Pete Domenici: “I rise to indicate that I don't think we should adopt this amendment. Frankly, some of the provisions in this act are…”

“I rise to indicate that I don't think we should adopt this amendment. Frankly, some of the provisions in this act are only authorized through 2011. Now we come along and authorize them for that long, meaning we are going to probably work at redoing them, but we have hanging over our heads a sunset that came into existence just a couple of years after we put the bill into play. Here is the problem: If you want to go to a sunset approach to minimizing our Government, then why in the world would you start with one of the best pieces of legislation we have adopted? This is good law. This is going to be doing great things. If you want to have a sunset provision, pick a bunch of these things you know aren't any good and sunset them, not sunset a bill that has some force and effect that carries on much broader and has the chance of doing some real good. This one in the end will be extremely mischievous at the most, and some people will claim that it did great things. The truth is, this bill needs more than the time allowed by this amendment because it is new ground, new approaches to putting more brain power into the brains of America's students as they go through school. You can't do that in a short period of time. This is the wrong bill, the wrong time to sunset, and it won't do any good. Therefore, it should not be adopted.”