy-rich nations in the 
world. I am proud to be joined in introducing this bill by the 
gentlelady from Florida, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the 
Ranking Member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. I am also 
pleased that our bill is being introduced on the Senate side by Senator 
Schumer of New York. 
  Last month, President Bush went to Saudi Arabia to seek more oil 
production from the Saudis. Americans are being turned upside down at 
the pump every day, with money being shaken out of their pockets. 
Despite this hardship, the Saudis turned President Bush down flat at 
the time. Having failed to persuade the Saudis to provide relief for 
American consumers, the President then did something truly shocking, 
even by the standards of this failed administration: he agreed to 
supply Saudi Arabia with nuclear power plants.
  Why does Saudi Arabia, the most energy-rich nation on the face of the 
planet, with the largest oil reserves in the world and huge potential 
for renewable electricity generation, need nuclear power? The answer is 
simple: they don't.
  For any country with so much oil, gas, and solar potential, importing 
nuclear power makes zero economic sense. So why would Saudi Arabia seek 
nuclear power technology? There is only one possible answer: the 
Kingdom feels threatened by the rise of Iran, and it wants to guarantee 
that Saudi Arabia, too, can play the nuclear game.
  President Bush's policy towards Iran has been one long story of 
failure. And now President Bush is doubling down on his bad bets, 
pushing to send even more nuclear materials and technology into the 
Middle East. The President's bizarre decision to ship nuclear power 
plants to the Saudis not only is unnecessary, but it's extremely 
dangerous. The Middle East is already the most unstable region in the 
world and pouring more nuclear fuel onto this smoldering region could 
ignite a raging fire storm engulfing areas far beyond Saudi Arabia's 
borders.
  If Saudi Arabia wants to diversify its energy sources, that is 
appropriate and sensible, and we should help the Saudis down this path. 
But let's do it right. Saudi Arabia is three times the size of Texas 
and broils under constant sunshine. The country is a vast desert. The 
United States should be helping the Kingdom exploit its enormous solar 
energy potential, not building nuclear reactors. That's why this bill 
also encourages the President to establish a solar power development 
and assistance program with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
  Madam Speaker, I am proud of the strong bipartisan support that this 
bill, to block the transfer of nuclear power technologies to Saudi 
Arabia, has already received. This is not a political issue; this is a 
national security issue. We've already seen the extraordinarily high 
cost of spreading so-called ``peaceful'' nuclear technologies around 
the world: we've been paying that price for decades. The United States 
simply cannot afford to make this kind of mistake again.
  President Bush seems to believe that the United States is in a race, 
with the French and the Russians, to win contracts to build nuclear 
power facilities around the world. But he's wrong; that's not the race 
we're in. 'We're in a race to contain the atom, not to let it loose. 
We're in a race to prevent the spread of dangerous nuclear technologies 
any further, before these technologies can be used against us or our 
allies. Providing nuclear power technology to Saudi Arabia, a country 
for whom such technology makes no economic sense for electricity 
generation, is short-sighted and dangerous. The Markey-Ros-Lehtinen 
bill will block any such unnecessary and dangerous transfers, and I 
urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

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