Senate Republicans made it official yesterday, naming Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) as chairman of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee. Alexander had been expected to assume the top spot on the panel since Republicans took control of the Senate in November. He served as the ranking member of the subcommittee for the last four years alongside former chairman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who will serve as the panel’s ranking member.
Alexander has been a longtime support of the nation’s nuclear weapons complex, especially the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, as well as nuclear energy. He pushed—along with Feinstein—for more Congressional oversight of major nuclear weapons projects, like the Uranium Processing Facility being built at Y-12. “If we’re going to power our 21st-century economy, we need to pursue policies that don’t pick winners and losers in the marketplace, and that instead enable innovation in our free enterprise system,” Alexander said in a statement. “That means unleashing nuclear power and other sources of the cheap, clean, reliable energy we need. It also means using our taxpayer dollars wisely: by supporting government-sponsored research that leads to innovation and jobs, and by controlling the costs of big construction projects in Tennessee and across the country.”
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