Pete Domenici: “I say to Senator McCain, let me thank you for your efforts with reference to the report language that essentially was…”

“I say to Senator McCain, let me thank you for your efforts with reference to the report language that essentially was put in this bill at my request. I do understand that language that I have in the bill that says: Notwithstanding [other provisions of the law,] funds made available by this Act . . . shall be available only for the purposes for which they have been made available by this Act and only in accordance with the recommendations contained in this report. We are going to strike that with your amendment, and we are going to offer a second-degree amendment that requires regular reports to this subcommittee on how it has complied with this bill. I am going to cite only four or five examples of what I consider egregious departures from the intent of the bill. I will give you one. We worked very hard on technology transfer, and we got that to a dollar number of $150 million. It had been higher. The administration wanted less. We worked it out. We debated it. The Secretary decided to use only $50 million of it, and to put $100 million somewhere else at her choosing. That is nice.…”