Like Senator Bingaman before him, Senator Pete also could not get over the goal line when it came to passing a national energy bill. The measure died a very public death this week as Energy Committee Chairman Domenici threw in the towel and said the measure would have to wait until next year. Bingaman, chair of Energy before the GOP took over the Senate, also failed in his efforts to pass a remake of energy law. This time opponents successfully attacked the proposal as a giveaway to the major energy companies.
But New Mexicans aren't going to get too upset with NM's longest-ever serving U.S. Senator because where it counts he delivered. And then some. The budget for Sandia Labs, ushered through the Congress by Domenici, provides for over 8000 jobs at the ABQ facility and some of the highest-paying in the state. The total Sandia budget for the next fiscal year is a stunning $2.2 billion, the largest in Sandia history and one reason you see million dollar homes going up in the foothills. The $2.2 billion is on top of over $40 million Domenici secured for military construction projects for NM. Domenici is totally unfazed by critics who say New Mexico is too dependent on federal largesse for nuclear weapons programs and that a lot of the money is plain old pork. Sure. But thousands of New Mexican families will sit down to turkey dinners tomorrow courtesy of the "pork barrel" politics practiced without equal by the senior senator. And that fellow gobblers is how you become the longest-serving senator in state history. Any questions?
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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2003
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