Senator Who Fought Wasteful Super Collider Passes Away

Dale Bumpers, a former Senator and Governor from Arkansas, passed away January 1. He was 90.

While in the Senate, Mr. Bumpers fought a number of wasteful Pentagon programs he saw as too costly and unnecessary. Working with the Project On Government Oversight, he led the fight to kill the Superconducting Super Collider program. At $11 billion, it was the largest government program cancelled up to that point. He also opposed the F-22 program before it was cancelled in 2009.

In addition to cutting wasteful spending, Mr. Bumpers tried to reform hard rock mining laws and require mining companies to pay their fair share for hard rock minerals—to stop our policy of literally giving away gold from federal lands. “It's a license to steal and a colossal scam,” Mr. Bumpers said. “To paraphrase an old song, they get the gold and we get the shaft.”

After leaving the Senate, Mr. Bumpers briefly served as the Director of the Center for Defense Information (CDI). CDI joined POGO in May 2012.