As the end of the year and his political career approaches, U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici is all over the news. The newest attention comes in a profile in The Santa Fe New Mexican and a 30-minute interview with Gallup radio reporter John McBreen.
The New Mexican’s article by reporter Kate Nash, which you can read here, recounts many of the larger projects in which Domenici has been instrumental.
“So which of the thousands of projects represents the legacy of the state’s senior senator?” the article asks. “It’s too hard to pick just one thing, he said. But if he had to, it might be science — a common theme behind the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a uranium-enrichment project and others he listed when asked in late October.”
“Put them together there, maybe my legacy is science, that I love science, I love big science when we can make it work and apply it,” the newspaper quoted Domenici as saying. “During my lifetime, my time here, we’ve changed New Mexico. It’s moving in that direction where it could be a high-tech, high science state.”
Meanwhile, in the radio interview, which you can hear here, topics of discussion included more about Domenici’s legacy, his health, and the challenges facing the state’s new congressional delegation and President-elect Barack Obama.
And Domenici talked about Bill Richardson, who Obama has nominated to be commerce secretary. The senator said he wasn’t surprised by the appointment once it became clear that Obama was going to make Hillary Clinton his secretary of state.
“I knew that he was going to put Bill in his cabinet one way or another,” Domenici said.