[Senate Document 113-34]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



 
Carl Levin
                                      
                                U.S. SENATOR FROM MICHIGAN
                                
                                
                                
                                    
                                         TRIBUTES
                                       
                                       
                                       
                                     IN THE CONGRESS OF         
                                     THE UNITED STATES
                                      
                                      
                                      

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]  




                            U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                               WASHINGTON : 2015                            
                                           





                                                   S. Doc. 113-34
                                                   
                                                   
                                      Tributes

                                Delivered in Congress
                                
                                
                                

                                     Carl Levin
                                United States Senator
                                      1979-2015
                                           


                            Compiled under the direction

                                       of the

                             Joint Committee on Printing
                                      
                                      
                                      CONTENTS
                                      
             Biography.............................................
                                                                      v
             Farewell Address......................................
                                                                     xi
             Proceedings in the Senate:
                Tributes by Senators:
                    Alexander, Lamar, of Tennessee.................
                                                                     28
                    Ayotte, Kelly, of New Hampshire................
                                                                     35
                    Bennet, Michael F., of Colorado................
                                                                     17
                    Boxer, Barbara, of California..................
                                                                     42
                    Brown, Sherrod, of Ohio........................
                                                                     27
                    Cardin, Benjamin L., of Maryland...............
                                                                     26
                    Casey, Robert P., Jr., of Pennsylvania.........
                                                                     37
                    Collins, Susan M., of Maine....................
                                                                     18
                    Coons, Christopher A., of Delaware.............
                                                                     15
                    Durbin, Richard J., of Illinois................
                                                                     12
                    Enzi, Michael B., of Wyoming...................
                                                                     16
                    Franken, Al, of Minnesota......................
                                                                     30
                    Graham, Lindsey, of South Carolina.............
                                                                     36
                    Harkin, Tom, of Iowa...........................
                                                                     29
                    Hatch, Orrin G., of Utah 
                     ...............................................
                     ..........
                                                              7, 34, 40
                    Hirono, Mazie K., of Hawaii....................
                                                                     41
                    Inhofe, James M., of Oklahoma 
                     ............................................
                                                             11, 29, 36
                    King, Angus S., Jr., of Maine..................
                                                                 31, 33
                    Leahy, Patrick J., of Vermont..................
                                                                 17, 38
                    Levin, Carl, of Michigan 
                     ...............................................
                     .........
                                                             12, 33, 35
                    Manchin, Joe, III, of West Virginia............
                                                                     25
                    McCain, John, of Arizona.......................
                                                                      8
                    McCaskill, Claire, of Missouri.................
                                                                     22
                    Merkley, Jeff, of Oregon.......................
                                                                     28
                    Nelson, Bill, of Florida.......................
                                                                     24
                    Portman, Rob, of Ohio..........................
                                                                     33
                    Reed, Jack, of Rhode Island....................
                                                                  7, 12
                    Reid, Harry, of Nevada.........................
                                                                      3
                    Sanders, Bernard, of Vermont...................
                                                                     30
                    Schumer, Charles E., of New York...............
                                                                     33
                    Sessions, Jeff, of Alabama.....................
                                                                     23
                    Shaheen, Jeanne, of New Hampshire..............
                                                                     40
                    Stabenow, Debbie, of Michigan..................
                                                                     19
                    Wyden, Ron, of Oregon..........................
                                                                     36
                                      BIOGRAPHY

               In an editorial about Carl Levin, the Detroit News 
             wrote, ``He has been above reproach personally and has 
             stuck to his principles, even when they were unpopular. 
             Principled leadership, no matter what political ideology 
             it comes from, is sorely needed in Washington.''
               Time magazine named Carl Levin one of ``America's 10 
             Best Senators,'' noting that ``the Michigan Democrat has 
             gained respect from both parties for his attention to 
             detail and deep knowledge of policy.''
               Carl Levin worked to strengthen Michigan's industrial 
             economy. Senator Levin proposed the American Manufacturing 
             Initiative to ensure that our government aggressively 
             fought for manufacturing in America so our manufacturers 
             and workers could compete globally on a level playing 
             field.
               As a cochair of the Senate Auto Caucus and the Senate 
             Auto Parts Task Force, Senator Levin was one of the most 
             insistent voices in Washington calling for strong action 
             to open the world's markets to American goods. Senator 
             Levin was a longtime advocate of programs that provide for 
             joint government-industry partnerships in development of 
             advanced vehicle technologies. These efforts led to the 
             growth of the Army's National Automotive Center in Warren, 
             MI, which has played an important role in developing 
             advanced technologies for military use, often in 
             conjunction with the private sector.
               As cochair of the Senate Great Lakes Task Force, Carl 
             Levin fought to protect the environmental treasures of 
             ``the Great Lakes State,'' an irreplaceable natural 
             resource for Michigan and the country. In 1990, Senator 
             Levin authored the Great Lakes Critical Programs Act to 
             create new standards of environmental protection for Great 
             Lakes waters. Senator Levin also helped win passage of the 
             Great Lakes Legacy Program in 2002 to clean up 
             contaminated sediments, and he worked to secure funding to 
             deal with foreign aquatic invasive species including zebra 
             mussels, milfoil and Asian carp. A strong advocate for the 
             creation of the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, 
             Carl Levin obtained significant funding for it and 
             introduced legislation in 2009 to expand the boundaries of 
             the sanctuary to more than eight times its current size. 
             The expansion would help preserve ``Shipwreck Alley'' for 
             divers and historians, where dozens of ships sank in the 
             waters of Lake Huron.
               Carl Levin was the chairman of the Senate Armed Services 
             Committee, where he earned a reputation as a strong 
             supporter of our national defense, a tireless advocate on 
             behalf of our service men and women, and an effective 
             fighter against wasteful government spending.
               Senator Levin championed efforts to reduce the threats 
             to our Nation and the world from the proliferation of 
             weapons of mass destruction and the threats posed by 
             terrorism. He supported the efforts of the military 
             services to transform their forces, technology, and 
             tactics to meet these threats. He was an active supporter 
             of improving U.S. security by cooperative threat 
             reduction, including arms control agreements that reduce 
             weapons of mass destruction, and fought for efforts 
             designed to reduce the threat of proliferation of nuclear, 
             chemical, and biological weapons.
               Senator Levin opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 
             and authored several bipartisan proposals aimed at 
             changing U.S. policy in Iraq. While Americans have 
             differing opinions about our policy in Iraq, there is 
             broad support of our brave men and women in uniform. 
             Senator Levin spearheaded the successful effort to pass 
             the Dignified Treatment of Wounded Warriors Act, a 
             historic reform to improve the way we provide medical care 
             and ongoing support for our troops and our veterans, 
             enacted in early 2008.
               In 2007, Senator Levin pushed to secure passage of the 
             Acquisition Improvement and Accountability Act, the most 
             far-reaching acquisition reform measure approved by 
             Congress in more than a decade. The act requires, for the 
             first time, that private security contractors working in a 
             war zone must comply with Defense Department regulations 
             and directives issued by our military commanders. The act 
             also establishes a new acquisition workforce fund to hire 
             the employees needed to manage defense contracts properly. 
             These provisions will go a long way toward addressing 
             contracting waste, fraud, and abuse.
               In 2009, Senator Levin secured passage of the Levin-
             McCain Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act, to fix major 
             problems with the way the Department of Defense buys major 
             weapons systems. The act establishes a new, independent 
             director of cost assessment to ensure that senior Pentagon 
             managers have unbiased data to analyze project costs and 
             cost projections. It also includes strengthening 
             assessments of technologies that are under development and 
             requiring the Department of Defense to conduct preliminary 
             design reviews in advance of approving new acquisition 
             programs.
               The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute awarded 
             Senator Carl Levin its 2007 Four Freedoms Medal for his 
             bipartisan efforts to reassert the role of the U.S. Senate 
             in critical issues of foreign and military policy and for 
             his longtime service to the country. The award recognizes 
             Carl Levin as:

               a leader dedicated to making government more effective, 
             who holds himself and his colleagues to high ethical 
             standards and insists that these same standards must apply 
             to all facets of our society, both public and private; a 
             leader whose efforts to strengthen America's armed forces 
             have helped make the United States Military the finest 
             fighting force in the world.

               The National Guard Association of the United States 
             presented Senator Levin with its 2004 ``Harry S. Truman 
             Award'' for distinguished service in support of national 
             defense. The award cited Levin's ``long-standing, diligent 
             and impassioned commitment on the readiness, morale and 
             welfare of our military forces, their families and the 
             modernization of our armed forces'' that has had an 
             ``unparalleled and direct positive impact to the defense 
             capabilities of the National Guard.'' In January 2003, the 
             Secretary of the Navy cited Levin's ``exceptional service 
             to the Navy and Marine Corps'' in presenting him its 
             ``Distinguished Public Service Award,'' the highest award 
             given to a civilian.
               In July 2007, the President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, 
             presented Senator Levin with the Commander's Cross with 
             the Star of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. 
             Instituted by Parliament in 1974, the award is conferred 
             on foreigners and Polish residents abroad for service 
             rendered to Poland.
               As chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on 
             Investigations, the premier investigating subcommittee in 
             the Senate, Senator Levin focused on issues that impact 
             the wallets of most Americans, including Wall Street and 
             the financial crisis, unfair credit card practices, and 
             sky-high oil and natural gas prices.
               In April 2010, Senator Levin chaired four hearings 
             looking at the causes and consequences of the financial 
             crisis. The final hearing examined the role investment 
             banks, specifically Goldman Sachs, played in causing the 
             financial crisis. The hearings informed the debate on 
             financial reform legislation passed by Congress and signed 
             into law by the President.
               Carl Levin chaired numerous hearings delving into 
             abusive credit card industry practices that help keep 
             families mired in debt. The effort culminated in the 2009 
             enactment of the Credit Card Accountability, 
             Responsibility and Disclosure Act or Credit CARD Act, 
             which bans unfair practices by credit card companies 
             including preventing credit card companies from 
             retroactively raising interest rates on people who play by 
             the rules, forcing banks to restore a lower interest rate 
             for late payers who make 6 months of ontime payments, and 
             prohibiting the charging of interest on debt that is paid 
             on time.
               Another recent investigation found that excessive 
             speculation in oil and natural gas markets resulted in 
             higher prices for consumers. Senator Levin introduced the 
             ``Close the Enron Loophole Act'' to put a cop on the beat 
             to police prices in U.S. energy markets that, due to Enron 
             and others, are now largely unregulated. Senator Levin's 
             leadership enabled Senate passage of an amendment in late 
             2007 to close the Enron loophole and its enactment into 
             law in May 2008.
               In 2002, Carl Levin led Congress' most indepth 
             examination into the collapse of Enron. His investigation 
             exposed how Enron used deceptive accounting and tax 
             transactions to report better financial results than the 
             company actually experienced. The subcommittee's 
             investigative work contributed to the accounting and 
             corporate reforms enacted in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 
             July 2002. In 2002, Levin began a 3-year investigation 
             into the mass marketing of abusive tax shelters by KPMG 
             and other professional firms, which was cited by the 
             Washington Post as ``a path-breaking inquiry ... that 
             served as a road map for prosecutors.'' Carl Levin's 
             bipartisan bill to end the use of tax havens will end some 
             of the worst abuses of our tax laws by companies and 
             individuals who avoid paying their U.S. taxes by using 
             places such as the Cayman Islands to create sham 
             transactions and shell corporations.
               Under Carl Levin's leadership, the Permanent 
             Subcommittee on Investigations conducted a comprehensive 
             money laundering investigation, which led to the enactment 
             of legislation to detect and stop money laundering and 
             terrorist financing.
               Senator Levin was also a member of the Small Business 
             and Entrepreneurship Committee and an ex officio member of 
             the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
               Carl Levin worked to expand educational opportunities 
             for all Americans so our Nation could remain strong and 
             productive. He fought for increased funding for the Head 
             Start Preschool Program, Title I for educationally 
             disadvantaged students, and Pell grants and loans for 
             college and vocational school students. Senator Levin was 
             a strong advocate for the effective use of technology in 
             K-12 schools and helped create the Consortium for 
             Outstanding Achievement in Teaching with Technology, a 
             groundbreaking Michigan partnership helping teachers 
             master technology skills. He was an enthusiastic supporter 
             of school to work programs, which have created a public-
             private partnership to prepare students for the demands of 
             the modern workplace. He won critical Federal support for 
             the Focus: HOPE Center for Advanced Technology, a world-
             class manufacturing training facility in Detroit.
               Addiction to illegal drugs continues to plague our 
             society. Senator Levin authored a provision in the Drug 
             Abuse and Treatment Act of 2000 to enable qualified 
             physicians to prescribe and dispense from their private 
             offices--rather than centralized clinics--revolutionary, 
             new antiaddiction medications such as buprenorphine that 
             suppress the craving for heroin.
               Carl Levin was born in 1934 in Detroit, where he 
             graduated from Central High School. In 1956, he graduated 
             with honors from Swarthmore College and graduated from 
             Harvard University Law School in 1959. He practiced and 
             taught law in Michigan until 1964 when he was appointed an 
             assistant attorney general of Michigan and the first 
             general counsel for the Michigan Civil Rights Commission. 
             He then helped establish the Detroit Public Defender's 
             Office and led the appellate division of that office, 
             which has become the State Appellate Defender's Office.
               He won election to the Detroit City Council in 1969, 
             becoming its president in 1973 by winning the most votes 
             citywide. In 1978, he won an upset victory over the number 
             two Republican in the U.S. Senate. He was reelected in 
             1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008.
               Carl Levin married Barbara Halpern in 1961. They have 
             three daughters: Kate, Laura, and Erica, and six 
             grandchildren. His brother Sander has served in the U.S. 
             House of Representatives since 1983.
                               Farewell to the Senate
                              Friday, December 12, 2014

               Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, after 36 years as a Member of 
             the U.S. Senate, this is likely my last opportunity to 
             address its Members as colleagues, and to address the 
             people of my State as constituents, and to thank them for 
             placing their trust in me.
               The highest honor any citizen of a democracy can receive 
             is to be elected to represent his or her fellow Americans 
             to be their fiduciary.
               To the Senate staff, including the floor staff, the 
             Capitol Police, and those throughout the Capitol complex 
             who work so hard to keep things here moving, thank you for 
             your service and support for us through the long days and 
             nights.
               To my staff, thank you for your strong loyalty to the 
             people of Michigan, to our Nation, and to me. Thank you 
             for believing in public service. I am immensely proud of 
             what the men and women who have worked on my staff for the 
             last 36 years have helped to accomplish.
               My staff back in Michigan has helped make communities 
             across our State safer and more prosperous. Countless 
             times they have helped individual constituents resolve an 
             issue, making a real difference in thousands of lives.
               The Armed Services Committee and Permanent Subcommittee 
             on Investigations--PSI--staffs have worked tirelessly 
             through long hours and complex issues, sacrificing nights 
             and weekends and vacations to help address the pressing 
             issues of our Nation.
               My personal office staff has been instrumental in 
             addressing a breathtaking range of issues--from preserving 
             our American auto industry, to making our tax system 
             fairer, to protecting our irreplaceable Great Lakes, to 
             making medicine available to fight addiction, and much 
             more.
               As to my mentor, my big brother Sandy, Congress is 
             keeping the better half of ``Team Levin,'' as I retire to 
             Michigan while Sandy remains in Congress.
               To Barbara, my wife of 53 years, to our three daughters 
             Kate, Laura, and Erica; to their husbands Howard, Daniel, 
             and Rick; and to our six grandchildren, Bess and Samantha, 
             Mark, Noa, and Ben Levin, and Beatrice and Olivia 
             Fernandez--thank you for your love and support, which has 
             meant so much to me.
               I have been asked many times if I am leaving the Senate 
             out of frustration with gridlock. The answer is: No. My 
             family and friends, and those of you with whom I serve, 
             know how much I love the Senate and that I will love my 
             work until the last day here, and that I will leave here 
             with unabashed confidence in the Senate's ability to 
             weather storms and to meet the Nation's needs.
               I know first hand the challenges before this Senate. I 
             believe one of the greatest is the need to meet the 
             fundamental economic challenge of this era: the growing 
             gap in our society between a fortunate few and the vast 
             majority of Americans whose fortunes have stagnated or 
             fallen.
               While I believe that the economists who tell us this 
             inequality is holding back economic growth are right, this 
             isn't just about economic data. It is about our Nation's 
             heart and soul. This growing gulf between a fortunate few 
             and a struggling many is a threat to the dream that has 
             animated this Nation since its founding, the dream that 
             hard work leads to a better life for us and for our 
             children.
               To restore the connection between hard work and greater 
             opportunity, I hope the next Congress will act on many 
             fronts, strengthening education and worker training 
             programs, making greater investments in infrastructure and 
             research that foster growth. As I have said here many 
             times, it should pay for these needed investments by 
             closing egregious tax loopholes that serve no economic 
             purpose, but enrich some of the wealthiest among us and 
             our most profitable corporations.
               Many foresee a continuation of polarization and 
             partisanship in the Senate and say it is naive to suggest 
             that the next Congress might come together, break out of 
             gridlock, and accomplish great things. But I know the 
             Senate can do better because I have seen it happen with my 
             own eyes.
               The Senate has indeed demonstrated, even in our own era, 
             that bipartisanship is not extinct. The Senate Armed 
             Services Committee has upheld a more than 50-year 
             tradition of bipartisan cooperation to produce an annual 
             Defense Authorization Act that advances the security of 
             our Nation. I am grateful to the members of the U.S. 
             military and their families for their selfless sense of 
             duty. I am also grateful for the way they have inspired 
             us, year after year, to come together across lines of 
             party and ideology to support them. They not only protect 
             us, they unite us. Congress has come together over the 
             years to make improvements in pay, benefits, and health 
             care for the men and women of the military; to reform the 
             way in which we buy the weapons they use to carry out 
             their missions; to adopt policies to protect them from 
             sexual assault; and to provide improved education benefits 
             through a modern GI bill and reform the way in which we 
             care for our wounded warriors. We are training and 
             equipping the militaries of nations under assault by 
             extremists and religious fanatics so that those nations 
             can depend more on themselves for their own security and 
             less on America's sons and daughters.
               We have passed a defense authorization bill to 
             accomplish these things each year for more than half a 
             century by laying aside partisan differences for the 
             common good. We have never allowed disagreements over 
             policy to interfere with our duty to our troops and their 
             families, and I am deeply grateful to the many ranking 
             Republican partners I have been fortunate to work with in 
             that endeavor: people such as John McCain and John Warner 
             and Jim Inhofe.
               John McCain, my great friend, who has demonstrated 
             extraordinary courage in war and in this Senate, will take 
             the gavel of the Armed Services Committee, and my trusted 
             wingman and friend Jack Reed will become ranking member. 
             At a pivotal moment for the Senate and for this Nation, 
             the Armed Services Committee will be in strong hands.
               I have seen first hand additional powerful evidence that 
             the Senate can work together to meet the Nation's needs, 
             and that is in the work of the Permanent Subcommittee on 
             Investigations--PSI--which I have been privileged to chair 
             for 10 years, working with Republican partners--and I use 
             the word partners advisedly--such as Tom Coburn, John 
             McCain, and Susan Collins. Our subcommittee has exposed 
             the tax avoidance schemes of some of the most powerful 
             corporations and wealthiest individuals. We have shined a 
             light on abusive credit card practices. We have 
             investigated wasteful and ineffective government programs. 
             We have confronted market manipulators and exposed 
             conflicts of interest, mortgage fraud, and reckless 
             schemes by some of the most powerful banks, schemes aided 
             by some of the largest accounting and law firms. We have 
             demonstrated how those activities helped bring our economy 
             to its knees, destroying jobs, reducing the value of our 
             homes, and damaging our neighborhoods. The work of PSI has 
             helped lead to reforms that have strengthened our 
             financial system and reduced credit card abuses.
               The power of PSI lies in the indepth work of our staffs, 
             and in the willingness to confront powerful and entrenched 
             interests. Like the Senate Armed Services Committee, PSI 
             is strengthened by a dedication to bipartisanship and a 
             respect for the rights of the Senate minority. We have 
             recognized the danger of using investigative power for 
             partisan or political purposes, and we have ensured that 
             our great staffs, majority and minority, participate 
             together in every investigation.
               Indeed it is protection of the minority that is the 
             singular hallmark of the Senate. The majority cannot 
             always have its way. The Senate is more than just a place 
             where the hot tea is cooled in the deliberative saucer 
             that President Washington famously spoke of. Protections 
             for the minority make the Senate more than just a place to 
             slow things down; those protections make it a place where 
             we work things out. It is those protections that force 
             compromise that is essential to unifying and governing our 
             country. Making progress in the Senate requires solutions 
             that while they may not provide everyone with everything 
             they want, are broadly accepted as in the common interest. 
             When compromise is thwarted by ideological rigidity or by 
             abuse of the rights that our rules afford us, the Senate 
             can become paralyzed, unable to achieve the lofty task 
             that the Founders set forth before us.
               Polarization is exacerbated by forces outside this 
             Chamber. For instance, we seem to make news more often 
             these days by our responses in the corridors outside this 
             Chamber to reporters questioning us about the latest 
             breaking story or rumor than we do by debating or 
             legislating inside this Chamber. The viral nature of 
             information and disinformation and the expectation that 
             public officials will be immediately responsive to every 
             news flash with but a few seconds to think through the 
             implications or consequences or pros and cons has led too 
             often to less thoughtful discourse, and that has helped 
             drive rhetorical wedges between us.
               The incoming Senate has an opportunity to restore a 
             greater measure of bipartisan compromise by revisiting one 
             of the most contentious issues we face, one that we 
             struggled with at the beginning of this Congress; that is, 
             the Senate rules.
               I believe the excessive use of the filibuster to 
             obstruct confirmation of President Obama's nominees was 
             damaging to the Senate and to the Nation. Any President--
             Democratic or Republican--should have the ability to 
             choose his or her team. But the Senate majority eliminated 
             obstructions to Presidential nominations through the use 
             of the nuclear option, effectively accomplishing a rules 
             change outside the rules, a method I could not support. In 
             doing so, a precedent was established that the majority 
             could effectively change the rules as it wished by 
             overruling the Chair and the Parliamentarian. That 
             precedent will not serve the country well in the future 
             because it leaves the minority with no protection, 
             diminishing the unique role of the Senate.
               I hope the Senate next year considers reversing that 
             precedent while simultaneously--and I emphasize 
             simultaneously--amending the rules so as to assure the 
             President's ability to fulfill his or her constitutional 
             duties. Put simply, I believe the Senate should do the 
             right thing in the right way. It should amend the Senate 
             rules, as provided for in the rules, to adopt the 
             substance of the changes we made last year. I know my good 
             friend Senator Lamar Alexander, who was part of the 
             bipartisan Group of Eight who worked closely and 
             successfully together on this issue in 2012, has proposed 
             something similar. Such action by the Senate next year 
             would be a welcome victory for comity and for compromise, 
             and it would I hope represent a step back from a precedent 
             that leads to effective rules changes by simple majority. 
             It would be a step toward a better functioning Senate.
               No leader alone, no single Senator, neither party by 
             itself, can determine the Senate's course, but together 
             the Members of this body can move the Senate forward and 
             in doing so help move forward the Nation we all love. I 
             will enjoy reading about the Senate's progress in the 
             years ahead as Barbara and I are sitting on a Lake 
             Michigan beach or showing the world to our grandchildren.
               I thank the Chair, I thank my dear friends, the leaders 
             of this body, and I see my brother sitting here, and I am 
             not allowed to refer to my family in the gallery, so I 
             will not do that.
               (Applause, Senators rising.)


                                           

                                      TRIBUTES

                                         TO

                                     CARL LEVIN
                              Proceedings in the Senate
                                               Monday, December 8, 2014
               Mr. REID. Mr. President, I am very happy to be here 
             today to talk about a couple of my friends--I should say 
             the Senate's friends. I have received a lot of gifts while 
             I have been here. My colleagues, over the years, have 
             given me things here in the Senate, but one gift stands 
             out really strongly in my mind. On my desk, not far from 
             here, I have this big painting--it is a very famous 
             painting from the National Portrait Gallery of Mark Twain.
               Mark Twain, I tell people, was born in Nevada, which is 
             really true. Samuel Clemens wasn't, but Mark Twain was. 
             Orion Clemens was chosen as the Territorial Secretary of 
             Nevada, and he told his younger brother Samuel: Come West 
             and I will find you a job. Samuel had been fighting, which 
             he didn't like, in the Civil War, so he came West to join 
             his brother. But his brother couldn't find him a job, so 
             Samuel Clemens bummed around for quite a while.
               Without belaboring the story too long, the fact is, Mark 
             Twain finally went up to Virginia City, which was booming 
             at the time, and he went to the Territorial Enterprise 
             newspaper and got a job as a reporter. This was a 
             stunningly good and important start for his first writing 
             that he had done. That is where he started his fame.
               He would have stayed in Nevada longer, but someone 
             challenged him to a duel for some of the things he wrote. 
             So being the smart man he was, he didn't want to duel so 
             he left town, went to California, where he wrote two best-
             selling books, ``The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras 
             County'' and ``Roughing It,'' which was about his 
             experience in bumming around Nevada until he found a job. 
             These were bestsellers. These were great books.
               The point of the story, though, is he went to Virginia 
             City as Samuel Clemens and took the name Mark Twain. That 
             is where the name came from.
               This means a lot. It is a story I tell many times to 
             people who come to my office. So Carl Levin, the 
             wonderful, kind, thoughtful man that he is, said, ``Can I 
             come and see you?'' I said, ``Sure.'' He brought to me, I 
             guess it is, one of the rare double signatures of Samuel 
             Clemens. There may be others, I just have never heard of 
             one. This was done at a club in Hannibal, MO. The club's 
             name was Labinnah--Hannibal spelled backward--and Mark 
             Twain, in 1902, because of how famous he was, signed 
             Samuel Clemens, Mark Twain, and wrote through the whole--
             he didn't want anybody else's name there. He wanted just 
             his. So that is the gift he gave me.
               That was so fitting. It fits my office perfectly, and it 
             means a lot to me. Carl Levin brought with him this 
             handwritten note: ``I got this at an auction 10 yrs. ago 
             not knowing why. It just dawned on me! Best in the New 
             Year, Carl.''
               That was so nice of him to do that, and it is so hard to 
             explain my appreciation, although I am trying to do that 
             here by outlining what a wonderful human being Carl Levin 
             is. What he did for me is an example of who Carl Levin is 
             and how he thinks of people. He remembered the story I 
             told him about Mark Twain, and he said, I am sure, to 
             himself: I have this thing I got 10 years ago; I will give 
             it to the Senator, my friend. So he gave me that plaque 
             just because that is who he is.
               He has always been attentive to the interests of the 
             people of Michigan and our country. He is the longest 
             serving Senator in the history of the State of Michigan--
             36 years. His legislative accomplishments are significant. 
             I would say they are unmatched by almost anyone.
               Carl Levin has stood his ground on controversial issues, 
             and that is an understatement. He has fought to give 
             average Americans a fair shot at what is going on in the 
             world. He has always spoken with a clear voice, speaking 
             for justice, equality, and fairness.
               (Mr. MURPHY assumed the Chair.)
               The Presiding Officer is a lawyer, I am a lawyer, but I 
             am not sure I would be the best person, if you gave me a 
             document, to look it over and make sure there was 
             everything in that document you wanted in it, but Carl 
             Levin is the person you want. I call him my nitpicker. He 
             is so good at making sure everything is right; that every 
             i is dotted, every t is crossed. Bring in Carl Levin if 
             you have something and you really need someone to look at 
             it and think it through.
               Carl was a prominent lawyer, as was his dad, in 
             Michigan. His dad served as a member of the Michigan 
             Corrections Commission. After graduating from high school, 
             his father worked as an assemblyline worker. Carl Levin 
             also knew how to work with his hands, but he followed in 
             his father's footsteps by being an extremely hard worker. 
             He attended college at Swarthmore and received a bachelor 
             of arts degree there. Then he attended Harvard Law School 
             and received his juris doctorate from Harvard.
               He practiced in the private sector for awhile. He began 
             his public career as the first general counsel for the 
             Michigan Civil Rights Commission. He was elected in 1968 
             to the Detroit City Council, and he served there until 
             1977. He was elected to the Senate in 1978. Carl has 
             functioned in this body as a levelheaded mediator who is 
             guided by the protection of people in Michigan and our 
             country.
               In the past 36 years, Carl has cast over 12,000 votes. 
             Some of those votes were hard, and not always popular, but 
             they were Carl Levin votes. He did what he thought was 
             right. When General Motors and Chrysler, in the last few 
             years, faced a potential collapse, he recognized their 
             bankruptcy would devastate the people of Michigan and have 
             a detrimental effect--and that is a gross understatement--
             on this country. He pressed the incoming Obama 
             administration to support the companies with loans. There 
             was a hue and cry from people who opposed that, saying 
             that is the wrong thing to do, Levin is wrong, Obama is 
             wrong. But they were right. Look what it has done to 
             energize, revitalize the State of Michigan, the whole 
             Detroit metropolitan area and our country, with tens of 
             thousands of new jobs as a result of his advocacy. As I 
             said, it wasn't a popular position at the time, but Carl 
             knew what was good for Michigan and good for our country, 
             and he has been vindicated a hundred times over.
               Carl has been chairman of the Senate Permanent 
             Subcommittee on Investigations for 10 years. During that 
             period of time, he has done some unusually important 
             things for our country through this committee. Corporate 
             money laundering--1999. He delved into that very deeply.
               Carl Levin is not a headline hunter. Carl Levin is a 
             substantive legislator. He could have held a lot more 
             hearings, but he held them about every 6 months because he 
             wanted his hearings to be Carl Levin hearings where, I 
             repeat, every i was dotted, every t was crossed, and they 
             were very powerful hearings.
               Gasoline price manipulation, the Enron scandal--he 
             delved into that very deeply.
               Misconduct in the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program, tax haven 
             banks, and offshore corporate tax evasion--he has talked 
             about that and talked about that. Very notable legislation 
             as a result of the work he has done: Wall Street reform, 
             the Consumer Protection Act, the Credit Card Act, the 
             PATRIOT Act.
               Carl Levin is a very fine legislator. He fought for Wall 
             Street reform when others were afraid to do so, and he 
             helped restore the broken financial system that held 
             powerful institutions accountable for their actions. 
             Carl's persistence earned him a slot in Time magazine's 
             list of ``America's 10 Best Senators.'' They called him 
             the ``Bird-Dogger.''
               Well, that is what he is. Put him on an issue and he 
             will come back with the prey. He is very good. He never 
             stops. He is a sharp-eyed overseer of U.S. defense policy. 
             He has spent his entire career promoting defense policy 
             that protects America's interests at home and abroad while 
             safeguarding the men and women who serve.
               Carl is the chair of the Senate Defense Committee. 
             During the Nation's most trying of diplomatic times he has 
             done a remarkable job to make sure the military is 
             protected.
               Even though he was chair of this big powerful 
             committee--the Defense Committee--he felt so strongly and 
             he foresaw what a lot of us didn't see. He saw the 
             disaster that would accompany an invasion of Iraq. 
             Accordingly, he talked about how bad it would be and voted 
             against it. Carl Levin was right and a lot of us were 
             wrong. I have said before on the Senate floor, of all the 
             votes I have cast during the time I have been in 
             government, the worst was voting for the Iraq war. But I 
             did. Carl Levin did not.
               But for all of his accomplishments in Congress, his 
             greatest achievements reside in his home. Carl and his 
             wife of over 50 years, Barbara, have three beautiful 
             daughters: Kate, Laura, and Erica. Landra and Barbara are 
             good friends. They are part of a book club. They have had 
             a wonderful relationship over these many years. So as Carl 
             retires from the Senate, I know he is going to cherish the 
             time he is going to spend with his family.
               But also Carl and I have had a long ongoing 
             conversation. He and his brother Sander own about 100 
             acres. They have had it for a long time. Carl Levin is not 
             a man of wealth, but he and his brother bought this 100 
             acres that has nothing on it but trees. He calls it his 
             tree farm. He has shown me pictures of it. I have not seen 
             it lately, but I have had for 15 or 20 years a hat he gave 
             me--a green baseball-type cap--that says ``tree farm'' on 
             it. I used to tell him I still have that cap. I still have 
             that cap, Carl.
               He will be missed here in Washington. He will be missed 
             in the Senate by all of us. But he will be missed more by 
             his older brother Sandy, who is the ranking member on the 
             Ways and Means Committee in the House. They have served 
             together in Congress for 32 years.
               I have said this on the floor before, and I will say it 
             again. I will remember Carl Levin for a lot of things, but 
             when I was in the House, I came over to visit with him. I 
             was thinking about running for the Senate. I said, ``Carl, 
             I came to the House with your brother Sandy.'' He looked 
             up at me and said, ``Sandy is not only my brother, he is 
             my best friend.'' That speaks well of the person who Carl 
             Levin is.
               It has really been a privilege and an honor to serve 
             with Carl. I will miss him so very much. I will miss 
             having somebody to take the difficult issues to, to get 
             his view as to what we should do, how we should handle it.
               His voice will be missed here in the Senate. I 
             congratulate him on his incomparable career in the Senate, 
             and I wish him the very best.

               Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I have only heard two of the 
             comments of the majority leader--one for the distinguished 
             Senator from Michigan [Mr. Levin] and one for the 
             distinguished Senator from West Virginia [Mr. 
             Rockefeller]. I have to say that both of those Senators 
             deserve a lot of commendation for the service they have 
             given to the Senate. They are both friends of mine.
               Senator Levin has been a terrific, solid performer for 
             the Democrats in the U.S. Senate, and he is an honest--
             totally honest--decent, honorable man. ...
               I will miss both of these brethren and wish them the 
             very best in their lives as they go through the remaining 
             years of their lives, and hopefully they and their 
             families will have a wonderful time together.
                                              Tuesday, December 9, 2014
               Mr. REED. Mr. President, I would like to take a few 
             minutes to salute my colleagues who are departing the 
             Senate at the end of this year with the conclusion of the 
             113th Congress: Mark Begich of Alaska, Saxby Chambliss of 
             Georgia, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Kay Hagan of North 
             Carolina, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Mike Johanns of Nebraska, 
             Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, 
             Carl Levin of Michigan, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Jay 
             Rockefeller of West Virginia, Mark Udall of Colorado, and 
             John Walsh of Montana.
               They have all worked hard, ceaselessly giving their 
             energy and considerable time and service to their 
             constituents, to their home States and to our country. I 
             want to thank them for their service and for their 
             kindness to me over many years in so many cases. In 
             particular, I want to say a few words about these 
             colleagues. ...
               But let me say, especially, a few words about my dear 
             friend Carl Levin. For 18 years, Carl Levin has either 
             been chairman or ranking member of the Armed Services 
             Committee. The U.S. military, the most powerful and 
             professional force in the world, has in countless ways 
             been shaped because Carl Levin repeatedly helped form a 
             new common ground to move us forward as a nation for the 
             benefit of our men and women in uniform and for the 
             benefit of us all.
               Carl and I have traveled many times together--Bosnia, 
             Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, Syria, 
             Colombia. We were there to visit with commanders and local 
             leaders, but especially to see our troops and to thank 
             them. In the faces of those troops I saw the trust and 
             respect they felt--some to their own surprise--when they 
             met the chairman--the powerful chairman of the Armed 
             Services Committee. He was there. He had traveled across 
             the globe to listen to them, to work for them, and to 
             thank them.
               It was profoundly moving to me to see this--inspiring 
             indeed. As the chairman of one of the other major 
             committees, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 
             he has pursued the powerful on behalf of the powerless, on 
             behalf of the people. He has not only uncovered abuse, but 
             he has sent a powerful message to an increasingly 
             discouraged America that there is someone who will fight 
             for them, who understands that everyone deserves a fair 
             chance at a better future.
               Carl Levin has been a friend, a role model. I will miss 
             working with him.
               Along with all of my other colleagues who are leaving us 
             at the conclusion of the 113th Congress, let me thank them 
             for their service, their dedication to improving the lives 
             of Americans, and on a very personal level for their 
             friendship. I wish them all well.

               Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I wish to offer a few words 
             of tribute to my departing colleague, Senator Carl Levin--
             a model of serious purpose, firm principle, and personal 
             decency, and whose example ought to inspire the service of 
             new and returning Senators. We could not aspire to better 
             service than what he has given our country.
               Carl and I have served together on the Senate Armed 
             Services Committee for the better part of three decades. 
             He is my senior in this body by 8 years and has been my 
             chairman for more than 10 years in total. It has been a 
             privilege to serve under his very able, honorable, and 
             fair leadership.
               Carl and I sit on opposite sides of the aisle. The 
             difference is quite obvious on any number of issues, but I 
             hope it is also obvious how much I admire and respect my 
             friend from Michigan.
               We have had our moments on the committee. Debate there 
             can get a little passionate from time to time, perhaps a 
             little more passionate on my part than Carl's, but that, 
             as all my colleagues would surely attest, is my problem, 
             not Carl's. We are, however, both proud of the committee's 
             tradition of bipartisan cooperation which Carl has worked 
             diligently to preserve and strengthen. We both know how 
             important that tradition is to faithfully discharging our 
             responsibilities to help maintain the defense of this 
             country and do right by the men and women of the U.S. 
             Armed Forces. We both feel their example of selfless 
             sacrifice would shame us if we let the committee descend 
             into the partisan posturing that often makes it hard to 
             get important work done in Congress.
               When Members disagree in committee--often heatedly--it 
             is because we feel passionately about whatever issue is in 
             dispute. Even then we try to behave civilly and 
             respectfully to each other, and we do not let our 
             disagreements prevent us from completing the committee's 
             business. Carl won't let us. That we have managed to keep 
             that reputation in these contentious times is a tribute to 
             Carl Levin. He has kept the committee focused on its 
             duties and not on the next election or the latest rush-to-
             the-barricades partisan quarrel. He does so in a calm, 
             measured, patient, and thoughtful manner. He seems, in 
             fact, to be calmer and more patient the more heated our 
             disagreements are. As members' emotions and temperatures 
             rise, Carl's unperturbed composure and focus bring our 
             attention back to the business at hand. You could safely 
             say he and I have slightly different leadership styles. I 
             am gentler and less confrontational. But Carl's style 
             seems to work for him. It works well for the committee 
             too, for the armed services, and for the country.
               The committee has a heavy workload every year, and Carl 
             manages to keep us all in harness and working together at 
             a good pace and with a constructive, results-oriented 
             approach that is the envy of the dozen or so lesser 
             committees of the Senate. Our principal responsibility is 
             to produce the defense authorization bill--one of the most 
             important and comprehensive pieces of legislation the 
             Senate considers on an annual basis. The committee has 
             never failed to report the bill, and the Senate has never 
             failed to pass it. That is not an accomplishment that some 
             of the lesser committees I just referred to can claim 
             every year, and no one deserves more of the credit than 
             Carl Levin.
               When Carl Levin first joined the committee, he explained 
             his reason for seeking the assignment this way:

               I had never served, and I thought there was a big gap in 
             terms of my background and, frankly, felt it was a way of 
             providing service.

               He might never have served in the military, but he has 
             surely served the military well, and he has served the 
             national interests our Armed Forces protect in an 
             exemplary manner that the rest of us would be wise to 
             emulate.
               More recently, I have had the honor and privilege of 
             serving alongside Carl on the Permanent Subcommittee on 
             Investigations. His tireless efforts and steadfast 
             dedication to exposing misconduct and abuse by financial 
             institutions and government regulators have set a new 
             standard for thoughtful and thorough congressional 
             investigations.
               Whether the topic was the 2008 financial crisis, Swiss 
             banking secrecy, or JPMorgan's ``London Whale'' debacle, 
             professionals in the industry and the public at large knew 
             they could count on Carl Levin to get to the bottom of it 
             with authoritative reports and hearings. Carl's tenacity 
             in uncovering wrongdoing sparked significant changes in 
             the financial sector.
               I also commend Carl Levin on zealously and effectively 
             pursuing his investigations in a way that has furthered 
             the subcommittee's long-standing tradition of 
             bipartisanship. While Carl Levin and I may have had our 
             disagreements, we never let them get in the way of finding 
             common ground where we could.
               While Carl's retirement may come as a relief to some of 
             those on Wall Street, his patience, thoughtfulness, and 
             commitment to bipartisanship will be deeply missed on the 
             subcommittee and in the Senate.
               Indeed, from Carl Levin's long and distinguished service 
             in the Senate, he has obtained the respect of his 
             colleagues on both sides of the aisle. We all listen to 
             him, and we listen closest to him on the occasions when we 
             disagree with him. That, in my view, is a great compliment 
             from one Senator to another. It is a tribute paid to only 
             the most respected Members.
               Of course, the greatest compliment one Senator can pay 
             another is to credit him or her as a person who keeps his 
             or her word. That has become too rare in Washington but 
             not so in my experiences with Carl Levin. He has never 
             broken his word to me. He has never backed out of a deal, 
             even when doing so would have been personally and 
             politically advantageous. When we are in agreement on an 
             issue, Carl usually argues more effectively than I can, 
             and when we disagree, we usually find a way to settle our 
             dispute without abandoning our responsibilities. Carl 
             Levin deserves most of the credit for that too.
               One of the great satisfactions in life is to fight for a 
             common cause with someone you haven't always agreed with, 
             someone whose background, views, and personality are 
             different from yours. Yet you discover that despite your 
             differences, you have always been on the same side on the 
             big things.
               Thank you, Carl, for the privilege and for your 
             friendship and example. The committee is going to miss 
             you, the Senate is going to miss you, the men and women of 
             the U.S. Armed Forces are going to miss you, and I will 
             miss you a lot.
                                           Wednesday, December 10, 2014
               Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first, I have to say what a 
             joy it is to work with Senator Levin. I know the public 
             thinks that no Republicans like any Democrats and vice 
             versa--at least those are the flames they try to fan--and 
             that is not true.
               I can only think of two issues on which Senator Levin 
             and I disagreed with each other. He has been through 16 of 
             the NDAAs as either chairman or ranking member. I am sure 
             that is some kind of a record. But to work with someone 
             who you know will be totally honest with you even when you 
             have a difference of opinion is really a joy. I hope we 
             can be an example for some of the other committees that 
             don't have that much joy when they are working on an 
             issue.
               The long history he has had here and the integrity he 
             has expressed will be sorely missed, I have to say to my 
             good friend Senator Levin. ...

               The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from 
             Michigan.

               Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, first let me thank Senator 
             Inhofe for his friendship, most importantly, but also for 
             the great partnership we have enjoyed. It has been a real 
             pleasure working with the Senator from Oklahoma. I should 
             perhaps also say we are confident our successors will 
             carry on this tradition as well. Senator McCain will be 
             the new chairman, and Senator Jack Reed the new ranking 
             member. They will be carrying on this tradition that we 
             have done everything we know how to do to maintain.

               Mr. REED. Madam President, I rise today in support of 
             the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 
             2015. I commend the work of my colleagues on the Armed 
             Services Committee--especially the chairman, Senator Carl 
             Levin of Michigan--on reaching an agreement with the House 
             to complete this important legislation.
               It is also appropriate that this legislation be named in 
             honor of both Senator Carl Levin and Congressman Buck 
             McKeon, the chairmen of their respective committees who 
             this year are retiring after extraordinary service and 
             dedication to the Nation and particularly to the men and 
             women of the armed services. It is another reason why this 
             bill is particularly special--because it represents the 
             culmination of the work of these two extraordinary 
             gentlemen. ...

               Mr. DURBIN. I have some tributes here for my colleagues 
             who are retiring, leaving the Senate. It is a lengthy list 
             of tributes. ...
               Last night it was my honor to salute Carl Levin of 
             Michigan for his 36 years of service in the U.S. Senate. 
             He has done so many things so well. As chairman of the 
             Armed Services Committee, he has produced this contentious 
             and challenging bill year after year, both as ranking 
             member and as chairman. As chairman of the Permanent 
             Subcommittee on Investigations, he really raised that 
             subcommittee to a new level. He tackled some of the most 
             complex issues of our day, particularly when it came to 
             corporate abuse. He spent the time to get the facts right. 
             When he had a hearing, he made an extraordinary 
             contribution to the public dialog about reforming our law 
             and making this a better nation.
               When I was first elected to the Senate, people back home 
             said to me, ``Well, now that you have been in the Senate a 
             year or two, which Senators do you respect the most?''
               I said then, and I will repeat it today, if I had a 
             tough, important decision, one I was wrestling over, an 
             issue or a vote, and I could only reach out to a couple of 
             Senators at the time, one would be Paul Sarbanes of 
             Maryland, now retired, and the other is Carl Levin. That 
             is still a fact.
               Long before Carl Levin was elected to the U.S. Senate it 
             was clear that he had a gift for politics. Picture this--
             true story: At Central High School in Detroit, Carl Levin 
             was elected class president. He won that race after, as he 
             tells it, ``running around with a piece of matzoh telling 
             other students: `This is what happens to bread without 
             Levin.''' How's that for a slogan?
               As much as I hate to think about it, soon we will have a 
             U.S. Senate without Levin--for the first time in 36 years. 
             Our only consolation is that Carl Levin leaves a legacy of 
             good and important laws. He also leaves a powerful example 
             of what can be achieved when we choose integrity over 
             ideology, and our common good over confrontation.
               A Jewish publication in Detroit wrote awhile back that 
             Carl Levin and his brother, Congressman Sandy Levin, both 
             deserve ``Honorable Menschen Awards''--with the accent on 
             ``mensch''--for their historic service to our Nation. I 
             agree wholeheartedly. Senator Levin's keen intellect, 
             honesty, and fair-mindedness--his decency and unfailing 
             civility--have earned him the respect of Senators on both 
             sides of the aisle.
               Many years ago I was an intern for a great Senator, 
             Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois. Every year now, the 
             University of Illinois presents a ``Paul Douglas Ethics in 
             Government Award'' to an elected leader who shares Senator 
             Douglas' deep commitment to social and economic justice 
             and efficient government. The recipient of the ``Paul 
             Douglas Ethics in Government Award'' in 2006 was Senator 
             Carl Levin. Paul Douglas would have approved that choice 
             heartily.
               As was Paul Douglas, Carl Levin has been a foot soldier 
             for justice. Paul Douglas was a leader in the effort to 
             pass a strong Federal Civil Rights Act. In 1964, the year 
             that law finally passed, Carl Levin was appointed the 
             first general counsel for the Michigan Civil Rights 
             Commission.
               Paul Douglas believed in government and he hated 
             government waste. He used to say: ``You don't have to be a 
             wastrel to be a liberal.'' Carl Levin reminds us that: 
             ``There are some things that only government can do, so we 
             need government. But we don't need an inefficient, 
             wasteful, arrogant government.''
               Carl Levin was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1978. 
             Before that, he was active for 15 years in Detroit and 
             Michigan State politics. He taught law before he entered 
             politics. He also held some other interesting jobs--
             including driving a cab in Detroit and working on a DeSoto 
             assemblyline.
               He showed up in Washington in 1979 driving a 1974 Dodge 
             Dart with a hole in the floorboard. He was still driving 
             that same car to the Capitol 10 years later. That tells us 
             something about Carl Levin's devotion to the U.S. auto 
             industry, its workers, and unions.
               When General Motors and Chrysler faced potential 
             collapse in 2008, he pressed Congress and a new President 
             to support the companies with billions of dollars in 
             loans.
               Those loans have since been repaid and Chrysler and GM 
             are not only solvent, they are making a profit. The U.S. 
             auto industry is in the midst of its fastest expansion 
             since 1950.
               Carl Levin is a champion as well of America's military, 
             military families, and veterans. He has served on the 
             Armed Services Committee since coming to the Senate 36 
             years ago. He is one of Congress' most respected voices on 
             national security and military issues.
               Some years back he used his power on the Armed Services 
             Committee to question the procurement practices of the 
             military. He asked: Why was the Pentagon spending 
             thousands of dollars apiece for things like toilet seats 
             and hammers? He said: We need more money for soldiers and 
             less wasteful spending for contractors. With the world 
             growing more volatile and complex and increasing pressure 
             to reduce defense budgets, those are questions we must all 
             be willing to ask.
               As a ranking member and then chair of the Senate's 
             Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Senator Levin's 
             piercing intellect and his patient mastery of complex 
             issues helped, over and over, to expose and correct 
             serious wrongdoing.
               As PSI chairman in 2002, he led a probe of the 
             activities of Enron Corporation; the investigation 
             resulted in legislation to improve the accuracy and 
             reliability of corporate disclosures.
               From white collar crime, to money laundering, abusive 
             tax shelters, and gasoline and crude oil price gouging, he 
             has pursued the subjects of every investigation with 
             nonpartisan vigor, seeking results, not spotlights.
               The list of laws bearing his imprint is long and 
             historic: The Competition in Contracting Act of 1984; 
             Social Security Disability Benefits Reform, 1984; the 
             Anti-Kickback Enforcement Act, 1986; the Whistleblower 
             Protection Act, 1989; the Ethics Reform Act in 1989; the 
             Lobbying Disclosure Act in 1995--the first major lobbying 
             reform in 50 years.
               The list goes on. Senator Levin voted: To repeal ``don't 
             ask, don't tell''; to protect voting rights; and to limit 
             the influence of private-interest money in elections.
               He has voted to support American manufacturing--and stop 
             giving tax breaks to corporations to ship American jobs 
             overseas.
               He supported my efforts to change bankruptcy laws to 
             allow deserving homeowners to save their homes in 
             foreclosures.
               He voted to regulate tobacco as a drug--another issue 
             that is personal for me.
               I will always remember Senator Levin's vote on the Iraq 
             war resolution. For years before 9/11, he warned anyone 
             who would listen that America was threatened by terrorism. 
             When the horrific attacks came, he supported pursuing the 
             attackers in Afghanistan.
               A year later, he and I were among just 23 Senators to 
             vote against the Iraq war. He voted no, even though he was 
             then chair of the Armed Services Committee. That took 
             extraordinary moral and political courage, and history has 
             shown he was right.
               Carl Levin is the longest serving Senator in Michigan 
             history, surpassing another Senate legend, Arthur 
             Vandenberg. As he proved long ago when he was elected 
             president of his high school council, he is a natural-born 
             politician. But like Senator Vandenberg, he is more than a 
             politician; he is a statesman.
               I will miss his presence in this Senate and I wish him, 
             and his wife Barbara, all the best in the future.

               Mr. COONS. ... As I close, I would also like to thank 
             those of our colleagues who will be leaving the Senate 
             after the New Year.
               It is an incredible privilege to work in this Chamber 
             and to represent the people. Every day I am awed by the 
             dedication and talent of many of my colleagues, public 
             servants who come to work to fight for their States and 
             their government.
               To those who are ending their service in the Senate, 
             know that I value your friendship and partnership. It has 
             been an honor to work with you, and I thank you for all 
             you have done for our Nation.

               Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, once again, as is our tradition 
             here in the Senate, we take a moment to express our 
             appreciation for the service of those Members who will be 
             retiring at the end of the year. We will miss them, their 
             good ideas and thoughtful suggestions, and their concern 
             and active involvement in the challenges facing our Nation 
             in a number of areas.
               It is hard to mention the word ``service'' and not have 
             Carl Levin come to mind. As a former local official 
             myself, I have a great deal of respect and regard for all 
             those who have worked their way up from the local level to 
             the Senate.
               For Carl the great adventure of his political life began 
             with his service on the Detroit City Council. During his 8 
             years on the council Carl probably had enough run-ins with 
             the Federal bureaucracy that he decided he had to do 
             something about it. For him that meant a run for the 
             Senate.
               Carl's election and his subsequent service in the Senate 
             have shown him to be quite an effective legislator and a 
             force for the positions he has taken on a long list of 
             issues. He has been a Member of the Senate since 1979 and 
             he has hit a number of milestones since then that reflect 
             the length and production of his service.
               It is important to emphasize that Carl's service in the 
             Senate has never been about longevity, it has been about 
             results. That is why he has been a part of so many issues 
             that needed someone with his talents, skills, and 
             abilities to help move them through. Such an issue has 
             been his great support for our Nation's military and our 
             veterans.
               Carl has been working for the benefit of those who have 
             served in our Armed Forces since he first walked in the 
             door of the Senate. Determined that they reap the benefits 
             they have earned with their service, Carl joined the Armed 
             Services Committee to ensure our military and our veterans 
             were getting what they deserved and required both during 
             and after their service.
               That is one of the main reasons why he is currently 
             serving as the chairman of our Armed Services Committee. 
             He wanted to make a difference for those who were 
             sacrificing so much to serve in our Nation's military. I 
             don't think our service men and women--and our Nation's 
             veterans--have ever had a better friend than Carl Levin.
               Now he is closing the chapter of this great adventure of 
             his life. With his service he has made a difference in 
             more ways than I could ever hope to mention in my brief 
             remarks. In the process Carl has touched more lives for 
             the better than we will ever know with his commitment to 
             the day-to-day issues that affect us all--like education, 
             the environment, and health care. He has had an impact on 
             his home State and our Nation that will be felt for a long 
             time to come.
               Thank you, Carl, for your service in the Senate. I know 
             I join with the people of Michigan in expressing our 
             appreciation to you for dedicating so much of your life to 
             making our Nation a better place for us all to live. That 
             is why your constituents have always been there to express 
             their appreciation of your work here in the Senate with 
             their votes. That is also why no other Senator has ever 
             represented Michigan as long as you have.
               Diana joins in sending our best wishes to you for all 
             you have accomplished and for your close and personal 
             attention to the needs of our Armed Forces and the 
             concerns of our veterans. Thanks, too, for your 
             friendship. We will miss you, but I am certain we will be 
             in touch.
                        ORDER FOR PRINTING OF SENATE DOCUMENT
               Mr. BENNET. I ask unanimous consent that the tributes to 
             retiring Senators be printed as a Senate document and that 
             Senators be permitted to submit tributes until December 
             23, 2014.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so 
             ordered.
                                            Thursday, December 11, 2014
               Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, once again, the Senate has 
             an opportunity to consider the National Defense 
             Authorization Act. This bill is named for the two retiring 
             chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services 
             Committees, Senator Carl Levin and Congressman Buck 
             McKeon. Carl Levin has been a fierce defender of Michigan, 
             strong advocate for the men and women of our armed 
             services, and a friend. When the Senate passes this bill, 
             and the President signs it into law, it will be a fitting 
             tribute to Senator Levin's storied legacy of public 
             service. ...
                                              Friday, December 12, 2014
               Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, during his 36 years 
             representing Michigan in the Senate, Senator Carl Levin's 
             character and expertise have been described in many ways. 
             He has been named by Time magazine as one of ``America's 
             10 Best Senators.'' He has been hailed by our military as 
             a leader on national security. He is recognized by 
             families in Michigan and throughout our country as a 
             dedicated champion for economic opportunity and fairness.
               But perhaps the best description of Senator Levin's 
             philosophy of public service is a word he himself used in 
             an interview for the George Mitchell Oral History Project 
             at Bowdoin College in Maine. That word is ``fiduciary.''
               It is the word that embraces the concepts of trust and 
             confidence, of ethics and responsibility. In that 
             interview Senator Levin elaborated on what the word means 
             to him as a public servant. He said it meant to be 
             accessible and open, to listen to other points of view, 
             and to be well informed. Then when it is time to decide, 
             to use his best judgment and vote for what is best for his 
             State and his country, even though it may not be the 
             popular choice at the time.
               ``Fiduciary'' may indeed be the best word to describe 
             our colleague Senator Levin; but to me, based upon decades 
             of firsthand experience, there is another phrase that also 
             comes to mind. He is truly a Senator's Senator. My 
             colleagues may be surprised to learn that I have known 
             Senator Levin far longer than most of the Members of this 
             Chamber. You see, when he was first elected to the Senate 
             in 1978, the same year as Maine Senator Bill Cohen, for 
             whom I was working at the time, both of them served on 
             what was then known as a Senate Governmental Affairs 
             Committee and also on the same subcommittee, Oversight of 
             Government Management, for which I was first the minority 
             staff director and then the majority staff director. So I 
             have known and worked with Senator Levin for the entire 
             time he has been a Member of this Chamber. From the very 
             start, Senator Levin's diligence as a watchdog for the 
             American people impressed me.
               Ten years after I left the committee, I returned as 
             Senator Cohen's successor and sought a seat on the 
             Governmental Affairs Committee precisely because, thanks 
             to the example of Senator Levin and Senator Cohen, I saw 
             the importance of accountability in government and 
             business practices. As the chairman of the Permanent 
             Subcommittee on Investigations, it was my honor to begin 
             my Senate service with Senator Levin as our ranking 
             member, who was a far more experienced Senator than I was 
             at the time.
               So I have seen first hand how deeply Senator Levin cares 
             about the Senate as an institution and its unique place in 
             our Constitution and in its role in our system of 
             government. He is a person of extraordinary integrity and 
             has a sense of purpose that sets a high standard for all 
             of us in public service.
               He works well with Senators across the aisle because he 
             works hard. From the very first time I saw Senator Levin 
             in action back in 1978, I saw the importance that he 
             placed on extensive, exhaustive preparation for our 
             committee investigations and hearings. As many evasive or 
             ill-prepared witnesses learned to their chagrin, the eyes 
             behind those trademark reading glasses focused like a 
             laser because he has always done his homework.
               If Senator Levin were to be remembered for his 
             contributions to just one area of policy, it would be our 
             Nation's defense. He has been a member of the Armed 
             Services Committee throughout his time in the Senate, 
             including 10 years as both the chairman and the ranking 
             member. During our work together on that committee, I saw 
             his mastery of such complex matters as emerging global 
             threats and advanced weapons systems. Above all, his focus 
             has always been on the men and women in uniform and their 
             families, from improving their standard of living to 
             better caring for our wounded warriors.
               As a fiduciary of the principles that are our Nation's 
             foundation, Carl Levin has been a faithful trustee and 
             truly a Senator's Senator. I cannot imagine this body 
             without him, without his wisdom, his integrity, his 
             insight. So I thank him for his years of extraordinary 
             service, and I wish him all the best in the years to come.
               Thank you, Mr. President.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.

               Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, Senator Carl Levin has been 
             my Senator for 36 years, and it has been one of the great 
             honors of my life to serve for the last 14 years as his 
             partner, as well as his friend, representing Michigan.
               The year he was elected, ``Grease'' was the year's 
             highest grossing movie and ``Staying Alive'' was music's 
             biggest hit, and you should see Senator Levin dance. So 
             Senator Levin has outlasted disco, the Soviet Union, and 
             all six of the people who challenged him in elections, 
             including an astronaut. That is because integrity never 
             goes out of style.
               Senator Levin has never wavered in his devotion to 
             Michigan and to his country. As we heard today and as we 
             each know, he has brought that patriotism to the Armed 
             Services Committee. No one has done more to ensure that 
             our men and women in uniform are battle-ready, with the 
             supplies and technology they need to be the best military 
             in the world, than Senator Carl Levin, or to make sure 
             they receive fair pay and full health benefits. Carl Levin 
             puts his coalition together year after year to make that 
             happen.
               He has never lost faith in government's capacity to be a 
             force for good, and we heard that again in his comments 
             today. This was passed down to him from his parents, who 
             saw how the New Deal rescued families from desperate 
             poverty.
               A young Carl Levin admired President Harry Truman--
             especially Truman, the Senator who drove cross country, 
             stopping in cities where defense contractors were 
             committing fraud and waste at the expense of America's 
             wartime economy.
               Truman himself would be very proud to see Senator Levin 
             leading the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. As a 
             former civil rights attorney, Senator Levin relished the 
             chance to cross-examine those he suspected of dishonesty 
             toward taxpayers and the American people. It is not 
             literally a trial by fire, but that committee room has 
             definitely become a sweat lodge for unscrupulous 
             executives or anyone who has tried to get rich by getting 
             one over on average Americans. They sweat because they 
             know Senator Levin has done his homework--boy, has he done 
             his homework. He digs so deep, he knows more about what 
             they are going to say than they do.
               David used a slingshot to bring down Goliath, but Carl 
             Levin can topple a tycoon with nothing but a binder full 
             of subpoenaed documents, and we have all seen him do it. 
             In 2007 he shined a light on abusive practices of credit 
             card companies, leading to laws that have brought about 
             more transparency. Thanks to Senator Carl Levin, your 
             credit card statement contains more disclosures so you 
             know what is going on.
               Those of us in Michigan also see a softer, gentler side. 
             His heart is in Detroit, where he was born and raised and 
             now lives with his wife Barbara. His soul is nourished by 
             the tranquility he finds in northern Michigan in the Upper 
             Peninsula--Isle Royale, a place to which he has made many 
             trips.
               If you have been to Detroit recently, you know the city 
             is in the midst of a spectacular comeback. I believe it is 
             the most spectacular comeback in modern history. 
             Everywhere you look, you see evidence of Senator Carl 
             Levin's hard work. He led the way on getting Federal 
             funding for Detroit's International Riverfront, which is 
             spectacular. He worked with me and others in leading the 
             effort to secure critical funding for the M-1 Rail 
             Project, championing that every step of the way--a 
             streetcar that will inject even more vibrancy to the 
             historic Woodward Avenue, which is already attracting 
             scores of entrepreneurs and small businesses.
               Five years ago I was proud to stand with Senator Levin 
             as we passionately worked to rescue our American 
             automobile industry and give them a chance to grow and 
             move forward, and I saw his commitment and fiery passion 
             for making sure we did not let them down, the men and 
             women who worked so hard in Michigan and across the 
             country. That revival has done so much to lift the economy 
             of greater Detroit and all of Michigan.
               Senator Levin knows that manufacturing is the backbone 
             of our State's economy, but he also knows that the 
             landscapes, the soil, and the water are all part of who we 
             are, including our Great Lakes. It is in our DNA, and I 
             know it is in his. That is why he has pushed for years to 
             help Sleeping Bear Dunes be recognized as a national 
             lakeshore, and we are seeing the outcome of his work as we 
             look at this beautiful national resource. He fought for 
             the Federal sanctuary at Thunder Bay and for the creation 
             of the Keweenaw National Historic Park. It has been an 
             honor for me to stand with him as he chaired our Great 
             Lakes Task Force, our bipartisan task force, and fight for 
             funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which 
             has had a miraculous effect on the quality of freshwater 
             that is vital for Michigan and the Nation.
               I could stand here for hours talking about his 
             accomplishments, the footprints and handprints and marks 
             he has made on Michigan and, most importantly, the people 
             and communities of Michigan. But, as we heard this morning 
             from colleagues and will continue to hear, they are small 
             in comparison to the testament of his character, his 
             compassion, his humor, and the unassailable strength of 
             his convictions.
               Senator Levin, you will be missed in Michigan and 
             certainly by me and the Senate. I know you and Barbara and 
             your daughters and grandchildren, including your one 
             grandson--who is kind of outnumbered--will be grateful to 
             have you so you can show them the world from your 
             perspective and show them the continued beauty of 
             Michigan. You have given so much, and we are grateful.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.

               Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I wish to talk about 
             Senator Levin from a different perspective than my 
             colleagues have. There is a seduction that goes on around 
             here. You can get lulled into a false sense of security by 
             excellent staff. Carl Levin is fortunate that he has 
             excellent staff, but what many of us are tempted to do at 
             times is to allow staff to do the arcane and tedious work 
             of checking statutory language.
               I have been blessed to have a front row seat to watch 
             Carl Levin work. From my seat on the Armed Services 
             Committee and on the Permanent Subcommittee on 
             Investigations, I have not only watched his excellent 
             staff, I have watched Carl Levin. This is a man who 
             understands every nook and cranny of statutory 
             construction. He would never be lulled into a false sense 
             of security that he understood the bill just because of 
             what he was told.
               I will think of Carl Levin fondly in one way: his 
             shoulders slightly stooped, his hand grasping a piece of 
             paper, not an electronic device, him walking quickly 
             toward me with his head down, peering over those 
             ubiquitous glasses, saying, ``Claire, have you read the 
             language? Claire, have you read the language? Read the 
             language. Read the language.''
               He understands the hazards of a misplaced comma. He 
             understands the danger of using an ``and'' instead of an 
             ``or.'' He understands that the essence of our work is to 
             make sure we craft language that lives up to our purpose 
             and ideals.
               Carl Levin is a Senator's Senator. There are no sharp 
             elbows, no heated rhetoric, and, frankly, there is no star 
             power on cable television. No one is dying to get Carl in 
             front of a camera because he will say something incendiary 
             or pick a fight, which all of our friends are anxious for 
             us to do--if we would only pick a fight.
               Carl is methodically doing the grind-it-out work of 
             legislating. He has the tools of a great Senator: 
             intellect, integrity, good manners, and an unsurpassed 
             work ethic. I will always call him my most important 
             mentor in the Senate. He has taught me more than I can 
             ever say. I will try desperately to live up to the ideal 
             he has set for all of us.
               I thank the Presiding Officer.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.

               Mr. SESSIONS. I thank Senator McCaskill for her 
             comments. We are talking about a Senator's Senator, a man 
             who reads the language of the legislation and knows how to 
             legislate.
               I came here 18 years ago and have served on the Armed 
             Services Committee that entire time, and my admiration and 
             respect for Carl Levin has grown every year. It has grown 
             because it is deserved. He is a remarkable leader. He 
             never showboats and always wants to do the right thing. He 
             serves his country first, and he runs a committee that is, 
             in my mind, the best run committee--according to the 
             ideals of the Republic of which we are a part--that exists 
             in either Chamber today. It just works the way it is 
             supposed to.
               His subcommittees work. We have amendments in 
             subcommittees that are disputed. If you don't like the 
             result, you bring it to the full committee, and the full 
             committee meets, and if it takes 2 full days, it takes 2 
             full days; everybody gets to bring up their amendments.
               Senator Levin is always brilliantly able to solve 
             differences through proper wording of the committee's 
             legislation. As Claire suggested, he has an extraordinary 
             lawyer's ability to get the right words and make the bill 
             say what the committee wants it to say. I think that is 
             special, and I am pleased to have been a part of it.
               The Armed Services Committee authorizes one-half of the 
             discretionary budget of the United States. It impacts the 
             lives of men and women in harm's way right now. We need to 
             get it right. It involves a lot of money and a lot of 
             responsibility. It is a well run committee that sets an 
             example for what we ought to see more of in the Senate.
               There is a fairness about his work. Somehow we have 
             always passed an authorization bill, and somehow it is 
             almost always unanimous or very close to unanimous. There 
             may be one or two issues that maybe should not have been 
             tacked on to the bill that causes someone not to vote for 
             it, but when it is over, normally every Member--Republican 
             and Democrat--is satisfied with the ability to have their 
             voice heard and their ideas put into the bill, if 
             possible. But if you lose in subcommittee and you lose on 
             the floor and you have had your say in both places, it 
             kind of makes you feel like, what more can I do? If the 
             rest of the bill is OK, I will try to support it. These 
             markups take time because we are dealing with a large 
             portion of Federal funding.
               Finally, I would like to say how much I appreciated the 
             wisdom he shared with us as we dealt with the nuclear 
             option--the so-called nuclear option that changed the 
             rules of the Senate. Senator Levin, who is a lawyer's 
             lawyer, said something that was very profound, and it was 
             reflected again in his remarks today, and that is, if a 
             majority can change the rules, there are no rules. If a 
             majority can change the rules of the Senate at a given 
             moment to overcome objections from the minority, then 
             there are virtually no minority rights--you have a pure 
             majoritarian body. I think that is what Carl was sharing 
             with us in his brilliant speech that all of us ought to 
             read.
               I thank our chairman for the leadership he has given and 
             for the courtesy he has shown to me and all our Members. I 
             wish him great success in his future endeavors, and I hope 
             he will continue to contribute his wisdom to the body 
             politic.
               I yield the floor.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.

               Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, it has been summed up here, 
             and I want the Senator from Michigan to hear what has been 
             summarized so meaningfully by all of our colleagues, 
             because this is the best of this institution in terms of 
             how it performs. It has been embodied here in the public 
             service of Carl Levin for 36 years. What we have heard 
             from testimonies on both sides of the aisle is that 
             because of how he has conducted himself as an individual 
             and how he has conducted himself as a public servant and 
             how he has conducted himself as a leader in this Senate is 
             an example of exactly how this institution is supposed to 
             function.
               Isn't it rather symbolic that on the last couple of days 
             of the session, the bill that will be passed is the bill 
             Senator Levin has ushered through the Senate? He never 
             broke tradition. He made sure the defense authorization 
             bill was going to be passed by hammering out the 
             differences with the House and shepherding it through the 
             parliamentary process. It has happened every year because 
             of his extraordinary leadership.
               I will close simply by saying that because he is all of 
             the things we have heard--the consummate gentleman, the 
             humble public servant, his razor-sharp mind, and the best 
             lawyer, by the way, in the entire Senate--because he is 
             all of those things, he also is the embodiment of a 
             Senator because when he gives someone his word, that is 
             it. A person does not have to worry anymore.
               The future Senate should take a lesson from the life and 
             the leadership of Carl Levin from Michigan.
               I yield the floor.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.

               Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I rise with honor and 
             pleasure to be able to say thank you to my dear friend. I 
             am the most junior Member, besides the Presiding Officer, 
             in this body today. When I first came to the Senate, I 
             asked to be on the Armed Services Committee. West Virginia 
             has a proud heritage of an awful lot of people--
             percentagewise probably more than most States--having 
             served in all of the branches of the military. So that is 
             very near and dear to me, and our National Guard is very 
             near and dear to our State. So there were many reasons why 
             I wanted to be on the Armed Services Committee.
               When I got here, it was one of the most toxic times of 
             the political arena, if you will. It was not what I 
             expected, to say the least. Seeing the toxic atmosphere 
             that I came into, people would say it didn't used to be 
             this way; it used to work. The process worked. The whole 
             aura of the Senate was there, and we are losing that. That 
             was their excuse for telling me that is why it is not 
             working today, but it used to work.
               Then I became part of this committee called the Armed 
             Services Committee with this unbelievable chairman whose 
             name is Carl Levin. I watched and observed. I didn't say a 
             whole lot at first because freshmen aren't supposed to, 
             but I watched and I learned and I saw the system the way I 
             imagined it probably was 20, 30, 40 years ago when it did 
             work. I saw the Senate, and I was thinking, Why can't the 
             rest of the Senate work the way the Armed Services 
             Committee works? There is one reason. We don't have enough 
             Carl Levins. We just don't have enough Carl Levins.
               Carl Levin is practical, reasonable, and sensible. It 
             made sense to me what he would say.
               Just recently I have had difficulties on a piece of 
             legislation that is very important. Carl spoke to me in 
             terms that my father would have spoken to me, and I 
             understood very well: State your opposition, record your 
             opposition, and look at the whole situation as the 
             betterment and the good of the bill, which is better than 
             basically this piece that you oppose. He said I could 
             explain my opposition.
               Carl Levin would say this, too. He would say: ``Listen, 
             I can't tell you what to do. Really, you have to do what 
             you think is right, but let me give you some points to 
             think about.'' He has been an unbelievable mentor who will 
             give us the ability to kind of process this whole system 
             we are in.
               Let me say this, Carl. I am sorry that I didn't have the 
             honor and the opportunity and the pleasure to serve with 
             you for many more years. I really am. Or I am sorry I 
             didn't get here soon enough, whatever the case may be. But 
             the Senator from Michigan has left an impression on me as 
             to how this place should work.
               Robert C. Byrd, my predecessor, felt as passionately as 
             you do. There is a process here and there is a reason for 
             the process, which is to make us talk to each other, to 
             make this place work. There should never be a situation we 
             would get into that is important to the American citizen 
             or this country where we can't work it out and can't get 
             at least 60 votes. There should never be a time that we 
             cannot get 60 votes. If we do that, then basically just 
             changing a rule is not going to change the attitude and 
             the atmosphere we create. I believe very strongly in that. 
             I appreciate the Senator's fight.
               In the hills of West Virginia, we have a saying: ``They 
             are good people.'' You meet somebody and someone says, 
             ``They are good people.''
               Carl, you are good people. Thank you.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.

               Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, one of the great honors of 
             serving in the U.S. Senate--and it is a great honor to 
             serve in this body--is the fact that I have had the 
             opportunity to serve with Carl Levin. I think Senator 
             Levin represents the very best of our political system, 
             the very best of the U.S. Senate, and why I am so proud to 
             be a part of this institution.
               I must tell my colleagues I came from the House of 
             Representatives and I had the great pleasure to have as 
             one of my closest friends in the House of Representatives 
             Carl's brother, Sandy. Sandy is an incredibly talented 
             person who believes in public service, as does his brother 
             Carl. The two of them have devoted their family reputation 
             to public service, and they have given so much back.
               Carl, what you have done for our national security, for 
             our national defense, the type of attention you have paid 
             to make sure this country is as well prepared as it needs 
             to be, you have done that in an exemplary way. I can tell 
             you what you have done for the people in Michigan, the 
             type of Senator you have been. You have been a great U.S. 
             Senator for your State, as well as a great U.S. Senator 
             for the United States. That is not always an easy balance, 
             but you have been able to do it.
               As so many colleagues have said, when we seek advice, 
             when we need a Senator to help us understand something, we 
             go to Carl Levin. Some of my constituents have a hard time 
             believing that we read the bills around here. Carl Levin 
             reads the bills around here. He has found typographical 
             errors in some of my legislation. He has found ways to 
             correct us when we didn't express ourselves the way we 
             should have. He writes me notes all the time. I thank him 
             for that dedication.
               As several of our colleagues have pointed out, there is 
             no one here who has a greater love for the traditions--the 
             best traditions--of the U.S. Senate, a Senate that debates 
             and respects each other. One of the great opportunities I 
             had was to sit in a room with Lamar Alexander and Carl 
             Levin and others and talk about that, and how we could 
             restore the best traditions of the U.S. Senate.
               So, Senator Levin, I want you to know, I will always be 
             indebted to serving in this body with you, learning from 
             you, and recognizing just what one person can do to carry 
             out the honor and dignity of public service. You really 
             define public service. For that, I am very grateful, the 
             people of Michigan are grateful, and the people of America 
             are grateful. Congratulations on your great service.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.

               Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, it is no surprise to any of us 
             that the first thing Carl Levin did when he spoke today 
             was thank his staff. He thanked them, and then he thanked 
             the police force and the groundskeepers and the food 
             service people and the people who too many in this world 
             ignore. That was the first thing he did.
               The second thing Carl did in his address was to talk 
             about the gulf between the fortunate few and the 
             struggling many. That has been what I most admire about 
             Carl Levin--that he is always aware of that and always 
             fighting the fight for people who have a lot less 
             privilege than those of us do who dress like this and get 
             really great titles. No one, frankly--no one in this 
             body--has stood up against special interests for the most 
             powerful interests in this town more effectively and more 
             energetically than Carl Levin. For that, I am grateful, 
             and I know so many in this country are grateful as well.
               Thank you, Senator.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.

               Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, when I came here in 2009, we 
             were in the middle of an enormous meltdown due to high-
             risk trading inside our major banks. I wondered whether we 
             as an institution were capable of undertaking this 
             challenge of changing the circumstances around that in 
             order to not have another 2007, 2008 meltdown that would 
             do so much damage to families across this country. So I 
             put out an email to everyone that said, Is anyone 
             interested in taking on this issue for the future 
             stability of our financial system? The next day I came to 
             the floor and Senator Levin said, ``the email you sent 
             out, I want to talk to you about that. I want to partner 
             in taking this on.'' Immediately, he basically said: ``We 
             will work together. I am not the senior Senator who wants 
             to take over this effort,'' although I would have been 
             glad for that to happen. There was not the ego in it; 
             there was the intellect and the passion and the 
             determination to fix a problem. To me, the Senate should 
             be about people coming together to fix problems to make 
             this Nation work better.
               That event is deeply burned into my mind. The result, 
             because of Senator Levin's efforts, was the Volcker rule 
             that said high-risk trading should not be done on the 
             banks' books, proprietary trading, and high-risk 
             instruments. It will make a significant difference in the 
             years to come.
               But what I want to thank my colleague for is the 
             attitude of coming together to solve the important 
             problems for America, even if that means taking on very 
             powerful special interests. I hope we will see a lot more 
             of that from this Senate in the years to come, but it will 
             be a much bigger challenge without the Senator here. We 
             will miss him greatly.
               Thank you so much, Senator, for your service to our 
             Nation.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.

               Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the Senate at its best has 
             been said to be the one authentic piece of genius in the 
             American political system. Carl Levin is the Senate at its 
             best. I thank him for his courtesy, his decency, his 
             scholarship, and his sense of public service. I thank him 
             for his reminder that if we are going to have the trust of 
             the American people to write rules for them, we should 
             follow our own rules.
               It has been a privilege to serve with Senator Levin.
               Thank you, Mr. President.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.

               Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I too want to spend a couple 
             of moments reflecting upon my long friendship and 
             association with Senator Carl Levin from Michigan.
               Much has been said this morning about Carl the person 
             and the Senator. Let me say this: I don't know of anyone 
             in this body who has exhibited more of an intellectual 
             honesty, a calm demeanor, and a sense of fierce loyalty 
             and perseverance. I don't know who exhibits those 
             qualities more than Carl Levin.
               Carl embodies the best of what I think it means to be 
             both a citizen and a U.S. Senator. Barbara and Carl, Ruth 
             and I have enjoyed many meals together over the years, 
             having great conversations about everything. I want to say 
             to my friend Carl, I hope that Michigan and Iowa are not 
             so far apart, and that we can continue to get together in 
             the future.
               I will say, Carl, right now I hope you don't hold it 
             against me for all of the times the Hawkeyes will beat the 
             Wolverines in the future. Don't let that be a stumbling 
             block.
               I yield the floor.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). The Senator from 
             Oklahoma.

               Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I will be very brief because 
             I know we have some other things coming up before going on 
             to the NDAA, and I will be standing here with my good 
             friend and brother Carl at that time. I recall when I was 
             first elected to the House of Representatives--it is hard 
             for me to believe that was 28 years ago--and I became good 
             friends with a guy named Levin. It was not Carl. It was 
             his brother. There was a real sincere, lovable attitude 
             about him. I can remember sitting by him during some of 
             the debate on very partisan things. I thought this guy is 
             really neat. It is the kind of thing where you can't 
             dislike him. Then I came over here 20 years ago. I have 
             two major committees, Environment and Public Works and the 
             Senate Armed Services Committee. I thought this is 
             remarkable because while on occasion we will differ--I am 
             talking about the chairman and me--and I am the ranking 
             member of that committee--occasionally we will come up on 
             an issue where we don't agree. On two occasions, last year 
             and this year, we had to go into this process of the ``big 
             four.'' That is where it gets contentious because at that 
             point you have to come up with a bill. There was never a 
             time that, yes, we have to give in. I don't know whether 
             he gave in more than I gave in. But whatever it was, it 
             all had to happen and it did happen and it happened 
             because of Carl more than me.
               Chairman Levin and I can both say the same thing, and 
             people will hate me and they love him. I always wonder how 
             you get by with doing that, but you do. He is a lovable 
             guy whom I will sincerely miss as well as our 
             relationship, and I hope you will be back often so you can 
             be here to remind other people what a real statesman is.
               I yield the floor.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.

               Mr. SANDERS. I want to take a moment to thank Carl Levin 
             for his friendship. It has been previously noted that Carl 
             is recognized as having perhaps the greatest intellect in 
             the Senate. Carl has been, for so many years, a forceful 
             fighter against waste in the military, and in recent years 
             he has led the Senate in telling us it is absurd that 
             large multinational corporations are able to avoid 
             hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes by storing their 
             money in offshore tax savings.
               He has been a leader on that and for those of us who are 
             concerned about the needs of our kids and elderly and 
             infrastructure, all of the terrible problems facing this 
             country, these are issues we have to focus on.
               I think Senator Carl Levin has been a Senator's Senator. 
             He has been a model of what a good Senator should be, and 
             it is not surprising that people from all political 
             persuasions will come to the floor to thank him for his 
             service.
               Senator Levin, thank you very much for your time.
               I yield the floor.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.

               Mr. FRANKEN. I want to echo what everyone has said. I 
             had the honor of traveling on a codel with Chairman Levin 
             to Pakistan, Afghanistan, when I had been here just a few 
             weeks. So I was traveling with the chairman of the Armed 
             Services Committee. The respect he got from everyone--from 
             the generals down to the privates, especially in 
             Afghanistan--was remarkable. Carl fought to increase the 
             ratio of our troops to contractors. When we took the 
             majority back in 2006, Carl started doing the kind of 
             oversight of the contracting that had led to a lot of 
             waste, fraud, and abuse in Iraq. He has used PSI in the 
             way it was intended by Harry Truman. I thank him 
             especially for the work he did on the credit rating 
             agencies, Wall Street credit rating agencies. Right now 
             Standard & Poor's is being prosecuted by--or sued by the 
             DOJ for about $5 billion. Part of what they are using are 
             emails the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations 
             obtained, in which basically the credit rating agencies 
             internally were saying we better give this a AAA rating; 
             otherwise, we are going to lose our business. That in no 
             small way led to the meltdown we had because all this junk 
             was getting AAAs and those were bets on bets on bets on 
             bets and that is what led to the meltdown.
               Carl always seems to go to where that kind of top-down 
             fraud or malfeasance is going. When Sherrod talked about 
             the disparities and how this is rigged very often from the 
             top down, he was talking about the offshoring and the work 
             the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations did--that is, 
             on tax havens on inversions--and I hope to take that up as 
             Carl leaves.
               Carl leaves a lot of unfinished business. Everything 
             that has been said is who Carl is. Everyone should know 
             that. One thing that has not been said is hamisha. Carl, 
             you are one of the most hamish men I have ever known. 
             Thank you.
               I yield the floor.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is 
             recognized.

               Mr. KING. I wanted to speak very briefly, because as 
             Senator Manchin pointed out, I am the most junior person 
             in the place.
               I want to say a couple of things about Carl Levin. As 
             has been said here repeatedly, Carl is a man of immense 
             intellect and character, and I wanted to explain how that 
             came to be. I thought that would be important to lay on 
             the Record.
               It came to be because Carl Levin and his brother spent 
             their boyhood summers in the State of Maine. That imparts 
             character to anyone who is lucky enough to have that 
             experience.
               Also, I want to mention--because it has been mentioned 
             several times--about the travel. I had the great good 
             fortune to travel after having been here about 6 months. 
             Carl and I--as members of the Armed Services Committee--
             went to Turkey and Jordan to try to get some insight into 
             the situation in Syria. My only advice to anyone in this 
             body is if you are ever invited to travel with Carl Levin, 
             spend the prior 2 or 3 months in the gym. I have never 
             been so exhausted in my life, and we would be at 10 p.m., 
             after all-day meetings and touring of refugee sites, and 
             Carl would say, ``Can't we have another meeting? Isn't 
             there someone else we can talk to?'' His absolute passion 
             for information and data upon which to make decisions is I 
             think exemplary.
               The final thing I want to note is--and it has been 
             talked about how he is a Senator's Senator, which is 
             certainly true. My observation and in fact my experience 
             this year in the markup of the National Defense 
             Authorization Act is the highlight of my experience in 
             this body. The reason it is, is because it worked like it 
             is supposed to work. We had 2 days of markup. They were 
             about 10-hour days, as I recall. There were over 200 
             amendments. Through Carl's leadership, most of those 
             amendments were compromised and worked out between the 
             parties and between the individuals who were moving the 
             amendments, but we ended up with about 20 we couldn't 
             resolve in that way. I was so struck by this. I went back 
             and looked at the record of that markup. Of the 20 
             amendments that were voted on in the committee, not a 
             single one of those amendments was decided on a party-line 
             vote. There were votes of 13 to 12 or 16 to 4 or whatever 
             the vote was but not a single party-line vote. I think 
             that in itself is an extraordinary achievement in a body 
             that is often driven by partisan divisions. I think it is 
             attributable in large measure to Carl Levin's leadership.
               Everybody had their say. Everybody had their opportunity 
             to put their thoughts forward. Everybody had an 
             opportunity to get a vote if they felt that was necessary. 
             Of course, in the end, the bill came out of the 
             committee--I think it was 25 to 1--and that is what 
             legislating is supposed to be all about. That is a lesson 
             for us because people felt they got their amendments, they 
             got their discussion, they got their ideas out. Even if 
             they weren't successful, at the end, they voted for the 
             bill because they were invested in the process. That is 
             what I learned from this man who I think has been an 
             inspiration for those of us who are coming along behind. 
             Again, I am so honored. One of the great joys of my life 
             has been to serve with you for 2 years. One of the great 
             sadnesses of my life is it is only 2 years, but I deeply 
             appreciate what you have done for this body and for the 
             United States of America.

               Mr. LEVIN. Thank you.

               Mr. KING. Bless you.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from New York.

               Mr. SCHUMER. My good friend from Iowa is waiting 
             patiently, so I will curtail my remarks. I would like to 
             say to my dear friend Carl--whom we will all miss--if we 
             had to put a headline on what is happening today, it is: 
             ``Mr. Integrity Retires from the Senate.''
               There is no one in this body on either side of the aisle 
             whose integrity is more respected than yours. At these 
             times in America, where people have such distrust of 
             government and elected officials, to have somebody who is 
             so widely trusted by his constituency and by the Members 
             of this body who have worked with him closely over the 
             years on both sides of the aisle is a real tribute. You 
             are Mr. Integrity. That is one of many reasons we will 
             miss you.
               Again, I have more to say, but in deference to my dear 
             friend from Iowa, who I see is ready to roll, I will yield 
             the floor.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.

               Mr. PORTMAN. I will be brief as well and say that I am 
             going to miss my colleague, and I told him that 
             personally. I want to share a couple of reasons. One, as a 
             new Member on the other side of the aisle, when I first 
             got here, Carl--whom I had gotten to know a little bit 
             through his brother, whom I see is on the floor today, 
             whom has fought many fights with him on the squash court, 
             but they remain dear friends. He came to me and said, 
             ``You ought to join the Auto Caucus.'' I am not a big 
             caucus guy. Most caucuses don't do much in this place, and 
             then I saw what he was doing with the Auto Caucus and he 
             agreed to allow me come on as cochair. We had an 
             opportunity to help fight for the autoworkers in Michigan 
             and Ohio and around the country and make sure that the 
             renaissance of the auto industry is sustained. As I am 
             sure has been said by many here today, he went out of his 
             way to make it not just bipartisan but nonpartisan. He 
             does his homework.
               We share some committee assignments. We don't always 
             agree. Sometimes we disagree on fundamental issues. He is 
             always prepared and does his homework and has the best of 
             intentions. That says a lot for him and the reason he is 
             viewed as such a leader of the Senate. When I got here, I 
             was honored to serve on the Armed Services Committee. 
             There we were able to work together on a number of 
             projects, including ones that frankly he may not have 
             normally thought were priorities but because I was a new 
             Member and interested in helping my State and on specific 
             projects, he stood up for me. I will not forget that. We 
             have done legislation together and had the opportunity to 
             work together on important projects that have to do with 
             the Great Lakes, including Great Lakes restoration, where 
             he has been a nonpartisan partner. I join my colleagues on 
             both sides of the aisle and say this is one of those 
             giants of the Senate who will be missed.
               Although I have only been here for 4 of his many years 
             of service, I was privileged to serve with him.
               I yield the floor.

               Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I wish to pay tribute to the 
             senior Senator from Michigan, Carl Levin. I have known 
             Carl for many years and am grateful for his friendship. 
             Throughout his career, Carl has always put the needs of 
             Michigan and this Nation above his own.
               Senator Levin was born in Detroit in 1934 and has called 
             Michigan his home nearly his entire life. As a young man, 
             he left only briefly to attend Swarthmore College and 
             later Harvard Law School. After passing the Michigan Bar, 
             Carl worked for 5 years in private practice in Detroit 
             before beginning his career in public service. He first 
             served as general counsel for the Michigan Civil Rights 
             Commission from 1964 to 1967. Carl then entered elected 
             office, serving on the Detroit City Council from 1969 to 
             1977.
               In 1978, Senator Levin successfully ran for a U.S. 
             Senate seat and has never looked back. He has since won 
             five more elections to become the longest serving Senator 
             in Michigan history. Carl chaired the Armed Services 
             Committee from 2001 to 2003 and again from 2007 to the 
             present. Whether it was pushing for higher pay or ensuring 
             that our veterans received proper medical treatment, Carl 
             has always made sure that our soldiers and their families 
             were well taken care of.
               Senator Levin has also served as chairman of the Senate 
             Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He has never had 
             any patience for corruption or abuse, and so has been 
             perfectly suited for this job. As chairman, Carl launched 
             numerous investigations into high-profile issues, 
             including the Enron scandal and abusive credit card 
             practices. The findings of these investigations were 
             crucial in helping us draft legislation to prevent future 
             abuses.
               Mr. President, Senator Levin has dedicated his life to 
             public service, and his retirement is well deserved. He is 
             an honest man who has served his country well. I wish him, 
             his wife Barbara, and their family the very best.

               The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). The Senator from 
             Michigan.

               Mr. LEVIN. I know that Senator Harkin is waiting to 
             speak. Senator Harkin is truly one of the greatest 
             Senators I have ever served with and Senator Harkin is one 
             of the greatest people I have ever known. He, Ruth, Barb, 
             and I have spent quality time, which is not always true 
             for many of us in the Senate to have that opportunity.
               I thank everyone. The words have meant so much to me and 
             my family today.
               I am going to join my family now. I know Tom will 
             forgive me for not listening, but I will be reading what 
             you say. You, Ruth, Barb, and I will have some more 
             quality time together--perhaps not as much fun as being in 
             the Senate, but we will make the best of it.
               I yield the floor.

               Ms. AYOTTE. ... I also want to take the opportunity to 
             thank Senator Levin, who is retiring this year, for being 
             an incredible chairman of the Senate Armed Services 
             Committee. I have to say this has been one of the best 
             experiences I have had since I have gotten to the Senate. 
             I have been here for 4 years, and Senator Levin has 
             conducted this committee and treated everyone with 
             respect. He has gotten us all to work together, where 
             almost every year we passed out the defense authorization 
             almost unanimously--how often does that happen--and most 
             times unanimously in a divided Congress.
               I wish Senator Levin the best, because he has been so 
             knowledgeable and so committed to ensuring that our Nation 
             is safe and committed to our men and women in uniform.
               On a personal note, he has been so respectful to me and 
             has been someone who has run the committee so very well 
             and has served our country with such dignity and such 
             dedication. I wish he and his wife Barbara the best in the 
             future.
               He is someone whom this body will miss. Certainly as the 
             chairman of the Armed Services Committee, he has treated 
             everyone on both sides of the aisle with incredible 
             respect and given us opportunities to raise issues that 
             are important to us. I think he is a model of how we 
             should conduct ourselves. We can disagree with each other 
             but still find common ground where we can work together to 
             get things done for the American people. ...

               Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I want to take a few minutes 
             today to speak on the National Defense Authorization Act, 
             the annual policy bill for the Department of Defense. Let 
             me start by noting that Senator Carl Levin, who is 
             chairman of the committee that puts this agreement 
             together, will be retiring after this year. This bill 
             carries Senator Levin's name on it in what I think will be 
             a fitting tribute to his legacy here. I have appreciated 
             his wisdom on so many issues over the years, and I know I 
             am in good company when I say to Senator Levin that his 
             leadership will be missed in the U.S. Senate. ...

               Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, it is just about time for 
             the vote. I want to mention something which hasn't been 
             mentioned.
               We have two really great Americans, one serving in the 
             House and one serving in the Senate. We have been talking 
             about Chairman Levin and how fair and open he has been. I 
             think there is not a person of the 100 Members of the 
             Senate who doesn't agree with that.
               At the same time, we have Buck McKeon over in the House 
             of Representatives. He is the chairman of the House 
             committee that is equivalent to the committee Carl Levin 
             chairs here. He also is retiring, and he has served for 
             quite some time--not as long as Senator Levin.
               Against their objections, we have named this bill the 
             Carl Levin-Buck McKeon bill, so I want to make sure 
             everyone recognizes that proper tribute has been made to 
             the long hours and years and the hard work they have 
             contributed.
               This guy over here to my left has been through 16 of 
             these. He has been working about 36 years, and I want to 
             say he is deserving of that recognition. ...

               Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I will now speak very briefly 
             about my retiring colleagues and then turn it over to the 
             Senator from Florida [Mr. Nelson]. I promise I will be 
             brief.
               Everybody will face retirement, voluntarily or 
             involuntarily. There will be a last vote to cast and a 
             last speech to make. Only God knows when that day comes 
             because we are all just one car wreck away from ending our 
             careers.
               To the retiring Members, I have had the pleasure of 
             serving with you, and I know you all. You did what you 
             thought was best for our country and your State, and what 
             more could anyone ask? My good friend Mark Pryor, who 
             tried to find common ground at a time when it is hard to 
             find. Mary Landrieu, who would drill under the Capitol if 
             she thought it would help American energy independence. We 
             have good friends on the other side, and I will miss you, 
             and I wish you well. But I would like very briefly to 
             speak about four. ...
               The last person is Carl Levin. If I had to describe to 
             somebody from a foreign country what a good Senator was 
             like, I would pick Carl. Carl understands the details of 
             the government--very studious. He was the chairman of the 
             Armed Services Committee and ran it very evenhandedly. He 
             had a disposition that I don't know how he held on to in 
             these fractious times, but he was a gentleman.
               I can promise you, working with Carl Levin, we both 
             resisted the temptation to go down some very dangerous 
             roads on this detainee contentious issue. All I can tell 
             the men and women in uniform and the people of Michigan is 
             that you never had a better friend.
               To all of you, Godspeed. I wish you nothing but the 
             best.
               I am fortunate enough to go into my third term. To my 
             colleagues, as we go into the next Congress, let's try to 
             do better. I know we can. If we do, all boats will rise.
               I yield the floor.

               Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I wanted to speak today 
             about Senator Carl Levin and his years of service to the 
             Senate and the people of Michigan. Senator Levin has 
             served 36 years and is Michigan's longest serving Senator.
               John F. Kennedy once said that ``leadership and learning 
             are indispensable to each other.'' Senator Levin's time 
             here has been an illustration of that statement, and I 
             have experienced this first hand ever since I arrived in 
             the Senate in 2007 and sought his guidance on difficult 
             issues like the war in Iraq. He is one of the best 
             informed and knowledgeable Members of the Senate.
               Carl Levin has been a leader for years on the Senate 
             Armed Services Committee and the Permanent Subcommittee on 
             Investigations. Senator Levin has served as the Democratic 
             leader of the Armed Services Committee since 1997, a term 
             that overlapped with several defining events for U.S. 
             national security, including the terrorist attacks on 
             September 11, 2001, the beginnings of the wars in 
             Afghanistan and Iraq, the operation against Osama bin 
             Laden and the current conflict against the terrorist group 
             ISIS. Chairman Levin has guided our caucus through the 
             National Defense Authorization Act process every year, 
             working to ensure Members have an opportunity to include 
             their priority issues in the bill. I am grateful for 
             Senator Levin's support of my efforts to ensure Afghan 
             women and girls remain at the forefront of our Afghanistan 
             policy through this transition period. One of Senator 
             Levin's most important legacies will be his thoughtful and 
             principled opposition to shifting attention away from the 
             fight against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to Iraq. Our caucus 
             will miss Carl Levin's steady hand guiding us through 
             these important matters.
               At the helm of the Permanent Subcommittee on 
             Investigations, Senator Levin has led the charge against 
             some of the worst abuse and corruption occurring in our 
             country. Under Senator Levin's leadership the subcommittee 
             conducted an 18-month investigation into the causes of the 
             financial crisis that culminated in four hearings in April 
             2010. The hearings brought forth information that helped 
             craft the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act 
             of 2010. He also led an investigation into abusive and 
             unfair practices of the credit card industry, which would 
             lead to the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and 
             Disclosure Act, along with investigations into tax 
             shelters, offshore tax havens and Federal contractor tax 
             delinquency, among other issues. In 2012, the National 
             Journal wrote that ``the Permanent Subcommittee on 
             Investigations is one of the few institutions in Congress 
             that's still working. Carl Levin is a big reason why.''
               Carl Levin's legacy can be summed up in one word: 
             integrity. His commitment to our security and our 
             servicemembers is incomparable. We wish him well as he 
             returns to Michigan and moves on to new challenges and I 
             thank him for his service.
                                              Monday, December 15, 2014
               Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, on first glance, one might 
             not think that Michigan and Vermont share much in common. 
             But to delve deeper is to see that both States have deep 
             roots in their rural populations, strong agricultural 
             bases, and stunning natural landscapes. Senator Carl Levin 
             has represented the people of Michigan in the U.S. Senate 
             since 1979. He is one of this Chamber's most senior 
             Members and one of the longest serving Senators in 
             history. He has cast more than 12,500 votes on behalf of 
             his constituents.
               Senator Levin has worked to ensure that the lakes of 
             Michigan will be clean and safe for generations of 
             Michigan residents to come. He has sponsored legislation 
             to protect and restore the Great Lakes and their abundant 
             wildlife habitats, secured millions to bring Michigan's 
             lakes back to their natural pristine glory, and backed the 
             Great Lakes Fishery Commission, which has supported the 
             Great Lakes, Lake Champlain, and international waterways.
               As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, 
             Senator Levin has been a powerful force in crafting our 
             Nation's defense policy, particularly in the post-9/11 
             era. The battlefield has been vast, and his support of our 
             troops has never wavered. He has consistently worked to 
             ensure that the brave men and women serving in uniform 
             have the support they need to keep our Nation and our 
             allies safe. He and I shared reservations about launching 
             a war in Iraq, reservations that have proven sound.
               I was particularly moved by Senator Levin's strong 
             support--and steadfast leadership--in advancing the 
             Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crime Prevention 
             Act. That measure ultimately became law in 2009, in large 
             part to Senator Levin's commitment to ensuring its 
             inclusion in the National Defense Authorization Act. This 
             Federal hate crimes law took years to achieve. At a time 
             when it may have been easier to push a final vote down the 
             road, Senator Levin worked with me to ensure that it was 
             considered by the Senate and then upheld through a 
             conference committee. This alone would be a remarkable 
             achievement, but Senator Levin's Senate career boasts many 
             achievements.
               I have also been honored to work with Senator Levin to 
             reaffirm our Nation's commitments to those citizens of the 
             world who, persecuted, oppressed, and stateless, look to 
             our country for protection. He has been a voice on behalf 
             of displaced Iraqis and Syrians, and a dependable 
             cosponsor of my Refugee Protection Act.
               From protecting America's waters to crafting America's 
             actions abroad, Senator Levin has been a powerful and 
             invaluable presence in the Senate. He heads now into 
             retirement, where I know he and Barbara will enjoy 
             spending time with their three wonderful daughters and 
             beautiful grandchildren. Marcelle and I wish him and 
             Barbara the very best in this new chapter. I will miss 
             him.
                                             Tuesday, December 16, 2014
               Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, as we wind down the final days 
             of the 113th Congress, it is a good time both to reflect 
             on the past and to look toward the future. I have been 
             very moved as I listened to the farewell speeches of our 
             departing Senators, and I wish I had time to pay tribute 
             to each one of them. They have all been wonderful 
             colleagues, and I enjoyed working with and getting to know 
             every one of them. I wish them all the very best in all 
             their future endeavors. They will most certainly be 
             missed. ...

               Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I wish to honor Senator 
             Carl Levin as he prepares to retire after 36 years of 
             dedicated service in the Senate.
               As the longest serving Senator in Michigan's history, 
             Senator Levin has been a stalwart advocate for the people 
             of his State. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial 
             crisis, Senator Levin played a critical role in drafting 
             the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to ensure it 
             would bolster the Midwestern manufacturers that would 
             prove integral to our national economic recovery. As 
             cochair of the Great Lakes Task Force, Senator Levin has 
             worked throughout his career to protect the vast waterways 
             that are critical to Michigan's economy and those of the 
             other Great Lakes States.
               I have had the honor of serving on the Senate Armed 
             Services Committee under the leadership of Chairman Levin, 
             and his concern for the people of Michigan is perhaps only 
             matched by his concern for the soldiers, sailors, marines, 
             and airmen who defend our Nation, as well as the families 
             who support them. Under his steady leadership the Senate 
             has kept faith with our military by passing the annual 
             National Defense Authorization Act, and this year's 
             defense bill bears Senator Levin's name as tribute to his 
             lengthy service on the committee. As chair of the Armed 
             Services Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, 
             I have always appreciated Senator Levin's commitment to a 
             strong bipartisan spirit in the work of the committee, and 
             I know it will endure thanks to his example.
               A sharp legal mind, Senator Levin also worked in a 
             bipartisan fashion as chairman of the Senate Permanent 
             Subcommittee on Investigations to hold powerful public and 
             private institutions accountable. Born from the highly 
             successful Truman committee formed in the lead up to World 
             War II, Senator Levin's subcommittee investigated critical 
             issues such as the 2008 financial crisis, systemic credit 
             card fraud, as well as corporate abuse of offshore tax 
             havens--bringing light to complex and obscure issues to 
             the benefit of the American people.
               Senator Levin has been a source of reasoned counsel for 
             many in the Senate, and I know his presence will be 
             missed. However, I also know he is looking forward to 
             spending some well-earned time back in Michigan with his 
             children, grandchildren, and wife Barbara.

               Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I take this opportunity to 
             pay tribute to Senator Levin as his distinguished Senate 
             career comes to a close at the end of the 113th Congress. 
             Senator Levin has proudly represented the people of 
             Michigan in the Senate for 36 years.
               The desire to help others has been in Senator Levin's 
             makeup long before coming to Washington. In fact, one 
             might say it is in his DNA. He comes from a family with a 
             distinguished record of public service. I served with his 
             brother Sander in the House of Representatives, another 
             truly distinguished Member of Congress. Their father 
             served on the Michigan Corrections Commission. His uncle 
             served as a chief judge on the U.S. District Court for the 
             Eastern District of Michigan, and his cousin was a 
             Michigan Supreme Court judge.
               Given this public service pedigree, it is no surprise 
             that he got started in politics at an early age. He was 
             elected class president at Detroit's Central High School. 
             After Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School, he served 
             as an assistant attorney general and general counsel of 
             the Michigan Civil Rights Commission. In 1969 he was 
             elected to the Detroit City Council and in 1979 joined the 
             Senate.
               Senator Levin has served on the Armed Services Committee 
             for as long as he has been in the Senate. His Armed 
             Services Committee tenure has provided him the opportunity 
             to work with 11 Secretaries of Defense, helping to ensure 
             that our Armed Forces were ready and able to meet the 
             national security challenges facing our Nation. He has 
             long been a champion of the men and women of our military 
             and their families. From visiting deployed troops far from 
             home, to ensuring much needed training, equipment, and pay 
             increases, and improving the delivery of benefits and 
             services they have earned, Carl Levin has been there for 
             our troops.
               Senator Levin is also a problem-solver. In order to 
             improve the way the Pentagon buys its weapons and to get 
             the most out of the taxpayer dollars the government is 
             entrusted to spend, he has worked hard to improve 
             acquisition practices throughout his career. In this 
             arena, he led the way in passing the Competition in 
             Contracting Act and the Weapons System Acquisition Reform 
             Act.
               I was fortunate to serve on the Armed Services Committee 
             during my first 2 years in the Senate. I have been able to 
             observe Chairman Levin first hand as he led the committee 
             with a steady hand in a very bipartisan manner. I have 
             been proud to be part of two National Defense 
             Authorization Acts--including the one this body passed 
             last week, which bears his name--which preserve our 
             readiness and provides for the well-being of our men and 
             women of the armed services and their families.
               Senator Levin also chairs the Permanent Subcommittee on 
             Investigations, where he has led investigations in many 
             critical areas, including the 2008 financial crisis, 
             energy and food market speculation, abusive offshore tax 
             havens, and unfair practices within the credit card 
             industry. His investigations have led to many reforms and 
             laws to fix these problems. In 2012, the National Journal 
             wrote that ``the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations 
             is one of the few institutions in Congress that's still 
             working. Carl Levin is a big reason why.''
               The Senate is losing one of its giants--a voice of 
             reason, integrity, and fairness. Michigan's working 
             families are losing a lifelong advocate for their best 
             interests who has really made a difference. Carl, thank 
             you for your service to our country. I wish you, Barbara, 
             and your entire family all the best as you move to the 
             next chapter of your journey.
               Aloha Carl, a hui hou, ``until we meet again.''

               Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I wish to celebrate and thank 
             the 13 outgoing Senators who have worked tirelessly to 
             represent their home States in the Senate: Senator Mark 
             Begich, Senator Saxby Chambliss, Senator Tom Coburn, 
             Senator Kay Hagan, Senator Tom Harkin, Senator Mike 
             Johanns, Senator Tim Johnson, Senator Mary Landrieu, 
             Senator Carl Levin, Senator Mark Pryor, Senator Jay 
             Rockefeller, Senator Mark Udall, and Senator John Walsh.
               I have worked side by side with these men and women for 
             years--some for decades--and witnessed first hand their 
             extraordinary commitment to public service and to the 
             people they so proudly represent.
               Even when we didn't see eye to eye on every issue, I 
             always deeply respected and admired their service to our 
             Nation and their dedication to fight for what they believe 
             in.
               It has been a privilege to serve alongside each and 
             every one of these extraordinary colleagues. I will miss 
             their leadership and their friendship, and I wish them all 
             the best as they embark on the next chapter.