Political Quotes

“I rise today to oppose the Smith motion. A while ago, the chairman of this subcommittee on appropriations said that we run into a lot of things in this business, and especially here on the floor of the U.S. Senate, that we do not quite understand. I chair the Subcommittee on Science, Technology and, of course, Space, and NASA. That is the committee that provides the authorization for NASA. So I state my support for the Bion Program and, of course, this appropriations here which rejects the House language that prohibits the funding of the Bion 11 and 12 missions. In science and technology we run into a lot of things that we do not quite understand because I do not think there are very many of us on this floor that are scientists. The Bion Program is an important cooperative space venture between the United States, Russian, and French space agencies for international biomedical research using Russian-provided support systems, their spacecraft, payload and, of course, the rhesus monkeys. It is a cost-effective program. It is based on sound science. It has been peer-reviewed, I think, four times. I could be wrong, but I think four times. And every time they have come away with the recommendation that the research should move forward.”