Pete Domenici
Senator Domenici's Exit Interview
December 2008 / January 2009
Volume 6 Number 6
Pete V. Domenici retires in January after 36 years of service in the U.S. Senate. During his career, the New Mexico Republican was heavily influential on budget and energy matters. He also forged a reputation as a moderate dealmaker who understood the importance of science and the role that the national laboratories should play in building America's future. He has been one of the most vocal proponents of technology transfer and recently pushed the landmark Energy Policy Act of 2005 into law. Tom Michael, Innovation's Washington bureau chief, spoke with Domenici recently about his Senate career, some of his key initiatives and his view of the country's economic plight.
As one of the primary authors of the America Competes Act, you must be frustrated at the lack of funding for this important science and technology competitiveness initiative. How important is this Act to America's future?
It is extremely important that Congress implement and fully fund the America Competes Act. Without it, we will be second to China and third to India and we won't know where we're going. America Competes should be fully funded and it should be looked at regularly because it's hard to get the funding in the right places. The appropriations process doesn't match up to the process of getting it done.
It's terrible. We're supposed to have refocused our sciences in the area of hard science—€”physics, math etc. For about the past 8 to 10 years we've focused on the soft sciences, as I call them, and that is epitomized by huge growth at the National Institutes of Health. We've turned around and found where there is a will there is a way. With cancer, sure enough we dramatically increased our capacities there. But along comes the hard reality that while that was going on we were falling behind in the hard sciences and it was a different problem.
One of the biggest problems—€”and this is not teacher bashing—€”is the recognition that we don't have teachers in sufficient numbers to teach math and science to our kids. They recommend we retool up to 800,000 teachers. In our state of New Mexico they took it seriously—€”they found money and now (in the community) of Los Alamos, they have one of the most auspicious and rare ongoing retraining of teachers. It could work; from what we see we could have a very science and math-literate group of teachers in two to four years. Even if we fix all of the economic problems facing this country, we're not going to be number one unless we fix our science proficiency.
What advice do you have for the national laboratories, often called the crown jewels of American science and innovation?
Diversification. Los Alamos National Laboratory, for example, is not creating a great mix of science. They're predominantly weapons and defense-oriented and they are just beginning to see some daylight on some other scientific options. On the contrary, at Sandia National Laboratories, a big percentage of what they do is new. More than 50 percent of their work is something other than defense. We're not going to dramatically change overnight what the labs do, and where they get their money, but clearly they need to start diversifying.
The percentage of money for the laboratories in the 2009 appropriations bill has some exciting new language regarding the amount the labs are permitted to use for LDRD (lab directed research and development) money. They have more ability to innovate.
You've long been a critic of the DOE's effort to do technology transfer—€”moving government-funded technology to the marketplace. Any parting thoughts on tech transfer and how to do it better?
Tech transfer is more related to how you put together a team that wants to use the labs for innovation. If you do it right, you'll have more success. Sandia is doing it as well as any of the labs with venture capitalists under Sherman McCorkle and Technology Ventures [publisher of Innovation]. They've adopted the idea that scientists can take sabbaticals to go into business. That's a very exciting new tool to encourage innovation. Everybody knows there is great potential. You absolutely need these very highly skilled scientists, and you've got to encourage them to actually get out and use their skills for innovation. There is no question that Energy Policy Act Senator Bingaman and I created gives them incentives to this.
Do you have any comment on the organization of the DOE or advice for structuring the agency moving forward?
I was the one who got the National Nuclear Security Administration established. It was supposed to be a much cleaner operation from the expectation of security breaches or violations. When I look at it, I determine it's not working very well. I think the laboratories would agree that NNSA should be looked at from the standpoint of management and its laboratory complexes. It could stand for a real overhaul from the perspective that the scientists who work there are able to spend more time being scientists and less time worrying about regulations.
You've been in Washington for 36 years. Did you begin your service as a senator with particular legislative goals, or a mandate from voters to accomplish something specific?
I didn't really run for the Senate as a reformer, I had no big national agenda. I had no awe of the senators who were here. But I did know I needed to learn all I could about the laboratories. It was pretty clear that Los Alamos and Sandia and the Air Force were important. I didn't get on that committee (that oversaw the labs), and I didn't get on any good committees at all. I got on Environment and Public Works. That's an awful appointment. I also got on the Interior Committee, two years later. It eventually became the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. It took a long time to get on the Appropriations Committee.
You accomplished a lot over three and half decades and one thing that can't be overlooked is your participation on the federal budget process. You served as chairman or ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee for more than two decades. Why was that so important to you?
The budget committee during my time became an instrument of real power, with great staff help led by (Domenici's chief of staff) Steve Bell. We learned to do certain things, using reconciliation and the budget resolution, to do things—€”especially raising or lowering taxes—€”that nobody had done with the budget committee. And I became more and more well-known. It was a great and wonderful time of real involvement.
That was a great time to be involved nationally, but what I loved most was using the appropriations process to help New Mexico. I made a lot of friends in both the executive branch and Congress and I could get pretty much what I needed. As long as I stayed interested I could do many things that New Mexicans wanted and needed.
You were also very instrumental in negotiating the Balanced Budget Amendment of 1997 with President Clinton. How did you get that done?
We negotiated most of it in my hideaway on the Senate side. There should be a sign on the door saying, the balanced budget was negotiated in this room. We had staff bringing in ledgers and working day and night. Newt Gingrich was the point man on the House side. It was the biggest instrument of (fiscal) change that we'd ever had. Of course, members set a lot of it aside two years later when it started pinching (their budget requests). But they'll find out now, how hard it is. We've now got a president who has committed himself to getting the budget under control, and I believe the model we set, might be the one they can use.
Why did you become a Republican?
When it came time to register to vote, my dad was a Republican and Eisenhower was running. I talked to my father about it and was somewhat motivated by the fact that the party had a wonderful candidate for president. And that's really about it. My philosophies on different things were formulated as I worked at the job but I never was sorry that I was a Republican in Washington.
What should America do to try to secure our energy independence?
I regret to tell you that I am not impressed, nor have I ever been, with the notion that independence is what we ought to seek. I don't know what that means—€”independence. What we need to shoot for without question is that we have a diversified supply of energy sources that permit us to utilize them in a market-oriented economy with assurance that the market is competitive and that we are providing as much of our own as we possibly could, with as little as possible of the energy that is risky to obtain.
Any advice for Senator Jeff Bingaman, your colleague from New Mexico who took over from you as chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in 2006 and continues to chair it as you leave office?
The energy field is filled with things that can be plucked, worked on. I would suggest right off the bat that his staff starts working with a very cooperative ranking Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski, and pick some big ticket items that are directed at the goals and priorities they want to establish and not worry about the little things for a while.
How concerned are you about the federal deficit and its long-range implications for the U.S. economy?
It is so bad that as we speak we really don't know what the deficit is, nor do we know what the debt is. It's changed so much and it depends so much on how that the recent $700 billion (in federal financial assistance to Wall Street) will be used, and how much more we have to spend to get through these hard times. The new administration will be very busy with the Office of Management and Budget trying to determine that. They will have to move forward with a plan to get the deficit under control. It isn't just the banks and financial institutions that are clogged, and how we stupidly got all of these bad mortgages stuck into the system. We now know who did it and some did it because they wanted to help their friends, with Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae, there is no doubt.
People don't seem to think it's causing the recession but I think they are related more than the leadership wants to say. The recession will feed the deficit. This poor president has inherited a big problem, and he's also going to have to take on the entitlements that can't be ignored.
You've been a pretty reliable supporter of President George W. Bush. Any comments on his administration and his place in history?
George Bush's presidency was and is better than has been portrayed by the media of the United States. I believe there is a chance that in the long run that when an agreement is entered into regarding Iraq in terms of pullout and stabilizing democracy, then over the long haul he will go down as a much better president than he has during these eight years.
What has meant to you to be able to in the Senate for so long?
When you know you have the people supporting you, you have a certain power that it hard to describe but it really permits you to do difficult things. I felt that, and by getting such broad support, especially to have so many people from both parties supporting you gives you an inordinate sense of strength. I never thought I was going to get to know the people of this state like I have. That is a terrific thing.
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