Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, expects soon to become the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water. So he just spent a week in Europe looking at its energy industries for lessons he can use here.

A key lesson he says he learned is that America will soon need to depend much more on nuclear energy if it is serious about reducing carbon emissions — which environmentalists want to help stop global warming.

And he says to do that, America will need to become serious about reprocessing and reusing nuclear waste…

Bennett added that reprocessing in France reduces the final amount of waste to only about 4 percent of the volume created by nuclear plants in America. “Nuclear energy makes far more sense if you are going to do the reprocessing,” he said.

Plus, the French have [1] the most up-to-date nuclear power plants in the world and [2] demonstrate significant leadership in next-gen design and construction.

That also has something to do with it.