Daily Inspiration Quote by Michael Burgess

"Nuclear power is here to stay, and we need to support a strong domestic uranium industry"

Michael Burgess, Congressman

About this Quote

Burgess’s line sounds like technocratic inevitability, but it’s really a political weld: fuse climate-era pragmatism to old-school industrial nationalism. “Here to stay” isn’t an argument so much as a foreclosing move. It treats the nuclear debate as settled reality, nudging skeptics into the less defensible posture of resisting the future rather than contesting a policy choice.

The second clause does the real work. “We need to support” recasts a market and supply-chain question as civic duty, while “strong domestic uranium industry” smuggles in a whole agenda: subsidies, permitting reform, long-term federal procurement, perhaps even trade restrictions. Domestic uranium is not just about kilowatt-hours; it’s about leverage. The subtext is strategic anxiety over dependence on foreign enrichment and fuel services, especially given the tangled global uranium ecosystem and Russia’s outsize role in parts of the nuclear fuel cycle. In that light, “domestic” becomes a synonym for secure, reliable, patriotic.

Context matters: nuclear power is simultaneously being rebranded as climate infrastructure and treated as critical national security technology. That dual identity lets proponents stitch together an unusual coalition - decarbonization-minded moderates, defense hawks, and energy-state interests. It also quietly sidesteps the messy parts: the environmental justice fights around mining, tribal land impacts in the Southwest, long-lived waste, and the fact that “support” often means socializing risk while privatizing profit.

The intent is simple: make uranium boring, essential, and American - and make opposition feel like irresponsibility.

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About the Author

Michael Burgess

Michael Burgess (born December 23, 1950) is a Congressman from United Kingdom.

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