Pete Domenici: “Senator Alexander came to the Senate, and before his first term has expired he has taken the lead, without anyone…”

“Senator Alexander came to the Senate, and before his first term has expired he has taken the lead, without anyone wanting to run around and try to figure out who should get the lead, on this mammoth piece of legislation. It falls automatically that Lamar Alexander deserves the credit for getting it started. It was his idea. He recruited the junior Senator from New Mexico. They asked me, as members of my committee, if they could take the proposition of what we could do to better America's position in a competitive world, if they could take that to the Academy of Sciences to get a report so we could adopt a report during this calendar year. Believe it or not, they did that. As a result, 71 Senators cosponsored the legislation. As a result, we will have introduced a bill today that almost takes care of every recommendation that committee made to the Congress.”