SENATOR PETE DOMENICI -- (Senate - September 27, 2008)
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Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I want to thank my good friend, Senator Salazar, from the State of Colorado. I don't know what brought us together on our Energy Committee. Maybe it was a little bit of common language--we both spoke a little Spanish to each other, and it made us both understand and feel like we were friends. But we became that, we became friends rather quickly in his short 4 years.
I obviously remember your very first 6 months when we became friends and worked on many issues. I compliment you on your constant effort to work in a bipartisan way on issues. It is tough around here. It is going to have to move in that direction or we are going to continue to have trouble getting things done. For that, I hope you will stand your ground and at least keep trying.
I appreciate the kind words you said in my behalf. Let's hope we see each other frequently, if not in your State, in New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment.
Thank you very much, Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, these are one of the periods of our lives in the Senate we shall always remember. My good friend, the Senator from New Mexico, steps down and departs the floor. But you will be a Member of this decisionmaking body through the next few days, which will be critical when your vast experience will be brought to bear on this decision, as it will.
Mr. DOMENICI. Senator, I tell you, I said a little bit in my remarks a while ago about it. I get very excited and anxious because it takes too long. But that is the deliberative body. But we don't have a long time to give the Secretary of the Treasury the kind of authority he needs to fix a broken train.
We have had a wreck--lots of wrecks. All the freeways are clogged. We have to take away the things that are clogging them. We could look at it as a freeway with cracked-up cars, but actually the assets that are piled up there are the toxic assets that have been accumulated by those banks. If you don't get them out of the way, the line continues growing because of the broken-down cars, the toxic assets. The running cars can run no more. They are stopped in place. They contain everything that has given us a decent life in America.
We have to fix that. I am going to be here. Let's hope our negotiators will put something together that the executive branch tells us will work and that the world accepts it with confidence. When we come off this floor, when we vote that in--whatever it is, Monday or whatever--we will join, you and I, with great confidence that we have once again done something important.