[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 38 (Thursday, March 6, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1697-S1698]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      THANKING SENATORS AND STAFF

  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, we are in a period of morning business. I 
want to pause for 1 minute and thank all of the cosponsors on this 
legislation. There was a committee bill and the bill that passed the 
floor a few moments ago. I thank everybody who helped work on this, 
even those who voted against it. Many of them offered very constructive 
suggestions and amendments.
  Let me start by thanking Senator Collins. She has been fantastic 
throughout this whole process. Senator Harkin, Senator Klobuchar, 
Senator Bill Nelson, Senator Schumer, Senator Durbin, Senator Lincoln, 
of course Senator Salazar, Senator Brown, Senator Menendez, Senator 
Casey, Senator Wyden, and even though I don't think Senator McCaskill 
was ever a cosponsor, she helped in the last few days on some drafting.
  There are two whom I need to single out, and one is Senator Ted 
Stevens of Alaska, who went to bat and worked through a lot of issues 
that made this vote today possible, as well as our chairman Senator 
Inouye, first because I appreciate very much him giving me the 
opportunity to manage the bill. He designated me a year ago to try to 
work on this legislation, and I will always be grateful to him for his 
leadership and giving me this opportunity.
  I also thank members of the staff. We all know we get the credit, we 
get the publicity, and we are sort of the face, but we could not do 
this job we do without great staff. So I have a little bit of a long 
list, but they all deserve some recognition: Alex Hoehn-Saric, David 
Strickland, Mia Petrini, Jared Bomberg, Mellissa Zolkeply, Margaret 
Cummisky, Lila Helms, and Jean Toal-Eisen.
  These are all members of the Commerce staff on the Democratic side. I 
cannot tell my colleagues--I cannot exaggerate how many hours they put 
into this legislation.
  Then on my staff: Price Feland, Andy York, and many others helped, 
but those two went the extra mile, especially Price, who was fantastic.

[[Page S1698]]

  On Senator Durbin's staff: David Lazarus, Tom Faletti, Dena Morris, 
and Chris Kang, all of whom helped in many ways.
  On Senator Reid's staff: Mike Castellano and Mark Weitjen.
  On Senator Klobuchar's staff: Tamara Fucile and Katie Nilan.
  On Senator Nelson's staff: Chris Day.
  Then on the Republican side of the Commerce Committee, I will tell my 
colleagues they were fantastic and they spent hours and hours and hours 
working through issues and through this process. They played an 
important role.
  So my thanks to Paul Nagle, Megan Beechener, Mark Delich, Peter 
Phipps, Rebecca Hooks, and Christine Kurth.
  Again, oftentimes the Senators get the credit for things, but we do 
not give the staff enough credit.
  On Senator Collins' staff: Asha Mathews was critical, and she was 
great in helping in many different ways with Senator Collins who played 
a very important part in this legislation.
  I thank my colleagues for this week. I know we worked very hard and 
we were very persistent. But one of the great things about this week is 
we saw what the Senate can do. We saw if we make up our minds that we 
are going to do something good for this country, the Senate can do it. 
We worked together. We kept all the nongermane amendments off the bill. 
We had several on our side, and there were a few over here. We had more 
on our side, but we kept all of those nongermane amendments off the 
bill. We had a spirit of cooperation and collegiality and it was great. 
It was fun to be a part of it. It reminds me, once again, how great an 
institution the Senate is.
  I again one last time thank all of my colleagues for their support 
and all the floor staff here for doing all the great things they did to 
get us where we are today. This is a great day for the Senate and a 
great day for the American people. Now this bill will have to go to 
conference and the hard work starts. But I feel confident that we will 
be able to work with our House colleagues, who worked so hard on their 
legislation to get something done, and hopefully in the next several 
weeks, whenever that may be, it will come back to the Senate for the 
final vote and we can get it to the White House.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont is recognized.

                          ____________________