Latest news...

• 3/22: Brown takes joyride on Navy sub
• 3/18: Brown tries to craft more GOP district
• 3/11: Brown votes repeatedly for liberal tax cut
• 2/8: Brown slams national environmental group
• 1/26: Brown is "hands off" on education
• 1/3: Brown admits he won't be a leader

Brown takes joyride on Navy sub
He calls for more use of nuclear energy

March 22, 2001 ­ U.S. Rep. Henry Brown this week took a joyride on a Navy nuclear submarine off the Florida coast less than two months after a fatal submarine accident in the Pacific Ocean.

The joyride on the USS Springfield sparked Brown to endorse more nuclear power stations to generate electricity ­ a concept that environmentalists generally find outdated and remarkable.

“I recognize in America today we have an energy crisis,” Brown told The Post and Courier in a story published today. “Why we sort of deserted nuclear power I don’t understand.”

Brown, who serves on the transportation, veterans’ affairs and budget committees in the U.S. House, is not on the armed services committee, which oversees the Navy.

He and six other congressmen left Andrews Air Force Base early Monday and flew to a spot near Melbourne, Fla., to meet the sub. While on board, Brown said he was not able to steer the vessel, but was able to “look through the periscope,” the paper reported.

The congressional delegation returned to Andrews that evening.

• More news

"Why we sort of deserted nuclear power I don't understand."

-- Henry Brown, after he took a March 2001 joyride on the USS Springfield, a nuclear submarine.

• Click here for other pearls of wisdom from Henry Brown