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Saturday, September 27, 2008
Retiring Domenici Bids US Senate Farewell
By Heather Clark
Associated Press
New Mexico's longest-serving senator, Pete Domenici, talked of his work on nuclear power, the budget process and mental health parity as he reminisced about 36 years in Congress in a farewell speech on the Senate floor Saturday.
Domenici decided not to seek re-election after being diagnosed with an incurable brain disease. Congressmen Tom Udall, a Democrat, and Steve Pearce, a Republican, are battling to replace him in the Nov. 4 election.
"The time in the Senate when you look at it day-by-day is wrenching, is difficult, is so hard. But when you look at it over 36 years, it's like a hurricane. It just blew by, and all of a sudden it's 36 years and you're gone," Domenici said.
Domenici seemed at a loss when he tried to imagine life after the Senate. He said he and his wife, Nancy, have not decided whether to live in the Washington area or in New Mexico and he wasn't sure what he'd do without the daily debates in the chamber.
"If I don't have any of that around, I don't know what kind of person I'm going to be. There's nothing to do that to me. Maybe I'll just fade away, but I hope not," Domenici said.
Domenici said his work with Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories made him somewhat of an expert on nuclear power, helping him bring nuclear power back into the nation's energy mix.
He said there are 26 1,000-megawatt nuclear units pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
"I'm proud to tell you that nuclear power is in a renaissance posture, and I take a little bit of credit for it," he said.
Domenici also fondly recalled his bipartisan work on a major energy bill with his fellow New Mexico senator, Democrat Jeff Bingaman.
The two were praised at the time for their bipartisan effort to craft a new energy bill that passed in 2005, ending a long stalemate and shaping the nation's future energy policy.
"I can tell you it was the best two years in legislating here that I have had, and I think he would say the same," Domenici said.
The 76-year-old son of Italian immigrants recalled his waiting four months before making his first speech on the Senate floor in 1973.
"I guess it was because I was frightened," Domenici said. "I thought this was such a mammoth organization with such compelling things happening, I didn't know where I should be or what I should do."
He shared one sentence from that speech.
"'Let us quit this self-serving struggle and get on with the business of governing,'" Domenici said, explaining that at the time the Senate was debating what do to about former President Richard Nixon.
"Now isn't it interesting, I could say those words today. I wish we could quit partisan arguing and get more done," he said.
But even though some are playing politics with a $700 billion bailout package for the nation's troubled financial sector, Domenici said he's certain the Senate will help solve the nation's financial turmoil.
Domenici career has been marked by his work on the budget process. He was the longtime chairman of the Budget Committee dating to President Reagan's first term and was a principal architect of a 1997 balanced budget bill.
Domenici said his work on budget reconciliation has kept budget bills moving forward because they were no longer subject to filibuster.
He also remembered his work with Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy on a mental health parity act that Domenici said would mean 113 million people would no longer be threatened by not having health insurance cover their mental illnesses.
Domenici called his Senate career a "magnificent opportunity."
"Now, I'm supposed to say goodbye to the Senate and that's probably what I'm not going to do," Domenici said, "because I don't quite know how to do it."
Copyright ©2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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