Pete Domenici: “I thank Senator Reid for his kind remarks. I think he knows that for each and every comment he made, I have nothing but…”

“I thank Senator Reid for his kind remarks. I think he knows that for each and every comment he made, I have nothing but reciprocal feelings toward him. I thank him for his hard work and for working with me to get this good bill. There are two things in this bill that are always misunderstood, and administration after administration makes it difficult. One is the Corps of Engineers. It is kind of amazing, whenever we get in trouble and we want somebody to build something for us someplace overseas, the Corps of Engineers is asked to supervise it and manage it and hire the people and the contractors--whether it is in Saudi Arabia or Iraq. And then at home, every President cuts the Corps of Engineers and leaves us in a position where we cannot sustain those numbers. So we have a bill that gets more difficult all the time. This year, the President didn't do as badly; nonetheless, the same sequence was followed. We are trying to fix it somewhat. It has put us in the position where we cannot quite do it. We will be talking with other people in the Senate about some very serious emergency matters, which are not covered here, that we might very much have the Senate consider putting in this bill. Second, people don't know we run three giant nuclear laboratories. That means we have to keep the best scientists in the world and their families living in the area, especially Los Alamos, which is a city built only for nuclear.”