Pete Domenici: “First of all, the President of the United States, in the budget he submitted to the U.S. Congress, is responsible for…”

“First of all, the President of the United States, in the budget he submitted to the U.S. Congress, is responsible for the fact that we don't have enough money to do the renewables that the distinguished Senator from Vermont comes to the floor and adds money for. The President of the United States took the water projects of this country--and these are not pet projects, these are the ports that have to be dredged in our country, dams that have to be built for flood protection, just a whole litany of them everywhere--he cut them $1.3 billion. Frankly, all I can see in that kind of a cut is that he expected us to put the money back because we could not have kept the Corps of Engineers together with their projects out across our land. We could not have kept a viable program. Mr. President, $1.3 billion is a dramatic cut from what was needed for funding at the acceptable rate that the projects were in last year--not new ones. That money makes up the same pot of money from whence comes all of the DOE's nondefense research projects and all the water projects.”