[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 151 (Wednesday, November 20, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11664-S11668]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            NATIONAL DEFENSE

  Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, when I came to the Senate 
in 1991, we were faced with Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Actually, my first 
speech on the floor was about Iraq and the war and the fact that we had 
to make a very difficult vote.
  As I leave the Senate, here we are still facing--12 years later--
Saddam Hussein and an imminent war with Iraq. So there is some irony 
there, I guess.
  Before I make some closing remarks about my tenure here and leaving 
the Senate, I want to make a few remarks about something that I think 
has been somewhat ignored over the past several years in this body and, 
indeed, in the country, and that is the future of space and how space 
will help us to protect our national security and also not only our 
national security but just the pure science of space and the 
fascination

[[Page S11665]]

with space and what we will find as we continue the exploration of 
space.
  I hope the 21st century will be the one that takes us into space to 
help protect our Nation and, indeed, perhaps the world. I believe 
whoever controls space will control peace here on earth.
  I made these statements several years ago and got some negative 
editorials for it. I was called spaceman by one of the more, if you 
will, ``prominent'' newspapers in my State. As Harry Truman said, ``If 
you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.'' Sometimes a price 
is to be paid for leadership. I believe if they can say about me that I 
was one of the folks here that promoted space and the good things that 
can come to our Nation as a result of space--if I can be remembered for 
that--I would be very happy.
  I want to draw my colleagues' attention to our Nation's future 
security in space. In 1998, I delivered a speech at the Fletcher School 
of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University on November 18, just 4 years 
ago. In that speech, I spoke about the challenge of space power. I 
labeled space the ``permanent frontier.'' Some say it is the ``final 
frontier.'' It is not final, it is permanent.

  That is the fascinating part about space. I remember looking at the 
stars as a kid and thinking this goes on forever. It is a permanent 
frontier. There is no limit to how far we can go in the exploration of 
space.
  When I came to the House in 1985, I served on the Space Subcommittee 
of the Science and Technology Committee until my election to the Senate 
in 1990. I had the pleasure of being in Congress during the Reagan 
administration. I remember with pride and emotion President Reagan's 
firm leadership and his commitment to rebuilding our military after 
years of neglect. He, too, offered a promise of space power, with his 
visionary Strategic Defense Initiative. Despite tremendous opposition 
and ridicule, with cynics and critics calling SDI ``star wars,'' his 
vision is being fulfilled today. It was a vision.
  The ABM Treaty is on the waste heap of history, where it belongs. 
Mutual assured destruction has been exposed for the sham that it was, 
and we are moving toward deployment of a robust, multilayered ballistic 
missile defense system and toward providing the American people the 
protection they need from the growing and imminent threat of ballistic 
missiles in the hands of rogue states such as North Korea, Iran, Iraq, 
and others.
  We stand now at a very uncertain time--perhaps on the brink of a 
greatly expanded war on terrorism. And while we try to find and 
eliminate terrorists and their cells, we are at risk in our cities, in 
the heartland, of more devastating terrorist attacks. In the heartland 
of our country, never before have we felt threatened like this.
  None of us wish to be at war. I have served in war. I don't want to 
be in war. But we are in a state of war. I enlisted to serve in the 
Navy in Vietnam. I know what the horrors of war bring. But if this 
Nation has to go to war with Iraq, or anywhere else, to ensure our 
liberty, to ensure our freedom, to ensure that our lives are free of 
the threats of aggressive, dangerous dictators and the global terrorist 
network, I will support our President and I will support our troops, 
whether or not I am in the Senate.
  All of my efforts in national security over my career in the House 
and Senate have been focused on ensuring that our troops--the men and 
women who put the uniform on and defend us every day--are well 
organized, trained, and equipped for war. Nothing less than that is 
satisfactory. If we are going to show the world that we are strong and 
we are prepared for war, few would choose the risky path of challenging 
us, and that is the message we must send.
  The task of organizing, training, and equipping our forces is not a 
one-time effort; it is a continuously evolving challenge that must be 
attended with the same aggressiveness and unyielding commitment that 
our warfighters apply on the battlefield. The threats we face are 
constantly changing, as we saw on September 11, and our approach to 
warfighting must change as well.
  As we have so vividly demonstrated in our prosecution of the global 
war on terrorism, we now have to protect our cities in our own 
homeland--our own buildings, the very buildings where we are sitting 
now.
  My colleagues, I say to you, as I leave, that it is our job as 
leaders representing this great Nation to make sure our military is 
properly organized, trained, and equipped to meet its future 
challenges, and nothing we do here is more important.

  In the early years of this Nation, we relied on the power of our Army 
and our Navy. In the early years of the last century, we saw the 
emergence of air power--which was also criticized when it first 
started--that has dominated our initial application of force in recent 
conflicts. But times are changing. The threats we face are changing.
  GEN Chuck Horner, commander of our troops in Desert Storm, said after 
the conflict that we have witnessed the first space war--that was in 
1991, tanks and troops navigating flawlessly through a featureless 
desert. That was the war against Iraq in 1991. Unprecedented 
intelligence; advance warning of incoming missiles; bombs dropped 
precisely on targets; command, control, and communications 
synchronizing a military scattered across a vast theater of war in the 
Middle East--all of these contributions were made possible by the use 
of space systems in 1991.
  Had we not had those space systems and had we not had control, or had 
Iraq had control, the whole outcome may have been different.
  This was not a real space war that General Horner was referring to. 
There were no shots fired in space. What we witnessed was an awakening 
to the enormous benefits that space systems provide our military. It is 
important to remember that we are not the only witnesses. The world and 
our potential adversaries watched us and learned from our prosecution 
of that war and every conflict since.
  Like General Horner, General Krulak, former Marine Commandant, and a 
soldier greatly respected by me and by his marines and fellow officers, 
said that ``between 2015 and 2025, we have an opportunity to put a 
fleet on another sea. And that sea is space.''
  That is a very far-reaching and visionary statement, Mr. President, 
from a great American, Chuck Krulak.
  Our troops deserve every advantage we can give them. We ought to lay 
up at night thinking about what advantages we can give these men and 
women. If we are to preserve our current space advantage, then we must 
protect our space systems from any attack and deny our adversaries that 
same use of space. We must maintain space control. We also must do more 
than maintain the current status quo. Space offers our warfighters so 
much more; a space-based radar that tracks enemy movements behind the 
lines without risking air crews, a space plane that can project force 
anywhere on earth in 45 minutes or less, a low orbit space plane, new 
ways of looking for new threats. I fought to save that space plane, and 
it was cut during the 8 years of the Clinton administration.
  The space plane, I believe, is beginning to receive the attention it 
deserves within the hierarchy of the Air Force Space Command.
  The MSP, the military space plan, could access virtually all orbits 
and with specific upper-stage systems could help protect our extensive 
and vital space-based assets. This plan could provide platforms to 
support potential air, sea, and ground operations through its 
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance sensor payloads while 
also providing potential precision long-range strike capability without 
putting men and women in uniform in harm's way--a tremendous asset to 
our arsenal. Yet it has been slowed down; it was cut. We now need to 
bring it back.
  As we look even further into the future, visionaries see 
capabilities--this is always what I like to talk about, what the future 
will bring. It is fun to hear these visionaries talk, but in the future 
we are going to see capabilities like special operations troops 
delivered rapidly from one location to another through space and 
lasers, destroying targets instantaneously deep inside the enemy's 
territory. When the missile is fired, we blow it up with a laser over 
their territory, not ours.
  Not only do these visions offer fast and effective military action, 
they offer the possibility of putting fewer men and women forward 
deployed with their lives at risk.
  We cannot forget we must invest today to develop these and all the

[[Page S11666]]

other capabilities if they are to be available for our future fighting 
men and women.
  In 1999, with the support of my colleagues, I chartered the Space 
Commission to make recommendations to reorganize Government to better 
deliver the military space capabilities this Nation needs for the 
future. That Commission brought together this Nation's best defense and 
space leaders.
  One of them was Donald Rumsfeld. He led the group just before he 
became our current Secretary of Defense. I would like to believe he was 
selected in part because he did such an outstanding job with the Space 
Commission--I hope that is one of the reasons why President Bush 
selected him as Secretary of Defense--and earlier with the Ballistic 
Missile Threat Commission.
  Secretary Rumsfeld and his fellow commissioners found that future 
space warfare is a ``virtual certainty,'' and that we had better be 
prepared for it. The Space Commission's report warned about the ominous 
possibility of a ``space Pearl Harbor.'' It called for protecting 
satellites essential for military operations and developing space 
weapons to deter attacks in or from space and to defend against attacks 
if they occur.
  The U.S. is now heavily dependent upon satellites with hundreds in 
orbit serving commercial as well as military uses. We are more 
dependent on space than any other nation in the world. Think about your 
cell phone. Were it not for space, you would not be using it.
  In 1998, a Galaxy IV satellite malfunctioned. It shut down 80 percent 
of U.S. pagers and video feeds for cable and broadcast transmissions. 
It took weeks to restore service. In 2000, the U.S. lost all 
information from satellites for 3 hours when computers in ground 
stations malfunctioned. These incidents served to show how critical 
space has become to us.
  The Space Commission recognized space weapons to deter attacks from 
space would be essential because we cannot protect satellites 
adequately without weapons in space. Remember that. Let me repeat it: 
We cannot protect our satellites in space without weapons in space. A 
weapon in space does not have to be an offensive weapon; it can be a 
defensive weapon.
  The resulting space management reorganization stemming from the work 
of the Space Commission is nearly complete. The various stakeholders 
have decided which of the Space Commission's recommendations it will 
implement and how. Frankly, though, I am still skeptical that the 
changes that have been made will be effective in delivering the space 
capabilities this Nation needs.

  Over the course of the last year, we have discovered that most of our 
current space programs are ``broken,'' severely underfunded, and behind 
schedule, and that is not good. I am not naive, and I do not blame the 
recent reforms for the current problems. However, I am not convinced 
the reforms that have been implemented are capable of making the tough 
choices that both, A, fix the problems with our current space programs 
and, B, keep us aggressively pressing forward with developing new 
technologies and capabilities we need for the future.
  When we won the war in the Persian Gulf in 1991, it was with highly 
sophisticated weapons. Somebody 20, 30 years ago had the vision to 
build them. They did not crawl under a rock and say: That is just too 
far in the future; we are not going to deal with it--precision bombs 
and precision ordnance. Somebody had to think about it. Somebody had to 
put it on the drawing board. Somebody had to pay for it and build it.
  If the Air Force cannot or will not step up to its responsibilities 
as the executive agent for military space, then Congress must do it, as 
the space commissioners noted, and create a separate space force to 
become that strong advocate. I have spoken of the need for the Air 
Force to build a dedicated space warfare cadre of younger space-trained 
officers and to stop assigning nonspace officers to lead space billets 
in space organizations. I predict that early in this 21st century, 
there will be a space force just as there now is an Air Force. There 
will be a space force.
  For far too long, the Air Force's space institutions and commands 
have been led by officers not specializing in space. That must change 
if we are to move into this space era.
  I have been a long-time advocate for the potential of national 
security space on the Hill. I know being an advocate for space is not 
easy. Believe me, I know. I have been ridiculed for it. These 
capabilities are complex, and they are not cheap, although I believe 
space power ultimately could be more cost-effective than some of our 
legacy systems.
  I have also learned that some of the needed space capabilities, such 
as the Kinetic Energy Antisatellite or KE ASAT Program, can take longer 
than a career in Congress to deploy. Today we are only a modest amount 
of funding short of being ready to flight-test KE ASAT, one of our 
near-term space control programs.
  KE ASAT offers the promise of complete space control at minimal cost 
to the taxpayers and delivers the essential 4 Ds--i.e., the ability to 
disrupt, degrade, deny, and destroy--required to deal with the enemy 
threat.
  The old Soviet Union built a co-orbital satellite killer that it 
tested in space at least 20 times and which was operational with Soviet 
strategic forces for a decade. China is reportedly developing a hunter-
killer microsatellite that would attach itself to an adversary's 
satellite and destroy it. Imagine the disruption that could cause us 
both militarily and commercially. We must be ready to protect against 
the deployment and use of such systems.
  We cannot shy away from, nor shortchange, our commitment to transform 
our military for the future. This is our challenge.
  I have carried the space banner through many tough fights, including 
the line-item veto by President Clinton of our emerging space power 
programs. Missile defense has survived, KE ASAT has survived, and the 
space plane, too. But these programs need ongoing commitment and funds 
toward deployment and real security for our Nation and our service men 
and women. They need to be reviewed at the highest levels of DOD, by 
the Secretary, by Under Secretaries Aldridge and Teets, and by the 
Secretary's trusted aide who served at the Space Commission as its 
Director, now at PA&E, Steve Cambone.

  Some of my friends have asked why I focused on space since there is 
not a strong space constituency in my home State of New Hampshire. I 
beg to differ. There is a major constituency in New Hampshire that 
demands a strong, cost-effective national defense. In fact, I would 
argue that same constituency stretches all across America--a 
constituency that supports our military every day, not just during 
trying times.
  If it is the right thing to do, whether you have a constituency in 
your State for it, we are here to lead. We are here to lead this 
Nation.
  New Hampshire also is proud of its high-tech industry. New Hampshire 
is also the State that sent astronaut Alan Shepard and Christa 
McAuliffe to participate in the National Space Program. Christa lost 
her life aboard the Challenger in 1986. Both of them had ``the right 
stuff,'' and they created a surge of enthusiasm for space exploration.
  As I prepare to leave the Senate, I look around and ask myself: Who 
is going to pick up the space banner I have carried? Who will advocate 
today for the needs of our future fighting men and women in space?
  Forty years ago, and spurred in part by the shock of the Soviet 
success with Sputnik in 1957, President Kennedy challenged the Nation 
to look into space. He criticized Republicans--the Eisenhower 
administration--in fact, for letting the Russians get ahead in space. 
President Kennedy recognized even in those early days of space 
exploration the criticality of space that General Horner witnessed in 
Desert Storm.
  President Kennedy told us the Nation that controls space will come to 
dominate the world. In a speech to Rice University in 1962, John F. 
Kennedy said the following:

       The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in 
     it or not. And it is one of the great adventures of all time, 
     and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations 
     can expect to stay behind in this race for space.
       We mean to lead it, for the eyes of the world now look into 
     space, to the moon and

[[Page S11667]]

     to the planets beyond; and we have vowed that we shall not 
     see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a 
     banner of freedom and peace.

  That was well said by a Democrat President. He was absolutely right.
  Who do you want to control the satellites in space? Who do you want 
to control what goes on in space: Communist China, Iraq, North Korea, 
Libya, or the United States of America?
  The day before his assassination, President Kennedy spoke at a 
dedication of the Aerospace Medical Health Center at Brooks Air Force 
Base in Texas, and he noted:

       This Nation has tossed its cap across the wall of space and 
     we have no choice but to follow it.

  What a great visionary President Kennedy was on this issue. 
Leveraging space to ensure our freedom and to protect our allies is not 
a partisan issue. It is our moral obligation, pure and simple, just 
like it was to respond to the attacks of the Japanese and the Germans 
during World War II. It was our moral obligation to stop the killing by 
the Nazis, to stop the Bataan death marches, to stop the tyranny and 
the aggression. It is now our moral obligation to protect this Nation 
from the threat from space.
  In his now famous speech at the Citadel, candidate George W. Bush 
said:

       We need to skip a generation of technology.

  And in space,

       We must be able to protect our network of satellites 
     essential to the flow of our commerce and the defense of our 
     country.

  He called for a new spirit of innovation and recognized the fact that 
many officers express impatience with the prevalent bureaucratic 
mindset that frustrates--and, I would argue, fails to reward--
creativity.
  We must reward creativity. George Bush called for a culture of 
command where change is welcomed and rewarded, not dreaded. To do that, 
we need to break with the past, get out of the box, put in charge 
people who are visionaries, who are ready to fulfill the President's 
and the Secretary of Defense's vision, to fulfill Ronald Reagan's 
vision for peace using space for peace. Even President Reagan, the 
hard-core conservative, offered to provide to the Soviet Union the 
technology to bring peace to the world if that was what it took.
  As we stand now on the brink of an expanded war with Iraq, I ask 
myself whether we have provided our sons and daughters, husbands, 
wives, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, all the best technology 
that this country has to help them accomplish their mission quickly and 
bring them home safely. Have we? I do not think we have, with all due 
respect. We have the opportunity to do it if we will think about it 
now.
  I think we can do better. I believe this body has the vision, the 
expertise, the knowledge, and the good people in it to ensure that we 
organize, train, and equip our military for the future, a future that 
leverages the full potential of space that we have only begun to 
realize. But we must exercise stringent oversight. We must serve as the 
catalyst to push a grudging--and it is a grudging--bureaucracy and 
military industrial complex into fulfilling that potential.
  Bureaucracies are not innovative. They basically exist. They do not 
like change. We need to give them change. We need to impose it upon 
them.
  President Reagan, speaking to the Young Astronauts program in 1986, 
told the participants that they were on ``the edge of our known world, 
standing on the shores of the infinite.''

  What a statement: We are standing on the edge of our known world, on 
the shores of the infinite.
  He called for them to touch the mystery of God's universe and to set 
sail across its waters into the most noble adventure of all. President 
Reagan achieved because he dreamed, because he motivated and he 
inspired. He understood that Americans, by nature, are dynamic people. 
They are good people. The change they bring is for the good, for the 
best of America, and that is all he worked on--for excellence, to rise 
to the challenge, the shining city on the hill, undaunted by threats, 
and with hope and optimism. That was President Reagan, following the 
words of President Kennedy.
  Through enormous sacrifice, America has preserved her own freedom and 
freed millions around the world. We go to far off countries, serve in 
combat, die on fields in countries we have never heard of, day in and 
day out, year after year. As leaders in Congress, we are committed to 
preserving these freedoms for future generations, but to achieve that 
goal we must reach into space with gusto for its science, for its 
mystery, for the security it can offer us.
  Control of space is more than a new mission to consider funding, it 
is our moral legacy. Moving into space is our next manifest destiny. It 
is our chance to create sanctity and security for centuries to come. It 
is our chance to do it. As I leave the Senate, I want to inspire my 
colleagues to pick up that cause because it is the right thing to do.


                             Senate Service

  I know there are others who wish to speak, but I am going to take a 
couple of minutes, because I am leaving the Senate, and close on a few 
personal thoughts. I do respect my good friend, Senator Sessions. I 
will be only a few minutes.
  I remember when I came down to the floor to sign the book in December 
of 1990. Senator Byrd was there, as he always is, and he watched as I 
signed 1,794. He said: Senator Smith, you are the new Senator from New 
Hampshire. You want to remember there are tens of millions of people--I 
will never forget this--who have been part of the United States of 
America since 1776, and you are 1 of only 1,794 to have served in the 
Senate.
  I will never forget it, and I never have. Senator Byrd is one of the 
finest people to ever walked on to this floor. I admire him greatly. It 
has been an honor and privilege to serve with him, but it has been a 
great honor to serve the people of New Hampshire for 18 years, 12 in 
the Senate and 6 in the House. It has been an extraordinary privilege 
to occupy this desk, the desk of Daniel Webster, for 9 years.
  There is a very interesting story about this desk. Actually, Daniel 
Webster represented Massachusetts in the Senate, although he was from 
New Hampshire. He was a New Hampshire native. So when Senator Kennedy, 
Ted Kennedy, gave up the desk to take his brother John's desk, the desk 
became a free spirit, and Senator Norris Cotton passed a resolution in 
the Senate that the Webster desk will forever more belong to the senior 
Senator from the State of New Hampshire. That is a long time, forever 
more. So nobody else is going to get it.
  I have etched my name in the drawer, from Webster coming down through 
those great people who occupied this seat, down to where I have etched 
my name. It is a reminder, as I sit at this desk--these desks open from 
the top like so. There are very few desks in this Chamber that do not 
open that way, and one is Daniel Webster's because he did not want to 
pay to have it done because it cost too much money. It cost $5 to $10 
in those days, and he said taxpayers should not have to pay for that, 
so it just has a drawer in it. Webster was a frugal person. He was also 
a great orator.

  Next to Webster's desk is the desk of Jefferson Davis, which is now 
occupied by Senator Cochran of Mississippi. I am reminded of the great 
speech Jefferson Davis gave with so much emotion that he left the 
Senate to go back to his home State of Mississippi during the Civil 
War.
  There is so much history in this Chamber. One of the things you do 
when you are leaving the Senate, you take time to smell the roses a 
little bit and you look around. President Reagan said history is a 
ribbon, always unfurling.
  History is a journey. Every one of us, Senator Sessions, Senator 
Inouye, my great friend who now occupies the chair, they are all part 
of history. It is unfurling as we stand. What we say today is a memory 
tomorrow. Life is nothing but memories. But we have a chance to make 
part of that history, to chart that course, for America, 1 of 100 
people to do it at any given time in American history.
  I have learned more about friendship, patriotism, and loyalty in the 
last 18 years while a Member of Congress, from people in my State, my 
family, the Senate, so many wonderful people, good friends, than I 
could ever have imagined.

[[Page S11668]]

  Senator Reid indicated a few moments ago he was sorry I did not win, 
but I am reminded of Theodore Roosevelt who won and lost his share of 
elections. This is a great quote for you young people. Think about it 
because you are going to be facing challenges. All the pages who are 
sitting here, you are going to win some and you are going to lose 
some. You will have great disappointments and you will have great 
successes. That is what life is. It is a heck of a lot more fun to win 
than it is to lose. I speak from experience on that.

  Teddy Roosevelt said: Far better it is to dare mighty things, even 
though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits 
who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the gray 
twilight that knows not victory or defeat.
  You can't succeed if you are afraid to fail. You have to fight the 
fight. You have to fight for the cause. The cause will go on. People 
will depart the stage. Webster departed; Lincoln departed; many people 
have departed the stage of running the United States of America--or 
even the world, Churchill--but others must step up. Maybe they don't 
step up quite at the level of the ones who are following but they step 
up.
  That is why America must go on. I want 500 years from now the Senator 
from Alabama--Senator Thurmond might be here--but Senator Sessions and 
I won't--I want those two Senators from New Hampshire and Alabama to be 
here on this floor in this great country, still the free country it is, 
having good debates just as we have done so many times.
  There are so many things one gets the opportunity to do as a Senator. 
What I have enjoyed the most is helping people, constituent service, 
working every day with people in the State. Somebody lost their medal 
that they deserved from World War II or perhaps they are trying to get 
a child from another country. We do these things every day. That is 
what I enjoy the most. That is what I will miss the most. I remember a 
young man who had leukemia. He was dying. He called my office and said 
his dream was to see a space launch at Cape Canaveral. He could not 
afford to go and he was very sick. I made it happen and arranged with 
NASA to have him go and see the space launch. He came back home and 
died. It is little things such as that. We did not ask for any press on 
it. Those are the things that I will remember.
  When you say you are a strong conservative--and people want to lock 
you in as somebody who does not care or who is not compassionate--I 
like to help people who sometimes cannot help themselves. Captain 
McVeigh, the Navy captain of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, who was wronged, 
who eventually committed suicide because of a terrible ordeal he went 
through where he was unfairly blamed for the loss of his ship, we 
cleared his name, thanks to the help of Senator John Warner, the 
chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
  Fighting so many issues--the POW/MIA, dealing with families of those 
people; serving as the chairman of the Ethics Committee, in the Senate, 
chosen by all of you to have that high honor--I could go on and on--
chairing the Environment and Public Works Committee.
  I believe I came here on principle. My motto was Jimmy Stewart's in 
the movie ``Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.'' He went to right a wrong. 
They were going to flood some Boy Scout camp with a big dam. He came 
down and stopped it. That kind of ambition and enthusiasm and concern 
about your fellow man is what I brought here. I came with principle.
  I came here to Congress under Ronald Reagan. I am a Reagan 
Republican. I am leaving the Congress a Reagan Republican--a Republican 
who stands on his platform, who runs on that platform, not away from 
the platform. And, yes, that includes the right-to-life, that includes 
the right to protect the second amendment, that includes cutting taxes 
and spending and living within your means, helping our veterans, a 
strong national defense. That is what it means. That is our platform. I 
don't run from it. I don't run from it here in the Senate; I never 
have. That may be one of the reasons why I am leaving--involuntarily.
  A friend of mine, Mel Thompson, the former Governor of New Hampshire, 
said you stand for something or you stand for nothing. I can proudly 
say I have tried to stand up for what I believe in while I have been 
here.
  It has been a great honor, the highest honor of my life, to be here, 
to serve here, to make the friends I have made here. I will never, ever 
forget it.
  I say thank you in closing to several members of my staff. I know 
some have come onto the floor today since it is my last speech, unless 
I come back again--you never know. I appreciate them, and I ask 
unanimous consent that a list of my staff, both on the Environment and 
Public Works Committee and my personal staff, be printed in the Record 
to honor their service to our country.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                Environment and Public Works Smith Staff

       David Conover, Chris Hessler, Martin Hall, Alex Johnson, 
     Melinda Cross, Chelsea Maxwell, Angelina Giancarlo, Kristy 
     Rose, Erin Hass, Genevieve Erny, Paul Jensen, Suzanne 
     Matwyshen-Gillen, Michele Nellenbach, James Qualters, Megan 
     Stanley, Nathan Richmond, Patricia Doerr, and Emma Dabson.

  Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. I single out three or four people. My 
chief of staff, Pat Petty, who is no longer my chief of staff, but who 
served me for about 15 years, I recognize his service to the Senate, to 
the country. My current chief of staff, Dino Carluccio, who started in 
my office as basically an intern and went off to Europe to study in 
Italy sent me a note saying: You need me in your office. And I remember 
saying to my current chief, my chief of staff at the time, anybody who 
has that much self-confidence we ought to hire. We did. Now he is the 
chief of staff. He worked his way up in the true sense of the word. He 
is a great American.
  Lisa Harrison worked for one of my opponents in my primary, the first 
primary, the first time I won in 1984. She was working for the other 
guy, but I liked her. I thought she had a good personality, she was 
smart, and she was one of the few people on the other campaigns who 
said hello to me when I walked into the room. She got a job and has 
been with me for 18 years and is one of the best communication 
directors in the Senate.
  Ed Corrigan, my legislative director, has been with me for 10 years, 
a real conservative, committed guy. He knows the rules of the Senate, 
inside and out, a great American, great patriot.
  And Dave Conover, who is my chief of staff at the Environment and 
Public Works Committee, has done an outstanding job there. We had a 
great run for a year and a half. We preserved the Everglades and passed 
brownfields and MTBE legislation and other bills to make our air, land, 
water, and our wildlife habitat cleaner.
  I am proud to have served with them all. I had two people in my State 
staff, Dorothy Vatize and Marti Jones, who have served with me for 18 
years, all 18 years I have been here. One is retiring and the other is 
leaving to do other things.
  It has been an honor to serve here--again, the highest honor of my 
life. I will never forget it. I am not sure what comes next, but as has 
been said many times, Chaplain Lloyd Ogilvie has said it a number of 
times to me, God closes one door and he opens another. He did close 
one, I am sure of that. The other one is not yet open, but we will find 
it.
  Having mentioned the chaplain, there is no finer person in the entire 
world than Lloyd Ogilvie. He is one of the most Christian men and such 
an inspiration to all of us in the Senate, a friendship I will have 
with me forever.
  I say thank you to all my colleagues and friends and others I have 
made here, and thank you to the people of New Hampshire for allowing me 
the privilege of serving you in this body and in the House of 
Representatives for 18 years.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader.

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