[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 151 (Thursday, December 11, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6585-S6602]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROTECTING VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS AND EMERGENCY RESPONDERS ACT OF 2014
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of the message to accompany H.R. 3979, which the
clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Motion to concur in the House amendment to the Senate
amendment to H.R. 3979, a bill to amend the Internal Revenue
Code of 1986 to ensure that emergency services volunteers are
not taken into account as employees under the shared
responsibility requirements contained in the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Pending:
Reid motion to concur in the amendment of the House to the
amendment of the Senate to the bill.
Reid motion to concur in the amendment of the House to the
amendment of the Senate to the bill, with Reid amendment No.
3984 (to the amendment of the House to the amendment of the
Senate to the bill), to change the enactment date.
Reid amendment No. 3985 (to amendment No. 3984), of a
perfecting nature.
Reid motion to refer the message of the House on the bill
to the Committee on Armed Services, with instructions, Reid
Amendment No. 3986, to change the enactment date.
Reid amendment No. 3987 (to (the instructions) amendment
No. 3986), of a perfecting nature.
Reid amendment No. 3988 (to Amendment No. 3987), of a
perfecting nature.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
farewell to the senate
Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota. Mr. President, in 1986 the people of
South Dakota elected me to serve them in the 100th Session of the
Congress in the House of Representatives. In 1996 they gave me the
honor and privilege of being their junior Senator.
When I ran for the House in 1986, I told the people of South Dakota
that neither party has all the answers, and that both parties have good
ideas, as well as men and women of good will. My job, as I understood
it, would be to work in a bipartisan manner, listening to all parties
and reaching a good fit--also known as a compromise. That is what I
still believe.
However, in each year of my 28 years of service this has become more
difficult to achieve. Each party, rather than working cooperatively for
the American people, is more and more focused on winning the next
election. Today, days after the 2014 election, you can walk into the
call center for either party and find Members dialing for dollars for
2016. Tonight there will be fundraisers across DC where Members will
discuss policy not with their constituents but with organizations that
contribute to their campaigns. We have lost our way.
My thoughts are not original. My colleague and dear friend from South
Dakota, Senator Tom Daschle, in his farewell called for finding common
ground that ``will not be found on the
[[Page S6586]]
far right or on the far left. That is not where most Americans live. We
will only find it in the firm middle ground based on common sense and
shared values.''
Ohio's Senator Voinovich in his 2010 farewell speech said that his
greatest frustration was the difficulty in finding common ground on
significant issues, saying that ``it doesn't happen enough.''
In fact, the need for bipartisanship and the lack of it in the Senate
is a hallmark of Senate farewell speeches. Rather than expounding on
this topic, I would like to share the instances where I have
experienced it.
I found it working with my colleague Senator John Thune, as we put
aside our political differences and worked as our constituents expected
two Norwegians to work. We worked side by side as we pushed for farm
bills, highway funding, emergency relief from droughts and from floods.
We successfully fought the proposed BRAC closing of Ellsworth Air Force
Base. However, honoring our Norweigian heritage, we never hugged.
I found it on the banking committee, working closely with Ranking
Member Crapo. Together, we reached middle ground on reforms in which
both parties gave up significant priorities, compromising, finding the
middle ground to pass bills out of committee.
My best and most enduring memory of this magnificent body occurred
during my 9-month absence following my AVM, a long and humbling
journey. During this journey my committee assignments were respected
and my friend from Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed graciously accepted
extra responsibilities until my return. Senator Harry Reid told me that
during my long absence my colleagues on the other side of the aisle
never once tried to take advantage of my absence. More importantly, in
so many ways the kind words and prayers from you and your spouses, on
both sides of the aisle, supported both Barbara and me and gave us
strength during my long and continuing recovery.
I was grateful and humbled by your support on September 9, 2007, the
day I returned to the Senate when almost every chair in this Chamber
was filled. Senator Reid and Senator McConnell, I thank you for your
welcome back to the Senate family.
In the years ahead, I will miss this family--not the bickering that I
mentioned earlier, but the blessings that you have all been to Barbara
and me.
I would also like to thank another family that has been critical to
my work for South Dakota--a family that goes by the name ``Team
Johnson.'' This team is composed of highly talented and caring
individuals. They have worked tirelessly in the halls of Congress, in
South Dakota, and on campaigns to make our State and our country a
better place to live.
I wish I could thank each one of you for your service. Please know
how much I appreciated the long hours and late nights that you put in.
In the years ahead I hope we will continue to celebrate the friendships
we have forged.
To my friend and chief of staff for 30 years, Drey Samuelson, thank
you for joining my fledgling, uphill race for Congress in 1986 and for
staying with me until we close the Senate office in a few days. Few
Members of Congress have been as fortunate as I have been to have the
loyalty, friendship, and thoughtful guidance that you have given me.
My legislative directors have all been remarkable, but time limits me
to noting the services of two individuals who have served the longest.
Dwight Fettig started with us in the House as a young man fresh from
his internship with Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota. Dwight rose
through the ranks to legislative director and then became my first
director on the banking committee. Todd Stubbendieck is my current LD,
and his legislative guidance for over 10 years has guided the staff in
moving critical legislation through the Senate. Todd and Dwight have
worked on legislation for projects that now deliver water to hundreds
of thousands of people across South Dakota, country of origin labeling
bills, farm bills, national historic sites for Lewis and Clark and the
Minute Man Missile, numerous projects for Ellsworth Air Force Base and
the South Dakota National Guard with efficiency and collegiality. To
Todd and Dwight, thank you for your outstanding legislative teams.
Our No. 1 researcher, humorist, historian, and go-to person, Luci
Weigel, has been with us since we opened the first offices. Thank you,
Luci.
To my South Dakota State director, Sharon Boysen, thank you for
leading the three State offices, for ensuring that we were responsive
to South Dakotans, and for coordinating with the DC office.
Sharon Stroschein, who directed the Aberdeen office, and Darrell
Shoemaker, who managed the Raid City office, have been outstanding
leaders for 28 years. You and all the State staff have been great
advocates for South Dakota. You made sure that I always knew what was
on the minds of South Dakotans, that I visited crisis situations,
nonprofits, local and tribal governments, promising businesses,
schools, and much more. Thank you.
Linda Robison, thank you for your dedication, willingness to go the
extra mile, and your outreach to and service for our State's veterans
for 28 years.
The Senate office only needed one office manager for the last 18
years. Nancy Swenson is the most efficient, precise, and insightful
person I know. The University of South Dakota will be forever grateful
when they receive the archives Nancy assembled. Thank you.
To the Senate standing committees on banking and MILCON, you have
served our Nation well, and I know you will continue to do so in the
future. Thank you for your leadership on important issues.
I am looking forward to the years ahead and the time we will share.
To my wife Barbara and our three children--Brooks, Brendan, and
Kelsey--thank you for your unwavering support, for putting up with
late-night dinners, for accepting that my work demanded that I be away
so many weekends, and for working side by side with me on challenging
campaigns. Without your understanding, love, and support, I could not
have done the work I love.
Finally, to the people of South Dakota, thank you for the honor and
privilege of serving you in our State legislature, the House of
Representatives, and the United States Senate. Thank you for working
side by side with me to improve the lives of South Dakotans and our
Nation.
Pilamayaye.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
(Applause, Senators rising.)
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
Tribute to Tim Johnson
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I rise today to bid farewell to my
colleague and friend Senator Tim Johnson.
Tim has deep roots in South Dakota and in the towns of Canton and
Vermillion in particular. He has served our State for more than 35
years, first in the State legislature and then, after winning a highly
competitive primary against two well-known Democratic opponents, in the
Halls of Congress. In 1996, after a decade in the U.S. House of
Representatives, Tim won his first of three terms in the U.S. Senate. I
am well acquainted with his second election because I came out on the
short end of that stick. But I have had the privilege of serving with
Tim now in the South Dakota delegation for over 16 years, and the last
10 have been here in the Senate. Today I want to pay tribute to his
many years of public service and all he has done for our home State.
I would also like to take a moment to thank Senator Johnson's staff
for their dedicated work. They have worked closely with my staff for
many years, and I am grateful for their efforts.
Like many South Dakotans, I will always remember Tim as a fighter.
South Dakotans are tough, rugged folks, and Tim has exemplified that
spirit every day in the Senate. A big part of his legacy as a public
servant will be his tenacity, his work ethic, and his unwavering focus
on the policies he believed to be in the best interest of South Dakota.
Tim and I haven't always seen eye to eye on every issue, but we have
always been able to come together and work with South Dakotans in times
of crisis. From drought relief, to flood and tornado responses, to
protecting the Black Hills from wildfires, Senator Johnson and I have
always been able to quickly
[[Page S6587]]
respond to the needs of our State regardless of party differences or
past disagreements.
Mr. President, when you represent a State like South Dakota--what
some people like to call a flyover State, a State some of our
colleagues here in the Senate occasionally mix up with North Dakota--
there are days when it can seem as though the concerns of rural
Americans aren't given fair consideration and the needs of rural
America are not being heard by the administration or the more densely
populated areas of our country.
I have had the great pleasure of working with Tim to bring a voice to
the concerns of rural America and those of us who hail from the middle
of the country. To highlight just one of the many examples I could
bring up, since his first term in Congress Tim has fought tirelessly
for water infrastructure to deliver clean drinking water to families in
South Dakota and throughout the Great Plains. Water is a vital resource
in the rural expanses of South Dakota, and Tim's efforts have helped
meet this basic need in underserved Indian reservations, small towns,
and rural areas across the State. These investments will pay dividends
well beyond his tenure in the Senate.
Throughout Tim's long career in public service--from his beginnings
in the legislature to his ascension to the chairmanship of the Senate
banking committee--he has had a hand in numerous efforts that will help
South Dakotans and Americans alike for generations to come.
I know I speak for all South Dakotans when I say thank you, Tim, for
your dedication and your service to our great State. It has been an
honor to serve with you here in the United States Senate. Thank you for
your example, your efforts on behalf of our beloved South Dakota, and
most of all for your friendship. On behalf of my wife Kimberly and me,
I wish you, Barbara, and your family the very best as you begin your
retirement.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2992
Mrs. GILLIBRAND. The DOD just reported that in 2014 almost the same
number of servicemembers--19,000--reported unwanted sexual contact as
in 2010. Still, fewer than 3 out of 10 are willing to report. The
overall percentage of those who are reporting openly and seeking
justice is declining, and a striking 62 percent retaliation rate went
unchanged from 2012. Despite retaliation having been made a crime in
last year's NDAA, the Pentagon reports no indication of progress on
that front. Despite the Pentagon's spin, these numbers do not show an
increased trust in a system that simply isn't working for the men and
women in uniform.
I wish to draw attention to comments made earlier this year by the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, GEN Martin Dempsey. He said:
We are currently on the clock, if you will . . . the
President of the United States said to us in December, you
know what, you've got about a year to review this thing and
show me you can make a difference . . . we understand that
just because Senator Gillibrand's vote was defeated yesterday
doesn't mean that a year from now it may not be reintroduced,
and if we haven't been able to demonstrate making a
difference, you know, then we deserve to be held to the
scrutiny and standard.
There is no other mission in the world for our military where this
much failure would be allowed. Based on General Dempsey's own timeline,
our men and women in uniform deserve a vote on this broadly bipartisan
reform because the military has not been able to demonstrate that they
have made a difference; therefore, they should be held to the scrutiny
this year.
Throughout last year we continued to see the evidence of how much
further we have to go to solve the problem of sexual assaults in our
military. We saw BG Jeffrey Sinclair--one of the highest ranking
officers ever charged with sexual assault--walk away with a slap on the
wrist, reportedly over fears that the commanding officer had rejected a
plea deal on lesser charges for political reasons despite stated
concerns over evidence.
That case brings up the very important issue of undue command
influence--another reason why an independent justice system is needed.
We should all be able to agree that our brave men and women in uniform
deserve blind justice. The scale should not be tipped in either
direction--in favor of a victim or an accused. Why should our
servicemembers enjoy a lesser standard of justice and fairness than you
and I, whose freedoms they risk everything to protect?
According to a recent story in the New York Times, an attendee of a
sexual assault prevention seminar was asked if things were improving.
She said:
We all laughed. Sinclair was happening then. He proved that
it was a joke.
The Times also chronicled the story of a survivor they called Kris,
from Ellsworth Air Force Base. On April 12, 2013, about two dozen male
officers of the 37th Bomb Squadron gathered at a strip club at the
beginning of a pub crawl--including her commander. She was assaulted
later that night. According to the Times:
What Kris encountered since reporting the assault was the
same kind of cold-shouldered skepticism on the part of her
commander that Christensen had seen in a vast majority of
sexual assault cases--behavior that was supposed to have
changed with the military's recent vows to support those who
reported sex crimes.
Further, she was retaliated against, which is now supposed to be a
crime, and was told by a commander, ``It's illogical for you to think
that there won't be negative consequences to your reporting.''
She said: ``I was put on a shelf.''
Why in the world would we want this commander who takes his team to a
strip club and retaliates against a sexual assault victim to have the
authority to decide if a crime was committed? It is insane, and it is
beneath our military members.
I could read many more troubling cases, but perhaps the most eye-
opening instance showing the ongoing lack of accountability was
revealed in testimony by a witness at a court-martial on September 24,
2014--just 2 months ago. In this case, former Fort Leonard Wood drill
sergeant Angel Sanchez was found guilty on multiple accounts of
sexually assaulting female trainees. According to the witness, the
command sergeant major at Fort Leonard Woods said--and remember this
was just 2 months ago--``If any more sexual assault cases come
forward'' the whole company of soldiers won't graduate--not ``I don't
want to see any more sexual assaults''; rather, ``I don't want to see
any more reports.''
Here is how we really know the system is broken: When a cadet is
instrumental in obtaining the first sexual assault convictions in over
a decade at the Air Force Academy, he is expelled. When a chief
prosecutor is too good at his job and briefs Members of Congress, he is
retaliated against and forced out. When a survivor comes forward, she
is put on a shelf.
Time is short, but there is more than enough left for this Congress
to actually do its job. We should not have more calls for just a little
more time. The DOD has failed on this issue for over 20 years now, and
the scandals of the last 12 months and the latest data show they still
don't get it.
As USA Today said:
Over the decades, sexual scandals have spurred cycles of
Pentagon apologies, congressional handwringing, half-baked
attempts at action and nibble-around-the-edges changes. Isn't
it time that women and men who serve their country so nobly
have a justice system that will serve them when they are
victims of crime?
I agree. Congress should vote to remove the chain of command from
these crises before year's end. Our servicemembers deserve no less.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be
determined by the majority leader, after consultation with the
Republican leader, the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar
No. 644, S. 2992, the Military Justice Improvement Act, that there be
up to 1 hour equally divided between the proponents and opponents of
the bill prior to a vote on passage of the bill; that the vote on
passage be subject to a 60-affirmative vote threshold; finally, that
there be no amendments, points of order, or motions in order to the
bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. INHOFE. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I think it might be appropriate for the
ranking member of the appropriate personnel subcommittee to be heard on
this. In
[[Page S6588]]
my opinion, he is the most knowledgeable person on this subject at this
time, and that would be Senator Graham.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. GRAHAM. I join in the objection with Senator Inhofe. I appreciate
what Senators Inhofe and Levin have done over the last couple of years,
working in a bipartisan fashion, to make sure we deal with a problem in
the military that is a problem in society, sexual assault, sexual
harassment, and to set a zero-tolerance policy, but at the same time
keep the military in a position to defend this country.
What can we say about our military? We heard Senator Gillibrand's
view. My view is that this is the finest military in the world--great
people. But within that construct, you have people doing things that
are criminal, wrong. But is it any different in the military than it is
anywhere else?
My argument is this is a societal problem, and in the military it is
a problem that is being addressed in, I think, a very aggressive
fashion. Contrary to what the Senator from New York offers the Senate,
I like where we are headed.
In March, we rejected her approach. Her approach was to fire every
commander and replace the commander with a bunch of military lawyers to
make decisions not just about sexual assault but about aspects of
military life far beyond that.
I know the Presiding Officer has been a military commander, and
barracks theft is a very big deal in the military. When you are in the
military and you find out someone has stolen from another member of the
unit, and you are all living together on top of each other, side by
side, that is a very big deal, and the commander responsible for that
unit needs to make sure something happens fairly.
The last matter I will ever agree to is the following: Sir, or
ma'am--this is the first sergeant going to the commander--last night we
think there may have been a rape in the barracks, and the commander
says, well, that is no longer my problem, send that over to the
lawyers. What a terrible thing to do to a military unit. The commander
needs more accountability, not less. The commander is the person whom
we choose to send people to war.
It is odd, to me, that we will give the commanders of the American
military the power of life-and-death decisions, but somehow they are so
morally corrupt or incapable of rendering justice in a situation such
as this.
All I can say is that I respect the passion of the people who are
behind this to a point, but you are going too far. Members on the other
side of the aisle have been threatened with money being cut off if they
vote against this idea. This is no longer about reforming a system,
this is a political cause going out of control.
In my view, the good thing about the Armed Services Committee is that
we have always been able, for the most part, to work out problems that
affect our military.
And I say to Senator Levin, through the Chair, above all others, I
appreciate my colleague's maturity and leadership to make sure we get
the right answer. The right answer is to purge the military of the
heinous crime of sexual assault, sexual harassment, clean up this mess,
but do not destroy the structure that makes it the finest military on
the planet, and we are well on our way.
Senator Gillibrand's bill last year did not make it through the
Senate, but another bill did. Senator Ayotte, Senator McCaskill,
Senator Fischer, along with the chairman, and others, came up with a
reform package that I think was passed unanimously last March.
What do we now know from the recent report? You would have to have
such a bias about your view to believe that this report doesn't show
progress. By any objective measurement, the reforms we have been
working on in a bipartisan fashion are beginning to bear fruit.
I will give an example of some of those reforms. Every victim of a
sexual assault or of sexual harassment allegations in the military is
to be assigned an individual lawyer--a judge advocate--to represent
their interests.
I don't know about other States, but in South Carolina, we are miles
away from that. The goal of the Senators that I have just mentioned,
and myself, is to make sure that the military is the most victim-
friendly legal system in America, but a person can still get a fair
trial. That should be the goal of all of us, to ensure that every
victim has a lawyer.
I have been a judge advocate for 32 years now. I have thought long
and hard of the times that I have known a lawyer in the legal community
recommend to the commander: Go forward on a sexual assault case, and
the commander says no. There is literally a handful, or less, that I
can think of. However, I do know that there are a lot more cases where
the lawyer says: Sir, or ma'am, we don't think we have enough here to
prove this beyond a reasonable doubt, and the commander will say: Go
for it anyway. I want to make sure we air this out. That is the most
common use of a commander's discretion vis-a-vis their lawyer.
But to those who are worried about making sure the commanders and
lawyers understand where we are coming from, we made a wholesale change
of how they report and dispose of these cases. If a judge advocate
recommends to the military commander in question to go forward and the
commander says no, that commander's decision to say no is reviewed by
the Secretary of the Service. In my case, it is the Secretary of the
Air Force. If an Air Force commander is given legal advice by their
JAG, informing us that we have a good case in the area of sexual
assault, and the commander says no, it goes all the way up to the
Secretary of the Air Force. As anybody who has ever been in the
military knows, that is a very big deal. That is the ultimate sign that
we expect people to treat these allegations seriously.
If the JAG and the commander say no to the prosecution, it goes to
the next step in the chain of command. What did this report say--and I
will let Senator Levin detail some of the results. The big takeaway is
that more people are coming forward, which is a good thing. More people
are telling us they feel better able to come forward because the system
is more understanding. The lawyer who has been provided to the victim
has been received very well.
The number of reports, restricted reports--where a victim says, I am
going to tell you about what happened to me, but I don't want to go
through the process of prosecuting somebody because I don't want to go
through that process myself--that are now unrestricted has gone up
fairly dramatically, meaning that the victim believes there will be
somebody there helping them through the system.
Retaliation is a problem all over society. I don't know of any law in
South Carolina that makes it a specific crime in the eyes of the victim
to retaliate against bringing an allegation forward.
Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it is a crime to
retaliate against someone making an assault complaint. The retaliation
portion of the report--where 62 percent felt retaliation--mostly came
from peer, lower level members of the unit, not the commander.
Here is what I would say: Once the commander goes forward and gives
his blessing to the allegation, retaliation is going to be less likely
because it was the commander who made the decision in that unit and not
a far-off lawyer.
I will now turn this over to Senators Inhofe and Levin.
There are so many more reforms that are paying dividends. So many of
them have not even started yet.
I have to say we are on the right track. Let's give this a chance. We
are taking this seriously. The military is responding in a positive
fashion and now is not the time to retreat from these reforms. I do
believe what we have done today will help us tomorrow, and our goal is
common--to eliminate the scourge of sexual assault and sexual
harassment, but keep the military command structure the way it is
because it is necessary to hold our commanders more accountable.
I will end with this thought. There is no problem in the military
that can be solved without commander buy-in. That is the role of the
commander. To everybody who wonders about what is going on in the
military legal community, this colonel who feels put upon--if I am the
head of the subcommittee--will get a chance to come to our committee
with Senator Gillibrand and
[[Page S6589]]
myself, if I am there, to give an accounting of what they think went
wrong with the system and how they were treated, and the Air Force will
be required to respond.
Every judge advocate of every branch of the service opposes the
Gillibrand approach. Every commander and every member of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff oppose what Senator Gillibrand is proposing, for very
good reason. Give these reforms a chance.
To all of those who worked on this, congratulations. We are moving in
the right direction, but we have a long way to go.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Mr. LEVIN. We are going to vote soon on cloture on--by the way, I
understand there was an objection to the unanimous consent request by
Senator Gillibrand.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
Mr. LEVIN. It is an objection which I join. I understand she wishes
to respond for 1 minute. I have no objection, as long as we can really
do it in 1 minute because I would like to close the debate prior to the
vote on cloture. My friend from Oklahoma, the ranking member, also
wants to make a comment.
Mrs. GILLIBRAND. I ask for 1 minute.
Mr. LEVIN. I will yield for 1 minute.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mrs. GILLIBRAND. I wish to clarify a few things that are very
misleading about this debate.
First of all, we are not making commanders less responsible. They are
the only ones who can prevent retaliation from happening, whether it is
by them or lower ranks, and they are failing in that right now. The
only difference this bill makes is that 3 percent of commanders--the
highest ranking commanders, generals--will no longer make this
decision, but instead trained military prosecutors should make that
decision. Ninety-seven percent of commanders' jobs do not change. They
have to train their forces, bring them into battle, instill order and
discipline, and make sure these victims are not retaliated against, and
that is where they are failing. We are making commanders more
responsible, not less responsible.
What I want is not the most victim-friendly place in the world. I
want no victims, and that is where we are failing.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Mr. LEVIN. We are going to vote on cloture on H.R. 3979 soon, which
represents the agreement between the Armed Services Committees of the
Senate and the House on the National Defense Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 2015.
I urge my colleagues--I know my good friend from Oklahoma, the
ranking member, joins in this urging--to support cloture so we can
enact this important bill into law.
The Armed Services Committee approved the defense authorization bill
by a 25-to-1 vote in May.
In June, Senator Inhofe and I came to the Senate floor to urge
Senators to begin to file amendments to the bill so we could work on a
package of cleared amendments and try to identify relevant amendments
that would need votes. We made the same request in July.
When our efforts failed to bring about a unanimous consent to bring
the committee-reported bill to the floor with an opportunity to offer
relevant amendments, we began to meet with the House Armed Services
Committee in an effort to reach a bipartisan agreement that could be
presented to the two Houses for approval in the form of a new bill.
We also established an informal clearing process pursuant to which we
were able to clear 44 Senate amendments--roughly an equal number of
Democratic and Republican amendments--which are included in the bill
that is now before us. The process is far from ideal, but it was the
best we could do under the circumstances.
We now have before us a bill that is the product of a bipartisan,
bicameral agreement between the Armed Services Committees of the Senate
and the House of Representatives.
The House has already passed this bill by a vote of 300 to 119.
This bill includes hundreds of important provisions to authorize the
activities of the Department of Defense and provide for the well-being
of our men and women in uniform and their families. The bill will
enable the military services to continue paying special pays and
bonuses needed for recruitment and retention of key personnel. It
strengthens survivor benefits for disabled children of servicemembers
and retirees. It includes provisions addressing the employment of
military spouses, job placement for veterans, and military child
custody disputes. It addresses military hazing, military suicides,
post-traumatic stress disorder, and mental health problems in the
military. It provides continued impact aid to support military families
and local school districts.
The bill includes 20 provisions to continue to build on the progress
we are starting to make in addressing the scourge of sexual assault in
the military. It provides continued funding and authorities for ongoing
operations in Afghanistan and for our forces conducting operations
against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria--ISIS. It takes important
steps to respond to Russian aggression in Ukraine. It adds hundreds of
millions of dollars in funding to begin to restore the readiness of our
Armed Forces. And it begins to make some of the structural changes that
are needed to enable DOD to perform its essential missions in an era of
tight budgets.
The process may have been flawed, but we have done everything we
could to overcome those flaws and produce a defense bill that does the
right thing for the national defense and for our troops.
I urge my colleagues to vote for cloture on the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015.
We have produced a defense bill that does the right thing for our
national defense and for our troops. I hope our colleagues will vote
for cloture. I hope I have a minute left to yield to the ranking
member.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. I know we are out of time. The vote is going to take
place in 1 minute and we all appreciate that.
I will repeat what I think is most significant: We have to pass this
bill. The House is going to go home. There is no way of making any
changes at this point. It has to pass. If it doesn't pass, when
December 31 gets here, there will be 1.8 million enlisted personnel
throughout the country at all of our establishments who are going to
lose their benefits. I am talking about pilots' pay, flight pay. I am
talking about the SEALS who have extraordinary duties and all the rest
of them. These benefits will be taken away from our enlisted personnel
if we don't pass this bill. In order to pass this bill, we have to pass
this procedural vote that will take place right now.
So I encourage everyone to keep in mind, if my colleagues truly want
to help our enlisted personnel, they have to have this bill and this
bill has to pass now.
CLOTURE MOTION
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to
concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R.
3979.
Harry Reid, Carl Levin, Brian Schatz, Martin Heinrich,
John E. Walsh, Patty Murray, Jack Reed, Tom Udall,
Sheldon Whitehouse, Amy Klobuchar, Christopher A.
Coons, Debbie Stabenow, Robert Menendez, Tom Harkin,
Richard J. Durbin, Charles E. Schumer, Robert P. Casey,
Jr.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the
motion to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R.
3979 shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Iowa (Mr. Harkin) is
necessarily absent.
[[Page S6590]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 85, nays 14, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 322 Leg.]
YEAS--85
Alexander
Ayotte
Baldwin
Barrasso
Begich
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt
Booker
Boozman
Boxer
Brown
Burr
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Chambliss
Coats
Cochran
Collins
Coons
Donnelly
Durbin
Enzi
Feinstein
Fischer
Flake
Franken
Graham
Grassley
Hagan
Hatch
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Heller
Hirono
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (SD)
Johnson (WI)
Kaine
King
Kirk
Klobuchar
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Manchin
Markey
McCain
McCaskill
McConnell
Menendez
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Portman
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Schatz
Schumer
Scott
Sessions
Shaheen
Shelby
Stabenow
Tester
Thune
Toomey
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Vitter
Walsh
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wicker
NAYS--14
Coburn
Corker
Cornyn
Crapo
Cruz
Gillibrand
Lee
Merkley
Moran
Paul
Risch
Rubio
Sanders
Wyden
NOT VOTING--1
Harkin
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 85, the nays are
14.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
Cloture having been invoked, the motion to refer falls as being
inconsistent with cloture.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Farewell to the Senate
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, following in the traditions of the Senate,
I come to the floor to speak about my experience in the Senate.
Unfortunately, this will not be the last time I speak, much to the
chagrin of many of you, as I have some adamant opposition to some of
the things we are doing.
But I nevertheless will try to put in context some of my feelings and
thoughts about the great privilege that has been granted to me by the
people of Oklahoma. We hear a lot of speeches in this place. As Members
who are elected, it gets reflected on us, but nothing could be further
from the truth. Because the things that really make this place operate
are the people who work with us, the people who support us, the people
who help guide us, the people behind the scenes who are both brilliant
and committed and dedicated to the founding principles of this country.
We all have them working for us. Yet they are rarely recognized. So
whether our accomplishments are big or small, those accomplishments
come through the work, efforts, and labors of those who join with us as
we come here to try to make a difference. So I first wanted to say
there are a lot of people I need to say thank you to; from our
Parliamentarian Elizabeth to all of the staff who work in the Senate,
to the people who work at GAO, wonderful people, CRS, the IGs,
legislative counsel--they have written thousands, I mean literally
thousands of amendments for me. They probably are going to have some
real mixed feelings about my departure. Then I have personal staff, one
of whom--all tremendous--but one of whom I found to be a phenomenal,
brilliant person. His name is Roland Foster. There is not anything he
has ever forgotten. You can ask him anything. He will find it. He knows
it. So I mention him. I have hundreds of others whom I could equally
speak about, from my former chief of staff Mike Schwartz, who passed
away from Lou Gehrig's disease, to those in my office and staff who
each knows what a difference they make--they did--the cloakroom staff
and the help we get from Laura Dove and David Schiappa and Mr. Duncan
on our side--same on the opposite side. We are only able to function
because of all of the people who enable us to do that. So with those
thank-yous, I actually wanted to move to a different topic. The topic
is believing in our country. I tell people wherever I go: We do not
have one problem we cannot solve. There is nothing too big for us. They
are all solvable.
To prove that is my chairman, Tom Carper, on homeland security. He
has been a phenomenal chairman. He is not in my party. We do not agree
on everything, but the one thing we agreed on was that we were going to
work together to solve problems. We have. We did not solve them all,
but I would suggest if we look at what has come through this place,
even in this dysfunctional place at this time, we will see more coming
out under his leadership than any other pieces of legislation. Why is
that? It is because the focus was not about him, it was not about me,
it was about solving the problems of our country.
To those of you through the years whom I have offended, I truly
apologize. I think none of that was intended because I actually see
things differently. You see, I believe our Founders were absolutely
brilliant, far smarter than we are. I believe the enumerated powers
meant something. They were meant to protect us against what history
says always happens to a Republic. They have all died. They have all
died.
So the question is, What will happen with us? Can we cheat history?
Can we do something better than was done in the past? I honestly
believe we can, but I do not believe we can if we continue to ignore
the wisdom of our founding documents. So when I have offended, I
believe it has been on the basis of my belief in article I, section 8.
I think we can stuff that genie back into the bottle.
E pluribus unum. ``Out of many, one.'' But you do not have one unless
you have guaranteed the liberty of the many. When we ignore what the
Constitution gave us as a guideline, to protect the individual
liberties, to limit the size and scope of the Federal Government so the
benefits of freedom and liberty can be expressed all across this land,
that is when we get back to solving our problems.
I think about my father--he had a fifth-grade education--a great
believer in our country. He would not recognize it today. The loss of
freedom we have imposed by the arrogance of an all-too-powerful Federal
Government, ignoring the wisdom and writing of our Founders that said:
Above all, we must protect the liberty of the individual and recognize
that liberty is given as a God-given right.
So my criticism isn't directed personally, it is because I truly
believe that freedom gains us more than anything we can plan here. I
know not everybody agrees with me, but the one thing I do know is that
our Founders agreed with me.
They had studied this process before. They know what happens when you
dominate from a central government. This didn't mean intentions are
bad; the intentions are great. The motivations of people in this body
are wonderful, but the perspective on how we do it and what the long-
term consequences are of how we do it really do matter.
We see ourselves today with a President whom we need to be supporting
and praying for, with an economy that is not doing what it could be
doing, and we need to be asking the question, Why? Is there a
fundamental reason? And there is.
We are too much involved in the decisionmaking in the economy in this
country that inhibits the flow of capital to the best return, which
inhibits the growth of wealth, which leaves us at a standard of living
the same as what we had in 1988. That is where we are, yet it doesn't
have to be that way.
I am going to read some words we have all heard before, but they are
worth rereading.
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights . . .
All of us.
. . . that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of
Happiness--
I look at legislation and say how does that have an impact on those
two things, and too often it has a negative impact.
. . . That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving
[[Page S6591]]
their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these
Ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it.
I don't know where we are on that continuum, but I know we are not
where we were intended to be in the vision of our Founders, and we are
suffering, no matter where you are in the country, as a consequence.
We established the Constitution to try to protect those rights and to
delineate those rights. We put in the limitation of the government and
outlined the rights of each individual citizen upon which the
government shall not infringe. Yet what comes out of this body and this
Congress every day, to my chagrin, infringes those guaranteed rights.
Every Member of the Senate takes the same oath and this is where I
differ with a lot of colleagues. Let me read the oath, because I think
it is part of the problem.
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and
defend the Constitution of the United States against all
enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith
and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation
freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion;
and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of
the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
Your State isn't mentioned one time in that oath. Your whole goal is
to protect the United States of America, its Constitution and its
liberties. It is not to provide benefits for your State. That is where
we differ. That is where my conflict with my colleagues has come. It is
nice to be able to do things for your State, but that isn't our charge.
Our charge is to protect the future of our country by upholding the
Constitution and ensuring the liberty that is guaranteed there is
protected and preserved.
The magic number in the Senate is not 60, the number of Senators
needed to end debate, and it is not 51, a majority. The most important
number in the Senate is one--one Senator. That is how it was set up.
That is how our Founders designed it, and with that comes tremendous
amounts of responsibility, because the Senate has a set of rules or at
least that gives each individual Member the power needed to advance,
change, or stop legislation. That is a tool that has to be mentored and
refined and wise in its application.
Most of the bills that pass the Senate never receive a vote. We all
know that. It is a vast majority of the bills. They are approved by
unanimous consent. It only takes a single Senator to withhold consent
to stop most legislation.
There are many other rules and procedures a Member can use. They are
often referred to as arcane, but that is only because they are rarely
used. They are not arcane. They were designed to protect liberty, to
secure liberty, to make sure that we don't all follow history and fail.
Every Senator has the power to introduce legislation and, until
recently, offer amendments.
No single Senator should be allowed to decide what the rights of
another Senator should be. That is tyranny. It has nothing to do with
the history and classics of the Senate.
To exercise the rights we have been entrusted with, we must respect
the rights of others. That is the true power of our Constitution. That
is also the true power of the Senate. It is what binds our Nation
together, and it is what is needed to make the Senate work properly
again.
The Senate was designed uniquely to force compromise, not to force
gridlock--to force compromise. One Senator had the power to stop
everything for the first 100 years, but it didn't because compromise
was the goal.
Our Founders understood there were many differences between the
States--in size, geography, economy, and opinions. They united the
States as one country based upon the premise that the many are more
powerful than the one. As Senators, we have to follow this example. I
have not always done that; I admit that freely to you. I should have.
As Senators, we must follow the example, stand for our principles, but
working to find those areas of agreement where compromise can be found
to unite and move our country forward. My colleague Senator Carper has
my admiration because he has worked tirelessly the past 2 years to try
to accomplish that.
Not all of the powers of the Senators are exercised on the Senate
floor. Each Member of the Senate has a unique role to participate and
practice oversight, to hold the government accountable, and that is
part of our duties, except most often that is the part of our duties
that is most ignored.
To know how to reach a destination, you must first know where you
are, and without oversight--effective, vigorous oversight--you will
never solve anything. You cannot write a bill to fix an agency unless
you have an understanding of the problem, and you can only know this by
conducting oversight, asking the tough questions, holding the
bureaucrats accountable, find out what works and what doesn't, and know
what has already been done.
Effective oversight is an effective tool to expose government
overreach and wasteful spending, but it also markedly exposes where we
lose our liberty and our essential freedoms.
I have had some fun through the years, taken some criticism for the
waste vote--and it is opinion, I agree. Everybody who has seen the
waste book has a great defense of why it is there. But the real
question is will we become efficient at how we spend the money of the
American people? This is a big enterprise. There is no other enterprise
anywhere close to it in size in the world. It is not manageable unless
we all try to agree to manage it and have the knowledge of it.
I think there ought to be 535 Wastebooks every year, and then we
ought to have the debate about where we are not spending money wisely
and have the information at our fingertips so we make great decisions
because, quite frankly, we don't make great decisions because we don't
have the knowledge. Then what knowledge we do have we transfer to a
bureaucracy to make decisions about it when we should have been guiding
those things.
True debates about national priorities would come about if we did
effective oversight. It is the Senate, once hailed as the world's
greatest deliberative body, where these differences should be argued.
Our differences should be resolved through civil discourse so they are
not settled in the street.
Just as the Constitution provides for majority rule and our democracy
while protecting the rights of the individual, the Senate must return
to the principles to bring trust of the electorate, and it can. Our
Founders believed that protecting the minority views and minority
rights in the Senate was essential to having a bicameral legislature
that would give us balance and not move too quickly against the very
fundamental principles upon which this country was based--and not out
of guessing, but out of thorough knowledge of what had happened in the
past. We have to be very careful to guard both minority rights and the
rule of law.
There is no one who works in the Senate who is insignificant, whether
it is the people who serve us when we have lunch, to the highest of the
high. They all deserve our ear. Each of us has value.
I would end with one final comment. The greatest power I have not
used as a Senator, which I would encourage you to use in the future, is
the power of convening. You have tremendous power to pull people
together because of your position.
To convene the opposite opinions--Chuck Schumer has been great at
that for me. When we have a difference, he wants to get together,
convene, and see how we work. That power is the power that causes us to
compromise, to come together, to reach consensus. So my encouragement
to you is to rethink the utilization of the power of convening. People
will come to you if you ask them to come.
Again, I end by saying a great thank you to my family for their
sacrifice, a great thank you to the wonderful staff I have, and a thank
you to each of you for the privilege of having been able to work for a
better country for us all.
I yield the floor.
(Applause, Senators rising.)
Tributes to Tom Coburn
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Booker). The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, we have all just heard a very moving, a
very inspirational and what I considered a motivational speech from our
dear friend Tom Coburn.
[[Page S6592]]
Twenty years ago, in 1994, there were a bunch of wild and crazy folks
who got elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. The Republicans
took the majority for the first time in 42 years. They ran on a
Contract with America and were led by a group of firebrand leaders. Tom
Coburn was in that group of folks who got elected in 1994 to the U.S.
House. I was in that group. Senator Graham was in that group. Senator
Burr was in that group. Senator Wicker was in that group.
There were a few Members of that class who became known as real bomb
throwers. Tom Coburn was a bomb thrower. Tom Coburn would object for
the sake of objecting to anything that was going on. It didn't make any
difference which side of the aisle it was coming from. But let me tell
you, Tom Coburn matured into a class act, No. 1, which he always was;
and No. 2, he matured into a legislator second to none.
Tom did not hesitate to object to any spending bill that came from
either party if Tom Coburn believed that was not provided for in the
Constitution and was something the U.S. taxpayer should not be paying
for. There is nobody who has guarded the pocketbook of the taxpayers of
the United States like Tom Coburn.
It is remarkable that those of us who were elected with Tom have had
the opportunity to see him over the last 20 years take on major
subjects that most veterans said, you know, in the end, we are going to
prevail. But guess what. They never did. Tom Coburn, even though he may
have lost a vote from time to time, in the end, Tom Coburn prevailed.
Tom is one tough guy too. He has been through a lot physically and,
boy, what a survivor. I mean we think we have issues to deal with. None
of us can imagine what Tom has gone through. When somebody comes up to
me as I am walking through an airport--and they will have seen Tom
Coburn on TV--and they say: What about this guy Coburn, there are two
things that immediately come to mind when I think of Tom Coburn, family
and faith.
First, family. Tom and Carolyn have had such a solid marriage. He
tried to date her as an eighth grader and she wouldn't go out with him.
But he kept pestering her long enough that she finally did and what a
great marriage they have had. They have three beautiful daughters and a
household of grandchildren whom he absolutely loves to death and likes
to spend time with, as opposed to being here.
Secondly, Tom's faith. There is nobody I have ever met who has a
stronger faith than Tom Coburn. He exhibits it on the floor, he
exhibits it one-on-one, he exhibits it in the Prayer Breakfast every
Wednesday morning. He is one person who has probably counseled more
people in this body, on both sides of the aisle, than anybody other
than the Chaplain.
On top of that, he is just a class act. He has been a dear friend. We
have spent many hours on the road together, many hours on the golf
course together and socializing together. There is no finer individual
who ever served in the Senate than Tom Coburn. He is one of the things
I am truly going to miss about leaving here. But actually, as we have
already talked, we will probably now spend more time together than ever
since both of us are retiring.
But, Tom, to you, I thank you for that great friendship but also
thank you for what you have done for my children and my grandchildren.
You are a great American and you have served this country well.
God bless you.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, along with many of my other colleagues,
I pay tribute to one of the most decent and principled men I have ever
met, Senator Tom Coburn.
Washington is going to miss Tom, but the irony of that is Tom really
can't stand Washington. When he first got here, the feeling appeared to
be mutual. Some just didn't know what to make of this doctor from
Oklahoma--so frequently on the losing end of lopsided votes, so often
pressing ahead on his own and never giving up. That was apparent from
his days in the House, when we hear he led the only ``filibuster'' in
the House anybody can ever remember. He may have placed more holds than
any equivalent Senator in history. He apparently held his own bill
once.
Fast forward to today. The pundit class has declared Tom Coburn a
card-carrying member of the establishment. The rebel who once described
himself as a kamikaze pilot has now been branded, incredibly, with a
scarlet ``E'' right on his forehead. It may seem contradictory, but Tom
always fought smart battles--the kind you might lose today but win
later--and he forged an amazing bond with the people he represents. For
Tom that meant spending as much time away from Washington as possible
and making himself available when he was home.
Tom published his address, and Oklahomans were never shy about coming
over to share their opinions. Tom was never shy about sharing how he
felt either. He believed his constituents deserved the truth. He gave
it to them absolutely unvarnished, but he did it in a respectful way.
It reminds me of the two posters he has framed on either side of his
desk. One says: ``NO,'' N-O. The other says ``KNOW,'' K-N-O-W. That is
Tom in a nutshell. It is why Tom has made so many friends on both sides
of the aisle. It is why you can't flip on MSNBC most mornings without
seeing him.
I think Tom actually prefers these settings. It is a challenge he
relishes. Not only is Tom confident enough to tangle with anyone, he
usually wins, and he rarely--rarely--makes lasting enemies. It is a
trait that has served him well, particularly at the beginning of his
career.
Tom first came to Washington representing a district that was heavily
Democratic. He won a close race that year. I am told he also gained a
friend, and that friend was the Democrat he defeated. His opponent's
grandson actually ended up joining Tom's staff, which obviously is a
great honor.
But it is no picnic being on Tom's staff. Tom works his staff hard.
It is difficult even to take a sick day over there. Tom has always got
the stethoscope nearby. If the doctor is in, so are you. Yet the people
on Tom's team seem to love him. ``Once a member of Coburn's family,
always a member.'' That is their motto.
It doesn't mean they love everything about him. Take his handwriting;
it is just what you would expect from a guy named Dr. Coburn. It is
absolutely awful--a mix of chicken scratch, hieroglyphics, and vocab
from the extra credit section of an MCAT.
Back in the 1990s one staffer made the mistake of letting Tom take a
yellow highlighter back to Oklahoma. Tom spent the entire weekend
marking up a massive bill. There were handwritten notes and questions
in nearly every margin. It took literally days to decipher any of it.
It was like something out of a Dan Brown novel. Needless to say, an
office ban on yellow highlighters was quickly implemented.
So the legacy of Tom's former profession gets him in trouble
sometimes, but it remains the job he enjoyed most: helping to deliver
new lives into the world. It brings a unique perspective to Tom's work
in the Senate. It instilled a lasting appreciation for life too.
Even though Tom has stopped delivering babies these days, he still
travels back to Oklahoma a lot. There is nowhere he would rather be
than his hometown of Muskogee, and there is almost nothing he would
rather be doing there than mowing his lawn or eating a sandwich at his
favorite barbecue joint or sipping a cold Coors with olives. He prefers
these things over almost anything else, except spending time with his
grandkids and of course his wife Carolyn.
Tom has known Carolyn since grade school. She has always been the one
to keep him balanced and grounded. She doesn't care that he is a
Senator. She frequently reminds him of that too.
Carolyn is also the reason Tom is such good friends with President
Obama. Both men came to the Senate the same year. At freshman
orientation, Carolyn spotted Michelle Obama from across the room. ``She
looks like fun,'' Carolyn said. ``Let's sit next to her.'' The rest, as
they say, is history, and it is also remarkable. Because when Tom
announced his retirement, warm sentiments poured in from across the
political spectrum. It was a day--listen to this--when Barack Obama and
Jim DeMint found something to agree on. It must have brought some joy
to Tom at such a difficult time.
As he departs the Senate, Tom will leave one battle behind to
confront another. We are sending him every best
[[Page S6593]]
wish in that fight. We are keeping him in our prayers. We know he will
prevail, but he is really going to be missed around here. He is just
the type of citizen legislator our Founders envisioned.
Tom has poured over more oversight documents than anyone cares to
imagine. His ``Wastebook'' has become an annual phenomenon. It helps
drive the conversation on spending. He has led on issues like HIV and
malaria.
The Senate will lose a critical leader on intelligence oversight when
he leaves. Tom played an invaluable role on the Intelligence Committee,
where he brought a unique blend of integrity, analytical rigor, and
dogged determination. He served our Nation selflessly, toiling for
hours every week in a secure hearing room, learning many sensitive
matters he could not discuss with others.
He worked closely with another extraordinary departing colleague,
Vice Chair Saxby Chambliss, to ensure that our Nation's intelligence
community retains the tools necessary to defend our country.
If anyone thinks our Nation's classified programs aren't overseen
rigorously, they certainly haven't met Tom Coburn. He brought a
skeptic's eye and a professional determination to the task. His probing
lines of questioning earned the respect of his colleagues and helped
the intelligence community craft stronger programs, while also
reminding us of the value of many other intelligence activities.
Now, Tom has obviously done a lot to earn his reputation as a hawk on
the budget, too. His interest there was never about the baubles of
office. It is about solutions. That is why Tom actually volunteered for
Simpson-Bowles. That is why he lobbied me to actually take him off--
believe it or not--of the Finance Committee.
You always know where Tom stands. I am told he was overseas with a
couple of other Senators when a government minister launched into a
finger-wagging harangue about our country. Tom couldn't take it after
he listened for a few minutes. He cut him off, told the minister what
he thought of him, and caught the next flight home. So Tom is literally
one of a kind. We are not likely to see another one like this guy.
Here is what former Senator Kyl had to say about him:
Tom's like your conscience. You can try to ignore him, but
you know he's right even when you wish he weren't.
Some people may think Tom is a member of the establishment now, but
the truth is Tom never changed. Washington changed. America changed.
People recognize the wisdom of his ideas--about leaving a better
country to the next generation, about giving Americans the freedom and
the opportunity to achieve real meaning and lasting happiness in their
lives.
We are going to miss the Senator who actually likes to get his hands
dirty, who actually likes to legislate. We are going to miss the
Senator who is so devoted to procedure that he sleeps next to Marty
Gold's book, and we are going to miss a friend who understands that
honest compromise is necessary to achieve anything in a pluralistic
society. We are all going to miss Tom a lot. But he can retire with
pride, and he should know that we are sending him our best wishes for a
speedy recovery and a joyful retirement.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I was not at all surprised as I listened
to the words of our colleague Senator Tom Coburn that he quoted
extensively from the Declaration of Independence and he referred to our
Constitution--the founding documents of our great country.
When America's Founders conceived of a nation of citizen legislators,
they had leaders like Senator Tom Coburn in mind. Indeed, throughout
his service in Congress, he has remained a compassionate physician, a
devoted husband and father, a fierce defender of the rights enshrined
in our Constitution, and an unwavering opponent of excessive spending.
Senator Coburn may be best known as our most diligent fiscal
watchdog, relentlessly hounding wasteful spending. His annual
``Wastebook'' report is a call for transparency and accountability in
the Federal Government that has guided oversight investigations and
policy debates.
The aspect of his service in the Senate that deserves just as much
acclaim is his work on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs Committee and the Select Committee on Intelligence. Serving
with Senator Coburn on both of those committees for many years, I have
seen firsthand his brilliance, his tenacity, and his determination to
strengthen our Nation and the safety of our people. He has a keen
understanding of the grave and ever-evolving threats that our Nation
faces.
As a citizen legislator, Senator Coburn leads by example and with
compassion. With his expertise as a physician, he has been a leader in
promoting wellness, disease prevention, combatting HIV/AIDS, and
advancing biomedical research. When it comes to fiscal responsibility,
he walks the walk, having returned more than $1 million from his Senate
office budget to the American taxpayers.
We have heard many descriptions of Tom Coburn today, but the word I
most associate with him is ``integrity.'' He is a man of the utmost
integrity, who always stands tall for his principles and for what he
believes in. He sets an example for all of us who seek to serve the
public.
On a personal note, I want to thank Senator Coburn for hounding me
into joining a women's prayer breakfast that meets each week and has
introduced me to a number of wonderful women from the House of
Representatives who have become my close friends as well as colleagues.
And I use the word ``hound'' appropriately. He mentioned it to me so
many times that eventually I gave in and went to one of those
breakfasts, and, indeed, it has been a spiritually enriching experience
that I never would have had but for Tom continuing to press me to
attend.
This past January Senator Coburn announced his intention to leave the
Senate, due in part to his deepening health problems--problems he has
faced with extraordinary courage. This somber news was counterbalanced
by his overarching concern, not for himself, but for his family and for
the people of his State and our Nation.
As he now returns to the life of a private citizen, I wish him every
success in combatting his illness, and I thank him for his truly
extraordinary service to our country. To quote from Scripture, I think
everyone would agree with these words when it comes to Tom Coburn:
``Well done, good and faithful servant.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I have no prepared remarks. I am trying to
speak right from my heart, and my heart is full.
I want to start off by thanking Tom for the very kind comments he
made about serving with me. We met 10 years ago. He was that bomb
thrower--still is a little bit--that Saxby talked about when they were
elected 20 years ago. I was one of the people who came up, along with
Lamar Alexander, George Voinovich, and Mark Pryor, for an orientation
for new Senators so that when they got here we could actually spend
some time and teach the new guys and gals the ropes.
I remember the first day we convened and put them all in a big circle
in Ted Stevens' office, a beautiful office here in the Capitol, and out
of those 3 days Tom and Carolyn and Michelle and Barack began to bond
and became friends. I didn't know how close friends they were until
about 4 or 5 years ago. Barack Obama had given the State of the Union
address. I was sitting on the Republican side. There was a time when we
actually went back and forth to try to mix things up. The President
finished his speech, and there is no rope line at those speeches. The
President came along to shake hands with people. I was sitting next to
Tom, and we walked down so we could say hi to the President.
I will never forget what the President said to him. In just the quiet
between the two of them--they embraced, and the President said to him:
Are you still praying for me? And very quietly, Tom Coburn said: Every
night.
Just like that--they didn't agree on everything, but they were
friends. They are friends, and they will always be friends. I hope Tom
and I will be as well.
I remember sitting up there where Cory Booker, our new Senator from
[[Page S6594]]
New Jersey, is sitting now, listening to Mike Enzi talking about how he
worked so well with Ted Kennedy--Ted Kennedy, one of the most liberal
Democrats in the Senate, and Mike Enzi, one of the most conservative--
and how they got extraordinary amounts of stuff done.
I just want to say that the legislation coming out of our committee--
and Senator Collins has led that committee before--is moving through
this body and the House--it is really pretty amazing--to strengthen our
cyber defenses, to take the chemical facility antiterrorism law that
Susan Collins authored and to make it better and make it real, to
better protect our Nation's information from attacks from all over the
world, to try to make our Postal Service not just relevant and not just
hanging on but actually vibrant and real.
But that day, Mike Enzi talked about the 80/20 rule with Ted Kennedy.
He said: Ted Kennedy and I agree on about 80 percent of the stuff, and
we disagree on 20 percent. He and I decided to focus on the 80 percent
we agreed on and set aside the 20 percent we didn't agree on to another
day.
I call that the ``Enzi Rule,'' and that has helped guide me here in
the Senate, and it certainly has helped to guide me in the work I have
been privileged to do with Dr. Coburn.
When I became chairman of the committee about 2 years ago and Dr.
Coburn was going to be the ranking member of the committee, somebody
asked me what it was going to be like. How are you going to work with
this guy?
I said: It is going to be a little like a marriage. You have to work
at it every day. Everybody has to give and meet somewhere in the
middle.
I love to ask people who have been married a long time what the
secret is for being married a long time. Some of you have maybe heard
me talk about this. I get some really hilarious answers but also some
really terrific and insightful answers.
I think the best one I have ever gotten when I asked what is the
secret for being married 40, 50, 60, 70 years is the two c's. It is not
Coburn and Carper. It is the two c's: communicate and compromise. That
is not only the secret for a vibrant, long marriage for two people; it
is a secret for a vibrant democracy.
I believe the reason why Tom and I have had this partnership that I
think has been productive is, one, we surround ourselves with people--
certainly for me--smarter than us. The second thing is we believe in
communicating, we believe in compromising, and we believe in
collaborating. I think the American people are the beneficiaries of
that.
We have a reception later today for Tom, and I hope he comes. We will
have the opportunity to say some more things, as well. He is not the
kind of person who likes to be praised, so this is probably punishment.
There is a verse in the Scriptures talking about heaping with praise,
pouring praise all over. This is probably a little like that. But I
want to close with this. His words on the Bowles-Simpson Commission are
for the ages, and I hope we will never walk away from the lessons he
showed us with his courage in supporting that work and helping to craft
that work.
There are words in the Scriptures, in Matthew 25, that talk about the
least of these in our society. When I was sick, when I was hungry, when
I was thirsty, when I was naked, when I was in prison--those are the
questions. The answer: If you have done it to the least of these, you
have done it also to Me.
Senator Coburn believes we have a moral responsibility, a moral
obligation to the least of these in our society. He also believes we
have a fiscal obligation, a fiscal imperative to meet that moral
obligation in a fiscally responsible way. And I think those two ideas
guide him in his work, and, frankly, it is an inspiration to me.
Last word. Leaders should be humble, not haughty. Leaders should lead
by our example, not ``do as I say'' but ``do as I do.'' Leaders should
have the heart of a servant. Leaders should have the courage to stay
out of step when everyone else is marching to the wrong tune. Leaders
ought to be committed to doing what is right, not what is easy. Leaders
should treat other people the way they want to be treated. Tom has
offended just about everybody in this body, but he always comes back
and apologizes, and he has already done it here today. Leaders should
focus on excellence in everything they do. If it isn't perfect, make it
better. It is in the preamble of the Constitution--``in order to form a
more perfect Union.'' That defines him. Finally, if you think you are
right and you know you are right, never give up. That is what a leader
should be about.
For the years he served here and for a long time before that and for
a long time to come, he has been that leader, and I feel lucky to say
he is my friend.
God bless you.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. BURR. Mr. President, I feel surrounded by friends and colleagues
who are getting ready to leave, and being part of that original class
20 years ago, there is one thing that I have learned is extremely
unique in Washington. I am next to two people who are voluntarily
leaving. The toughest decision a Member of Congress ever makes is to
leave this institution voluntarily. And I know that for my two friends
and my third one, Mike Johanns, this was not easy. It is not easy to
stand here and know that in January they are not going to be here any
longer, because they are truly friends, and that is tough.
To say that Tom Coburn can be intimidating I think is an
understatement, and I think that comes because his breadth of knowledge
based upon his experiences in life enable him to be an expert on a lot
of issues.
With that in mind, I remember the day Tom sat down--we were leaving
that week, and I said: What are you going to do this weekend? And he
said: Well, Sarah's future fiance is coming to sit down with me to find
out whether he can marry my daughter. And I looked at him and thought,
I would hate to be that young man.
Well, the truth is that Tom is a very intimidating guy. He plays
hard, and he plays to win.
There is not an individual I know who is more fair and more
compassionate than Tom Coburn. I remember the day the Bush
administration wanted to extend the PEPFAR Program--the AIDS in Africa
program--and when Tom found out that they were going to relax the
requirement on how many people were treated and that more money would
go to education than to actually saving lives, he grabbed me and he
said, ``We can't let this stand. We've got to fight it. We've got to
change it.'' And it was Tom Coburn who blocked the reauthorization of
President Bush's PEPFAR plan for 6 months--a Republican President, a
Republican Senator. Why? On principle.
Tom Coburn, if you didn't know it before this speech today, has never
done anything in this institution or in life that wasn't based upon
principle. No Member of Congress should ever question whether he thinks
he is right because if he didn't think he was right, he wouldn't fight
so hard.
It is particularly difficult for me to say goodbye to Tom. We truly
are legislative partners. We fought a lot of battles for a long time,
and inherently we have a level of trust in each other that I would
actually sign on to legislation that I had no idea what it did; I just
knew that in that foxhole he needed somebody he could count on, and I
knew when he signed on to something that I needed, that there was
always somebody there to cover my back.
The institution is losing something significant when we no longer
have that legislative expertise Tom Coburn represents.
There are a lot of descriptions that people have used today and that
people will use in the future to describe Tom Coburn, but I would boil
it down to two words that I think best describe him: Tom Coburn is a
good man. In every sense of the word, he is a good man. This
institution will lose a great leader when Tom Coburn retires.
Godspeed, Tom.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mr. SCHUMER. I will be very brief. I know people are waiting to
speak.
I guess it would surprise the world in general to know that Tom
Coburn and I are true friends, but we are. He is a man of integrity
above all.
You don't have to agree with someone--we probably disagree on 90
percent of all the issues--to trust someone's integrity, to trust
someone's
[[Page S6595]]
handshake, to trust someone that if you make a good argument,
understanding their values, they will come along. That is just what Tom
Coburn has done time and time again with this Senator from New York and
countless others on the other side of the aisle.
On so many issues where Tom was opposed, I said: Let's just sit down
and let me give you the logic and then you will make your own judgment.
And I knew that would be good enough. Sometimes it didn't work.
Sometimes he disagreed. But he always sat and listened. He always asked
perceptive questions, not ``gotcha'' questions. He was trying to figure
it out.
Of course the most well known was when we negotiated on the Zadroga
bill. Thousands of New Yorkers had rushed to the towers and gotten
poison in their lungs and their gastrointestinal systems, and we wanted
to help them. We thought they were just like our veterans. Tom knew it
was a big expense. He sat with us, listened, made suggestions to make
it leaner and trimmer, and then supported the bill. So right now there
are people alive throughout the New York area, heroes, because of the
integrity of that man from Oklahoma.
Tom, I will miss you. This body will miss you. Regardless of our
ideological views and perceptions, we will miss you. You are a great
American.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
Mr. MANCHIN. First of all, there is not a whole lot that needs to be
said that hasn't been said, but one thing I want to say to my dear
friend Tom Coburn is that he made Washington happen for me, if you
will. He made it more tolerable. I had a hard time in transitioning.
Tom reached out. He saw that. We talked about this before, but Tom made
this place more palatable.
Tom, you have expanded my area of friendships with more people than
you know and the right type of people, and I appreciate it I think more
than you even know.
I will end with this, and I don't mean to say a lot. I have been
asked about Tom Coburn. How would I explain him? Tom Coburn's got soul.
Tom Coburn's got soul. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart,
brother. You have soul, and I thank you for what soul you brought to
this place.
God bless.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. FLAKE. Fourteen years ago I entered the House of Representatives.
I had been elected, but before I took office, I traveled to Washington,
and Matt Salmon, the Congressman I was replacing, said: Is there
anybody you want to meet? And I said: Tom Coburn. I had watched from
afar what he had done on the Appropriations Committee and the stands he
had taken, and I admired him. I went and visited with him in his office
while he was packing up his stuff. I will never forget that. And I have
to say that today I admire him even more than I did then, having
watched him go back into the private sector and then enter the Senate.
Columnist George Will said Tom Coburn was the most dangerous creature
that could come into the Senate. Why? Because he is simply uninterested
in being popular. I think that is certainly true. But if he didn't care
about it, it happened anyway. I have news for Tom. As you can see
around, he has become popular. But one thing he never managed to
achieve, if he sought it, was becoming partisan. When you hear those
across the aisle lavish praise on this man, realize that was never one
of his goals and never happened, much to his credit.
I thank you and your staff for your generosity over the years to me
and my staff and for what you have done for this institution, for your
colleagues, and for me personally.
I yield back.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Mr. KING. Mr. President, I probably have known Tom for the least
length of time of anybody in this Chamber, and I want to offer some
comments from the perspective of only 2 years and really more like a
year and a half since we became friends and colleagues.
I have seen Senator Coburn in two contexts--one is intelligence and
the other is faith. He and I serve on the Intelligence Committee. We
sit directly across from each other. That committee is generally a non
partisan one, but it is also one where all the meetings generally are
closed. There is no press. You can really take the measure of someone
when they ask questions and participate in a debate in that forum.
His questions always struck me as the questions I wished I had asked,
and they struck me as the questions I am sure the people of America
would have wanted asked. They were penetrating, they cut through
obfuscation, and they were always meaningful and helped us move toward
the important work that committee has to accomplish.
I have also become acquainted with him through our faith and
participation in the Wednesday Prayer Breakfasts, and more recently,
for reasons that I am not entirely sure, he has invited me to join him
on Tuesday evenings for dinners on the other side of the Capitol that
have been very meaningful.
For the 9 years before I came here, I taught a course called
``Leaders and Leadership,'' and I taught it at a couple of colleges in
Maine. I taught it really as much for myself as for my students because
I wanted to try to understand what leadership was, and I thought if I
signed on to teach it, I would have to learn something about it. Every
year what we did was go through and discuss the stories of great
leaders throughout history, some well known and some not so well known.
We always started with Ernest Shackleton. We talked about Eleanor
Roosevelt and Margaret Thatcher and Martin Luther King and Lincoln and
Churchill. We always tried to define the qualities that make a leader,
and there are lots of them--perseverance, communication, vision, team
work, trust--but the last one on the list and the one that brings me
back to Tom is always character. It is an indefinable quality. You
cannot really put a specific definition to it, but people like Lincoln
had it, Ernest Shackleton had it, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain from
Maine had it, Eleanor Roosevelt had it. It involves a combination of
qualities that Tom embodies, and almost all of them have been mentioned
here today--integrity, intelligence, honesty, faith, belief in
principle, and daring to stand for principle. It is the hardest thing
to teach, but it is the easiest thing to see. And the reason I felt so
privileged to get to know this man for such a short period of time is
that he has shown me what character is all about.
Tom, it is one of the great joys of my life to have had these 2 years
to get to know you, if only slightly. It is one of the great sadnesses
of my life that it has only been 2 years.
Godspeed, Tom. You have made a difference for this country that we
all love and honor and respect. Thank you for your service and for
sharing your great character with all of us.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. ISAKSON. I was elected in a special election 16 years ago. I was
No. 435 in the House of Representatives, so I did what my father told
me to do when I went into business. He said: Son, sit in the back of
the room, listen to people who are smart, pay attention to them, and do
what the smart people do.
After 2 weeks of listening to Tom Coburn, I said no human being could
know as much about everything as this guy named Coburn. In 16 years, I
have come to believe, yes, there is one who knows about everything he
speaks of, and that is Tom Coburn.
Senator Coburn has been a great role model for me. The Senator from
Oklahoma has taught me many great lessons, and I have learned a lot
from him.
The greatest evangelists in life are those who witness their faith,
and Tom Coburn is a true witness for his faith and has changed the
lives of many people. I have enjoyed, as much as anything, our walk
with faith at the Prayer Breakfasts, in private meetings, and what we
have shared together.
Lastly, every Christmas I try to give my grandchildren who can read
something to read as a little treasury to put in their book to save so
that when they grow up, they can refer to great things and great
historical statements that have been made. I doubt if there has ever
been a better statement made on the floor of the Senate about our
heritage, our country, our future, and our
[[Page S6596]]
hopes than Tom Coburn has said today. It will be required reading for
my grandchildren this Christmas, and I can assure you that I am a
better man for having served with Tom Coburn, the great Senator from
the State of Oklahoma.
God bless you, Tom.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. The other Senator from Oklahoma.
I wish to make some unscripted comments, but sincere and from the
heart. I hope I am accurate when I say this, that I think in some
respect I discovered Tom Coburn. I suspect that Tom and I are the only
two who have ever been to Adair, OK. I remember hearing that there was
a conservative doctor from Muskogee. I remember calling him up at that
time and asking him to run for the House of Representatives, which he
did. He kept his commitments and did everything he was supposed to do.
I always remember that day.
As Senator Coburn knows, we have a place my wife and I built on a big
lake in Oklahoma back in 1962--a long time ago. When I drive up there,
I go through Adair, and I go by that little sheltered area that is half
torn down now. They tore down the biggest bank in town. Every time I go
by there, I have to say I recall meeting for the first time with a
young doctor named Tom Coburn.
I regret to say there are times in our service together when we have
not been in agreement on specific issues, and I think we have a
characteristic in common. I think we are both kind of bullheaded, which
has created some temporary hard feelings, but there is one thing that
overshadows that. Jesus has a family, and His family has a lot of
people in it. Some are here in this room. Tom Coburn and I are
brothers.
In the 20 years I have been here in the Senate, I don't believe I
heard a speech that was as touching and sincere as the speech I heard
from my junior Senator a few minutes ago.
I really believe that in spite of all the things that have happened--
and there were some differences, but they were minor--that he never
ceased to be my brother, and I want to ask the Senator right now to
forgive me for the times I have perhaps said something unintentionally
that was not always right and was not always from the heart. But I want
my junior Senator to know that I sincerely love him and am going to be
hurting with him with the troubles he has right now, or might have in
the future, and will sorely miss him in this body.
I ask that the Record show that I sincerely love my brother, Senator
Coburn.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. COATS. I have been sitting here listening to the respect and the
emotion of people recognizing the service of Tom Coburn. I don't have a
prepared speech, but I second everything that has been said about Tom.
My emotions well up in me when I think about Tom. Tom exhibits the
conviction that I wish I had more of, Tom exhibits the commitment I
wish I had more of, and he exhibits the courage I wish I had more of.
I remember my very dear friend Chuck Olson made this statement: Lord,
show me the kind of person You would like me to be and give me the
strength to be that person.
I feel like God has given a gift to the Senate, and certainly a gift
to me, by simply saying, take a look at Tom Coburn. Look at the
qualities he exhibits and his commitment to faith. He is a pretty good
model to follow.
Thank you, Tom.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. BEGICH. I came down to give my farewell remarks, but before I do,
I have to make a comment about Senator Coburn. Senator Coburn is
absolutely what many people said about his word. Yesterday was an
example of that when he resolved an issue.
There is always activity after the Senate, and I wish my friend from
Oklahoma the best.
Farewell To The Senate
I thank the Presiding Officer for allowing me to speak on my 6 years
of serving in this body. It has been a true honor to serve with the
Presiding Officer in the short time he has been here and to serve with
all of my colleagues, but it has been an even bigger honor to serve my
fellow Alaskans.
Alaska is a huge State--660,000 square miles. More than--to my
friends from Texas and California, please don't take this personally--
double and triple the size of States such as Texas and California.
But Alaska is a very small place in many ways. People make personal
connections with their elected official. At the end of the day, we
pretty much know everybody one way or another. Alaskans will more than
likely will see me at a checkout stand at Andy's Hardware or Home Depot
or hanging Christmas lights at my wife's store or doing errands with my
son Jacob that at times he is not very anxious to do. It is a small
State, and they will more likely see me doing that than on the floor
making speeches or on C-SPAN.
When Alaskans contacted me with an idea or complaint or problem, we
made sure we responded. After 6 years in the Senate, I am most proud of
the work with helping Alaskans and their families. My office responded
to more than 360,000 individual letters and emails and phone calls from
Alaskans. To put it in perspective, 360,000 is roughly half the
population of the State.
Much of my staff is here with me on the floor today. I thank them for
their unwavering service to their fellow Alaskans. Truly I have the
best of the best. Some of them worked with me when I was mayor and are
now working for me as a Senator. Many will go on and continue to do
incredible work not only for Alaskans but for this country. I thank
them.
We took on 3,000 individual casework cases to help Alaskans navigate
the Federal Government. We helped them get their Social Security
checks, made sure the local post office actually delivers the mail, and
in Alaska that is important. We fought for benefits for individual
veterans.
I am also proud of the great policy work we did. When I say we, it is
because sometimes ideas came from Alaskans, sometimes they came from
this body, sometimes I would have a crazy idea I would write down on a
sheet of paper, but at the end of the day it was my staff that did the
work.
Opening Alaska's arctic lands and waters to responsible resource
development--NPR-A, CD-5, Beaufort and Chukchi. We also helped to
convince the EPA to free up permits for Kensington and Greens Creek
mines.
The Arctic. When I first came to the office, I have to say that not
everybody knew where the Arctic was. Some didn't even know it was an
ocean, to be frank with you, but that is not the case today. Some of my
colleagues probably got tired of hearing me always talk about Alaska no
matter what they were discussing.
I see my friend Al Franken is here, and I know he remembers this
story. He draws incredible maps of the United States, and he does it
all freehand. I remember him drawing a map one day, and I said: You
missed two things, Alaska and Hawaii.
He said: Well, when I drove around the country with my parents, they
were not States, they were just territories, and the maps they bought
were maps of the lower 48. So I sent him a dot-to-dot of Alaska, and he
sent me back a nice letter with a map of Alaska he had drawn.
No matter what conversation my colleagues might be having on an
issue, I would manage to weave in Alaska.
The Arctic has unbelievable potential. We just touched the tip of the
iceberg and there is more work to be done.
Working on defense is important to Alaska. It is important that we
keep our military bases secure by saving F-16s at Eielson and getting
F-35s next. We need to make sure that the benefits for those who are
serving continue to be there for them.
It is incredible to hear stories from veterans when they talk about
the new model of care we developed over 2\1/2\, 3 years ago. Our State
has 77,000 veterans. When I was campaigning in 2008, I had an idea that
I called the Hero's Health Card, and I remember when I got into office,
people said it will never happen. People who know me know that when you
say never or no, that means yes, they just didn't spell it properly,
and I have to figure out what to do.
Today in Alaska, it doesn't matter if you are a veteran in the
smallest rural communities or the biggest cities, you
[[Page S6597]]
will get health care and access to it through our tribal health care
delivery system--the first in the Nation.
One time when I was in Bethel, this gentleman who was a veteran came
up to me when I was in the VFW Hall. A lot of us have been in VFW
halls, and you know that when someone comes at you at an aggressive
pace, it is probably not a positive situation, but you have to engage
them in a conversation. He held his hand out and showed me his scars,
and he said that he had to go to Anchorage to get this taken care of,
and you told me I could go down to my clinic and get it taken care of,
but it didn't happen. I was about to say something, but before I could
get a word out, he said: Do you know what I get to do because of what
you did? Every single week now when I need therapy, I can go down the
street in Bethel instead of flying to Anchorage to get it done. That is
a model of how to do the right thing.
Alaska is well known for fisheries. I don't mean to pick on Senator
Franken, but I remember him coming up to me because we coined a phrase
on modified engineered fish which we called the ``Frankenfish.'' It was
not about the Senator, but it was about this fish that was chemically
enhanced and would really destroy the fisheries in Alaska and would be
bad for the market and bad for consumers. We fought over that issue
because Alaskans brought it to our attention every single day.
I just mentioned some of the things we did for native rural health
care, which was not just about Alaska. When we discussed an issue in
our office, we asked: Can we do it for Alaska, and does it have an
international impact? Will it impact the rest of the United States in a
positive way?
I remember hearing and reading about the money the Federal Government
owed to our tribes which had not been paid for two decades. It was
money for clinical services they produced. We did some things, and the
net result was Alaska received over $500 million in settlements over
the last year. On top of that, many tribes across the country now have
almost three-quarters of a billion dollars, money owed by the
government for services delivered to individuals. And earlier this week
we were able to pass another piece taking away the restriction on our
tribes in Alaska so they can now, under the Violence Against Women
Act--and we hope the House passes it--to be able to dispense and do
tribal government in the sense of our justice system improving the
situation on the ground when it comes to sexual assault, domestic
violence, and substance abuse.
There are a lot of examples. It is hard when we talk about these
because there are a lot of great things that have been done, not just
individually but collectively. But in this place we spend a lot of time
talking about doom and gloom and how the sky is falling and always the
worst-case scenario.
We have come a long way in the last 6 years. The people who know me
know I don't care how bad the situation is, I am positive about it
because there is always another day to solve these problems and make
things happen.
I think about where we were when I came to the Senate. I remember
coming on this floor as a freshman in 2009, and the chaos of this
economy was unbelievable. We were losing 600,000 jobs a month--equal to
the whole population of my State--unemployed, boom, gone. Unemployment
was around 10 percent. The stock market was at 6,500. Two of the
largest automobile companies in this country were flat on their backs.
No housing starts were happening. The market was crashing. The deficit
was $1.4 trillion per year. As a new Member, I wasn't sure what I had
gotten myself into, to be frank. Some of the Members who came with me
were trying to figure out, What did we get? But we didn't sit around.
I know we always hear this doom and gloom out there. When we look
back over 6 years, we remember we had some battles here, and most
people think we don't do anything. But where are we today? We are
17,000-plus in the stock market today.
I can tell my colleagues that Alaskans saw this because every year--I
know I hear from other Members who ask me this question all the time--
we get a permanent fund check. It is based on investments we make, and
it is based on revenues we receive from oil and gas. That permanent
fund check doubled this year from $800 to over $1,900. Why did it
double? Because it is based on the stock market average of the last 5
years. We dropped off 2009, so the market was doing better. Every
Alaskan felt what this economy has done. So when the naysayers are out
there speaking, it is just not accurate.
GM and Ford and Chrysler have added over half a million good-paying
jobs. Unemployment is at 5.8 percent--almost a 50-percent drop. Over 10
million new jobs and the longest stretch of private sector growth on
record--56 months. Just last week--I know we always hear it is not good
enough. Of course, but it is a heck of a lot better.
I remember the chaos on this floor during those 3 or 4 months and as
a new Member what we had to go through.
The deficit has dropped by $1 trillion a year. We are down to about
$480 billion now. We have sliced off $1 trillion a year from the
deficit.
In Alaska we have seen some incredible things. Anchorage unemployment
is at 4.9 percent. There are more jobs in mining and timber than ever
before. Tourism has risen to nearly 1 million visitors. There are
78,000 people in the fishery industry.
It is important to remember that this is just a moment in time of
challenges we have as a body and as a country. It is important to
remember that there is a lot of work ahead of us. But we have
accomplished a lot. But we spend a lot of time on this floor debating
what is bad about this country.
A lot of us are coming to the floor and giving our farewell speeches
and talking about good things. There are a lot of good things we should
be proud of as a country. I am proud of what we have done over the last
6 years. This country is back on track. We have more work to do to make
sure people's incomes rise, but that is starting to happen now.
The challenge for my colleagues who are still here and for this
country is--it has been an incredible honor to be in this body, but
what do we do to make sure we move forward so we don't have this as a
platform of negative attitudes and views but about opportunity and
possibilities; not about things that we sit here and try to figure out
how to kill but what we try to do to improve and give new ideas a
chance.
I said it earlier: I am a very optimistic person. I believe what is
possible today can be even better tomorrow. But it is incumbent on
people to believe it, to want to do it, to put aside their differences
where we can. I will tell my colleagues, that is why fewer Alaskans are
party registered and more are nonparty registered in our State than in
most States--because our view is that we don't care about the party;
what we care about is getting things done. We are trying to find the
answer to yes rather than trying to find the way to no.
My staff has always, and it is a struggle sometimes--and I have a
great staff, as I said earlier, some from Alaska, some from here, and
some from across the country, people who I don't understand why they
continue to subject themselves to working for me after the mayor's
office, and then they came here. I always told them that what mattered
was not who sponsored the bill but whether it is a good idea. If it is
a good idea, then let's move forward, try to find an answer, try to
solve the problem.
The positive attitude we have to have is not only important for this
body, but it is important for this country. In a weird way, they love
us and they hate us. The poll numbers show they don't love us too
much--13 percent. But on the flip side, they look to us. They look to
us for certainty and guidance and where we might take them. The pundits
are different, but the people look to us. I see it when I go to stores,
when I am out and about. People may be angry with us, but they want to
know what we are going to do to solve these incredible problems, and it
will be incumbent upon the next Congress to sit down and work together.
It is going to be tough because the politics of the day are about the
moment in time, not about the long term. This is an incredible
challenge that has to be dealt with in some way.
I have spent a lot of time trying to, as I said, do what I can; it
didn't matter whose idea it was. I listened to Senator Coburn speak. I
remember one
[[Page S6598]]
day we were working on an issue--essential air service. Some of us have
that in our States. Senator Coburn was against it. I remember having a
conversation with him and trying to explain that between one airport
and the next is 1,200 miles. There is no road. There is no way to get
to it. At the end of the day we were able to resolve that issue and
move forward.
I think of all the things that have been accomplished in this body
but how little people know about it. In an odd way, over these last few
days more of the positive issues are out there. I hope the press covers
them. We will see. But we live in a world where it is better to talk
about the negative because that seems to be what thrives. I hope that
changes.
Let me end by sharing a couple of other quick thoughts. There are a
lot of great stories about being here in the Senate. Someone asked me
one day: Do you write these down? And I said no.
I remember I was in Sitka, AK, and I was headed to the airport. I got
to the airport, and the attendant there was checking my ticket, and he
said: Oh, wait, Mr. Begich. We have something for you.
It was a wrapped gift at the airport.
I said: Great.
Now, people who care about the TSA, please ignore what I am about to
say. They just handed it to me. I took it. I opened it, and it was one
of those empty books that say: Please write down your thoughts and your
notes. They are incredible thoughts.
I remember I was coming through--people will remember when it snowed
like crazy. Well, people from DC thought it snowed like crazy. I did
not. I knew one thing, and that is about how the plows work, being a
former mayor. I thought to myself, I can't leave my car on the street
because they will plow me in, especially in this place, or they will
attempt to. So I and my son Jacob--we got our snow shovels, did our
shoveling, and then drove the car to another area. Then I realized--we
were dressed in what I call Alaska good garb. And then I realized that
I had to get back to the house because I had this snow shovel and he
had a snow shovel. It was on the other side of the Capitol. So what did
we do? People who know me know I don't really follow all the rules
around this place. We started walking through the Capitol with our snow
shovels over our shoulders. The place was empty. I realized what an
incredible place this is. First, we were allowed to walk through with
snow shovels. It was dead silent. If my colleagues have never done
that, they should. You walk through the Capitol and you just see the
history, and in a small way, we were a part of it.
I did break another rule. This is confession time. I am a Catholic, I
can do that. We came into this Chamber. I had the corner desk over
here. Why did I pick that desk? A lot of people don't know this story.
Why did I do that? One, I was a junior Member, but No. 2, I wanted that
desk because that is where the candy box was, and I knew every Member
would have to go there sooner or later, and I thought I could spend
some time talking to them. And maybe I would have a candy box, which I
did. I had special candies from my wife's store.
One day I came in here late at night with my son, and we sat right
there. I know the security guards probably didn't see us. We took a
photo. Yes, I broke the rules. I took a photo of my son sitting there,
and I will cherish that photo forever.
As my son once said--and I said it on this floor one time--about how
important it is to get things done and the battle we were having--I
remember I actually quoted my son on the floor, and I think I shocked
somebody. I was talking to him about something, and he said: Dad, just
suck it up. I thought, only from a young kid do you hear what you have
to do sometimes.
Now, I didn't forget her; I just wanted to wait until the end. I know
I am breaking the rules, but my wife is right up there. I am pointing
to her. Yes, I am, Sergeant at Arms. Too bad. I am acknowledging her.
She has been incredible. She has allowed me to do my public service, to
fly those 20 hours every weekend to and from Alaska. She has taken care
of Jacob when I couldn't. I love her dearly. Thank you.
To end, I will just say this: It has been a true honor to serve in
the U.S. Senate, to serve the people of Alaska, and to know every day
we--me, my staff, and my colleagues who work with me--contributed a
little bit to making life better for Alaska, for Alaskans, and for this
country. There is no experience like serving in this body and doing
what I could to make a difference.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
(Applause, Senators rising.)
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Walsh). The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I know a number of my colleagues are going
to want to talk about our friend Mark Begich. When we came to the
Senate--I see a number of folks here--we came in 2008. I see a lot of
other Members who are newer Members as well. I think when you come in
with a class, you get kind of confused about what is going on and you
form a bond.
I remember my first--our first--Senator Franken wasn't here yet, but
Senator Merkley, Senator Hagan, Senator Bennet, and a number of others.
And we were in Senator Durbin's office. There was still a question
about what was going to happen in the election because there were
thousands of votes out. So being giddy new Members, we got on the phone
to call Senator Begich to say we wish him well and we are counting on
him. He said: Hey, Jacob and I are leaving on vacation because I
already know where the votes are coming from. I am going to be there.
He knew his State that well.
As someone who is a former chief executive and as some others here
who are former chief executives, I remember him coming here, and many
of us new Members were kind of scratching our heads about the notion of
how this institution would work or didn't work sometimes. But, as
Senator Begich mentioned and as Senator Murray mentioned at our dinner
the other night, there are a lot of people in this body who are chronic
optimists. I am blessed to have an optimist in my colleague Senator
Kaine. I don't always fit in that category. But Senator Begich, week in
and week out, would always try to remind us that it is not quite as
bleak as it might seem at the moment, that there was good news and
there was progress being made.
I think, looking back, I am not sure some of us fully realized,
particularly that first year and a half or two when so many things
happened--controversial things and things that are still being
relitigated in many ways but that have allowed this country to make
progress, and Senator Begich was an incredibly important part of that.
He was also, as one of the newer Members, liaison to management. So
whenever anything didn't happen right with leadership, it was always
the fault of Senator Begich.
But I just want to say--and I know Senator Hagan was here a little
bit earlier--I fear at times that our elections are almost becoming
like parliamentary elections in the other countries where people are
voting for or against a leader not based upon what a leader has done
individually--such as Senator Landrieu and all the things she has done
for Louisiana, Lord knows--but, as Senator Begich just mentioned, there
was not a bill or an issue where he didn't find an Alaska connection
and where he didn't make a difference for the people of his great
State.
So I know I am just the first of many who want to say to my
colleague, to my friend, to a great Senator, Godspeed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I was a part of that class. I was a
little late getting here, my colleagues will recall. But I was part of
that class and campaigned with the class, and I remember being with
Mark Udall and Tom Udall and Mark Begich at a campaign event, and they
kind of looked at me and said: So your dad wasn't like a public
servant.
I said: No.
And they said: Well, that is unusual.
No, no, that is fine.
What a lot of people don't know about Mark is his father died very
famously in a plane crash.
Mark is the only Member of this body, I believe, who did not graduate
from college, did not go to college.
There are a lot of things about Mark--and Mark Warner just referred
to it--he was a chief executive.
[[Page S6599]]
We need more mayors here. Sometimes we say we need more diversity.
Sometimes we say we need more women. God knows we need more satirists--
but mayors, wow. Having that mayor's perspective--Cory Booker looking a
little smug--is very useful.
Mike Enzi, a mayor--am I forgetting a mayor?
Mr. BEGICH. Tim Kaine, Richmond.
Mr. FRANKEN. Bob Corker.
Whom are you pointing at? Tim, were you a mayor?
Mr. KAINE. Richmond.
Mr. FRANKEN. Oh, Richmond, you just kept saying Richmond. I don't
know anybody named ``Richmond.''
Mr. WARNER. He was also a lieutenant governor.
Mr. FRANKEN. So he was a lieutenant governor too--OK. So he is the
most qualified.
This is what it is like when we are together. Being a Senator, a lot
of people ask: Is being a Senator as much fun as working on ``Saturday
Night Live?'' The answer of course is no. It is not close, but it is
the best job I have ever had.
It means so much to us what we can do for our State, and no one knows
more about his State--and I know Mary Landrieu is sitting here, no one
knows more than Mary and Mark--and that it is an incredibly long flight
he took every weekend to go back to Alaska.
Minnesota had a happy warrior, one of the great, great Senators who
has ever served this body, Hubert Humphrey. We may have noticed during
Mark's speech he teared up a few times, the most when he was talking
about his wife.
That is good for you. That works out well.
But Hubert Humphrey said: ``A man who has no tears has no heart.''
This man has a tremendous heart. Humphrey was a happy warrior, and
this guy is a happy warrior--and you brought joy, humor, and optimism
to this body, and I thank you, my friend, for that.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Ms. LANDRIEU. I rise to say a word about my dear friend Mark Begich
and to add some words on behalf of him.
We saw, when he presented himself in his final remarks to this body,
his compassion, his heart, and his emotions were clear in relation to
his family, his son, and to us--because he was truly an amazing friend
to many. He is always in a good humor, always upbeat.
As the Senator from Virginia said, we could never quite understand
it, but he was--and still is--an amazingly optimistic and positive
person.
Having served as mayor, as a small business owner, as a passionate
champion for Alaska, what he didn't mention--I thought I might because
it might be too hard for him to remember today--but I want this body to
remember that Mark comes from a distinguished line of public service.
A lot of us say that, but in Mark's case his father literally gave
his life to Alaska. His plane went down on October 16, 1972. The plane
has never been found.
So when Mark walked in the first day I met him, I don't know what I
was expecting, but I was expecting someone to have a heavy burden on
his shoulders because of that. As the eldest daughter of nine children,
I take responsibility so much for my brothers and sisters, and I don't
know how I could have gotten where I have gotten without both parents
literally lifting me up every day.
So as I have sat across from Mark all these years in very close
leadership meetings on Tuesday mornings--and he has walked in with such
optimism, such extraordinary confidence in himself, in what he is
doing, and in encouraging us--I was always just so struck by the fact
that he grew up with a large family, six children. His mother was
widowed at a young age. He took on so much responsibility, and yet he
came to the Senate ready to serve.
I know his father is truly honored that he didn't get bitter, he
wasn't angry. He grew up to be a man who accepted that as God's will,
which is a hard thing to accept.
He did so much for the community that his father loved and the State
that his father loved. I wanted to add that to the Record because a lot
of people watching us think we are one-dimensional robots and that
there are no other dimensions to our lives and our family.
But it always struck me, Mark, that you have been such a man of
courage, such a great inspiration to your family, and truly an
inspiration to all of us.
I know your parents are very proud, both of them.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. MERKLEY. I wish to add a word to honor my good friend Senator
Mark Begich. I think there is a special connection with those of us who
were elected on the same day.
We share something else in common, which is on that election day in
November 2008 neither one of us knew if we had won. We both had to wait
some length of time--in my case 2 days and in Senator Begich's case a
couple of weeks--but it kind of makes us ponder the future: Are you
going to serve or are you not going to serve and how will you utilize
that opportunity.
There is another connection that comes from being western Senators.
When we talk about salmon--and Mark Begich mentioned a while ago
``Frankenfish.'' Well, we are very concerned. We have a collective
concern about the health of our salmon runs.
It is not just a fishing economy, although that is very much a part
of the economy of our States, it is about the soul of our States, the
traditions of our State, the natural resources of our States.
When we talk about timber, we have a connection. Sitka was mentioned.
Sitka spruce is a common tree in our State of Oregon.
When we get concerned about the rescues off the Oregon coast because
the water is so cold one can't be in it for very long without dying--
which makes it much more important to have advanced helicopters, and
just last night we were able to keep a key helicopter on the coast due
to Senator Mark Begich's considerable involvement and advocacy. Thank
you so much for doing that.
Why is our water so cold off the coast of Oregon? Because it is
coming down with the currents from Alaska. In so many ways our States
are tied together.
As I have served this first 6 years, I have turned to my friend from
Alaska for advice and counsel time after time. His seasoned policy
judgment and his core political instincts are on a par with any other
Senator in this Chamber and certainly far in advance of my own.
I say to the Senator, I appreciate your friendship. I appreciate you
sharing your judgment, and I appreciate your buoyant spirit that
reminds us, when we are discouraged, that so much can be accomplished.
What an honor it is to have a seat in the Chamber of just 100 Senators,
where we can add our voice to a conversation about truly how to make
this a better world.
Thank you, my friend, for your service. We will miss you greatly.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). The Senator from Michigan.
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I just want to add my words to what my
other colleagues have said about someone I am going to miss dearly.
Senator Mark Begich and I worked together on many things. When I passed
the reins from the steering and outreach committee and suggested to our
leader that he should seriously consider Senator Begich for that
responsibility, he made us all proud as part of the leadership in
presenting a very important perspective every single day.
I have frequently referenced an energy committee trip I took to
Alaska with Senator Begich where--I thought Michigan was big. Michigan
is big. But we not only had to travel a long way to get to Alaska, once
we were in Alaska we had to travel a long way from one end to another.
I remember I ran into a number of people from Michigan because in our
Upper Peninsula we also have a lot of snow, and we have a lot of people
who were working there. But everywhere we went--and we traveled to
Native American villages. We flew to Barrow. We were in every part of
the State. Some areas you could only get into by helicopter.
We would get there--we went to a Native village that needed a new
post office. Senator Begich took me out. We had boots on because there
was water coming up. We looked at this little,
[[Page S6600]]
tiny post office that was maybe a little bigger than a closet, not
much. We came out. The whole community was there to urge us to support
this post office.
To see not only the information, the depth that Senator Begich had
about that before we got there, but the way he interacted, his
commitment to them--everywhere we went he knew about that community,
the leaders in the community. He had a relationship with them.
This is somebody who loves Alaska. In his bones, in your DNA, Mark,
is your State. I love seeing that. It was so inspirational to see that.
I know the Senator has wonderful family support at home. It has been my
pleasure to be at your home for dinner and to watch your son. He is
growing up. I know we have a lot more that we will benefit from, from
your leadership. I know you have a lot more to contribute to Alaska, to
our country.
Just know you are leaving with incredible respect from colleagues and
love and affection. We wish you every Godspeed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I rise to add my sense of gratitude and
appreciation to someone who has become a dear friend. I am his newest
colleague and have had the privilege of working with him for these past
13 months. I just want him to know and state very publicly that he was
one of the anchors to me as I was getting to know a very different
place from being a mayor of a big city.
Your sense of fierce pragmatism was a light to me, coming down into a
place known for partisanship and gridlock, and demonstrated to me your
ability to bring people together and get things done, but even more
than that, being a model for me, a role model for me in the early stage
of my career in the Senate.
I have to confess, and do it with pride, that I love this country
with the depth and the core of my being. My parents taught me that
sense of pride. But you expanded that, incredibly, by bringing me out
to Alaska. Of all my experiences in these 13 months, that was one of
the highlights. It taught me a lot when I saw that a Senator still had
such a powerful touch and connection and knowledge and love of the
people of that State. You have made me love Alaska even more and know
Alaska in my heart.
What was extraordinary to me, in knowing you in your short career,
was how much you got accomplished, how steadfast you were in pursuing
the interests of your State and this Nation. One thing I have to say, I
felt uncomfortable as I saw you--I will never forget being at Bartlett
High School, with the Bears, and seeing your love and connection to
those kids. It made me feel very uncomfortable, the negativity that was
being hoisted upon you during a campaign.
It made me think of something as I was out there, and I thought about
it again as you talked of history. There is a very famous poet named
Maya Angelou, who said these words:
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I rise.
The truth is, you are one of those people who are at your ascendency.
You have risen above it all. You have risen above the things in
Washington that try the spirits, not just of those of us here but of
the Nation. You have risen to a level of accomplishment in your life
that is extraordinary and as awesome as some of the vistas I saw in the
State of Alaska.
The beauty I have right now, the confidence and the joy I have right
now, is the simple fact that I know that God ain't finished with you
yet.
Thank you. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. President, I just want to rise, similar
to others in our class, and many other Senators have risen, to talk a
little bit about Mark Begich and his service to Alaska and praise him
for his service, because I think he has been--since I have been here,
the 6 years I have served with him; he was in my class--I have seen a
remarkable Senator who truly cares about his State and has been an
incredible advocate for his State.
I was not here for his entire speech, but I turned it on. The good
thing about our offices is you can tune it in. I caught the point where
he got a little bit choked up about Deborah and Jacob. I got choked up,
too, in the office. I can cry but not in public. In any event, the
first thing I know about Mark is how much he cares about his family and
how much the toll of serving in the Senate takes on that family.
His travel--I am a westerner, and I have to travel out 5 hours, 6
hours, 8 hours to get home. His flight is always--we heard the
description the other day from Senator Murray. He flies all the way out
to Seattle at the end of the day. It is 12:30 our time when he arrives
there. Then he gets on another flight for another 4\1/2\ hours up to
Anchorage, just to get home. It is not a very long weekend. Then he has
to get on a flight and come back.
His family is so important. I have seen him with his son Jacob. We
live just across the alley from each other. I can look out my back
window and look down and see the light--just four houses down--and know
whether Mark and Deborah and Jacob are in town. We have spent many good
times in his house there. That is the first thing I would like to say.
The second is--I have seen this over and over again with Senators.
You are one of the best at it--taking the issues that are involved with
Alaska and that Alaskans care about and that you knew so well when you
were a mayor and fitting them into this vast Federal landscape and
making sure Alaskans are heard. I think you are one of the best at
doing that. You stepped out on so many different issues. I remember the
Native American corporations and how you would reach out in a number of
areas with Senators throughout the Senate and try to reach some
compromise there.
I have a large Native American community. We, too, have the same
kinds of issues on that front that you do. We also share many Native
American tribes. As the Senator knows well, it was my father and my
uncle who stood up in the 1960s and 1970s to make sure the Natives got
a fair shake in Alaska. Mark--that is the way he serves when it comes
to Native Americans, caring about them, caring about their issues,
going up to the North Slope where it is cold.
My understanding is that during this campaign he got frostbite on one
occasion, being out in that terribly tough environment. Thank you for
that and for working with me and working with everyone else who tries
to make sure Native people get justice. They look to Washington for
justice. They look for justice at the Supreme Court. They are not
getting much of it over there at the Supreme Court any more. We are the
last refuge. We served together on the Indian Affairs Committee.
One final thing to talk about. I have been working on an issue, it is
the chemical substances act, for the last couple of years with Senator
Vitter. We have tried to do everything we can to bring people--
extraordinary piece of legislation--12 Republicans, 12 Democrats on
this piece of legislation.
We have been working to make it better. We have had Senators start
joining us on both sides of the aisle. Mark, you were one of the key
people to work on that. As Senator Warner said earlier, you were our
liaison to the leadership. You were in all of those leadership
meetings. Whenever I told you there was a problem, you would surface
it, whether or not it was going to blow up the meeting. You stuck in
there when it came to truly caring about issues and caring about
getting things done.
I think if anything is your hallmark, it is wanting to put aside the
partisanship and try to get things done. So that is something that you
should be tremendously proud of.
Just as a final word, I love your State of Alaska. I have climbed
your highest mountain. My cousin, Mark Udall, has also done the same
thing, climbed Mount McKinley, which has now returned to its Native
name, called Denali. I remember going up to your State as a State
attorney general. It was the only State in the Nation that put in money
for our conference of attorneys general and put us on an 8-hour train
across Alaska so we could see all of Alaska.
Alaska is a terrific State. You and I have some disagreements on what
we
[[Page S6601]]
protect in Alaska, but the wonderful thing is we understand each
other's position. We are still very good friends. It has been a real
honor to serve with you. I wish you and Deborah and Jacob the very
best. Wherever you land--I hope to see you in Alaska again because I
know I am going to come up there. But wherever you land, our door will
always be open to you.
Thank you and God bless you.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, we have heard a lot of people honoring
our wonderful colleague Senator Begich today. We are all going to miss
him dearly. We are especially going to miss him in Minnesota. I have
heard many positive statements about Alaska today, but no one can come
from a State where they can say they have one of the main streets in
Anchorage named after them; that is, Minnesota Street in Anchorage.
That is because there are many Minnesotans. Believe it or not, it was
not cold enough in Minnesota so they moved to Alaska. One of those
people who moved to Alaska was Mark's dad. Mark's dad actually grew up
about 30 miles away from my dad. It is rough-and-tumble country up in
the Iron Range of Minnesota. Mark still has relatives in northern
Minnesota, and particularly he has an uncle named Uncle Joe--Joe
Begich--who served in the legislature for many years and also is a
Korean War vet and was truly the heart and soul of the Iron Range
delegation in the Minnesota State legislature.
For any of our colleagues who think Mark Begich is a character, they
should meet his Uncle Joe. I know Uncle Joe. I hope he is watching
because nothing made him happier than the day Mark Begich got elected
to the Senate. And when Mark once came up there with me and we were
greeted by Uncle Joe, it was like a hero's welcome when Mark Begich
appeared on the Iron Range of Minnesota. People came out, and we did an
event with veterans. Then, of course, the problem was we went to a bar,
and we could get no pictures that didn't have a Budweiser sign on them.
But Mark is a hero up there, and he is a hero across our State just
for the work he has done for rural communities. When I say we have
rural communities in Minnesota, he always says we have extreme rural
communities in Alaska.
He has done work in conservation, which we care about so much. He has
done work on tourism. We are cochairs of the tourism caucus, and I
still remember the hearing we had right in the middle of the downturn,
where every Senator came to talk about all of the things that were
happening in their States with tourism. Mark was actually able to cite
the price of cruises you could take in Alaska. It was written up in the
Washington Post about all the Senators hawking their States, but no one
was prouder to hawk Alaska.
The other thing about Mark, which I know was mentioned, is he doesn't
believe politics is about standing in the opposite corner of the boxing
ring. He believes politics is about working together in the middle and
trying to find common ground.
The last thing I will say is how much we love Deborah and Jacob, and
we know we will see them around and they are not going to go away.
One time Deborah, Jacob, and Mark came over to our house for brunch.
My daughter is about 6 years older now. She was about 13. Jacob and my
daughter were playing a game in the other room, and the adults were
talking over breakfast. I will never forget Jacob Begich. From the
other room, he heard his dad talking about him and, as any politician's
kid would do, he said: Stop talking about me, dad. So that kid has
inherited that Mark Begich sense of fierce independence. When he left,
my daughter said: I love that kid, mom. He knows how hard it is to be a
politician's kid.
So Mark has left here the legacy of Alaska, the legacy of good work,
the legacy of a great staff, and the legacy of a great family. So we
will see you around, and thank you for your service.
Mr. BEGICH. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Tribute to Mark Pryor
Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. President, I am honored to stand here and recognize
my colleague and friend, Arkansas's senior Senator Mark Pryor, for his
service to our State, his contributions to our country, and his work
across the aisle.
I have worked with Senator Pryor during his entire service in the
Senate, both as a Member of the House and as a colleague in the Senate.
While we don't always agree on policy, we always agree that we need to
do what is best for Arkansas and what is best for our Nation.
Mark is always ready to step forward, find a solution, and resolve an
issue. He is always ready to extend a hand to the other side of the
aisle to get support, and he always has Arkansas on his mind.
Over the last 4 years, we have introduced several pieces of
legislation together, and you will find our names as cosponsors of
several other pieces of legislation that all have one goal--helping the
people of Arkansas and helping the people of our country.
There is a longstanding tradition of collaboration in the Arkansas
delegation. When I was elected to the House in 2001, long-time Arkansas
Congressman John Paul Hammerschmidt gave me some advice I have tried to
live by since coming to Washington. He said: John, always remember that
once the election is over, it is time to put away the political
differences and focus on helping the people of Arkansas. That is how
the delegation worked during John Paul's 26 years of congressional
service, which included service with Mark's dad, Senator David Pryor,
and that is how Mark and I operated as well.
I appreciate the welcome Mark gave to me and the help his office
offered to my staff when I moved over here to the Senate in 2011. I
value his friendship, thank him for his service, and appreciate all he
has done for the people of Arkansas. I wish him well in the next
chapter of his life.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator withhold his request?
Mr. BOOZMAN. I will.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Bailout Provision In Omnibus
Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, yesterday I came to the floor to call on
House Democrats to withhold their support from the omnibus spending
bill until one provision is removed. The provision was slipped in at
the last minute to benefit Wall Street. In fact, it was written by
lobbyists for Citicorp. That provision means big money for a few big
banks. It would let derivatives traders on Wall Street gamble with
taxpayer money--and when it all blows up, require the government to
bail them out.
Just to be clear, I want to read the title of the part of the law
that will be repealed if this provision is not stripped out of the
omnibus. The title is ``Prohibition Against Federal Government Bailouts
of Swaps Entities.'' That is what is on the table to be taken out of
the law.
Now, I am here today to ask my Republican colleagues who don't want
to see another Wall Street bailout to join in our effort to strip this
Wall Street giveaway from the bill. This is not about partisanship.
This is about fairness. This is about accountability and
responsibility. This is about preventing another financial collapse
that could again wipe out millions of jobs and take down our whole
economy.
If big Wall Street banks want to gamble with their own money, so be
it. Let them take their risks with their own money, and let them live
with the consequences of those risks. That is how markets are supposed
to work. But they shouldn't get to gamble with government-insured
money, and they shouldn't get to run to the government when the deal
goes sour.
Opposition to government bailouts of Wall Street is not a liberal or
a conservative issue. The current law, the one about to be repealed,
was put in place years ago because after the 2008 financial collapse,
people of all political persuasions were disgusted by the
[[Page S6602]]
prospect of ever having to use taxpayer dollars to rescue big banks
from their own bad decisions.
This morning, Senators from both parties--Sherrod Brown, a Democrat
from Ohio, and David Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana--called for
this provision to be taken out of the spending bill. Here is what they
said:
If Wall Street banks want to gamble, Congress should force
them to pay for their losses, not put taxpayers on the hook
for another bailout. Congress should not gamble on a possible
government shutdown by attempting to tuck this controversial
provision into a spending bill without having been considered
by the committees of jurisdiction, where it can be subject to
a transparent and rigorous debate.
Senators Brown and Vitter are exactly right. This provision has no
place in a must-pass spending bill.
Conservative activists have jumped in as well. They are raising their
voices today to say that this provision has no place in a must-pass
spending bill. Here is what one front-page contributor on the
conservative blog RedState said this morning:
I have no way to refute the basic point that Democrats are
making about the CRomnibus fight right now. In fact, I might
even go so far as to say they are right. . . . what possible
good faith reason can Republicans have for threatening to gum
up the whole works over doing a favor to Wall Street? . . .
generally speaking, if Nancy Pelosi is opposed to something
then instinctively I know I should be for it. Beyond that I
haven't the slightest clue why the proposed tweak to Dodd-
Frank ought to be anything resembling a hill the Republicans
should die for.
These conservative activists are right. If you believe in smaller
government, how can you support a provision that would expand a
government insurance program and put taxpayers on the hook for the
riskiest private activities? If you thought the Ex-Im Bank exposed
taxpayers to risk--even though it has never cost the taxpayers a dime--
how can you support a provision to prevent another calamity such as the
one that cost taxpayers billions of dollars just 6 years ago?
House Republican leaders are moving quickly to try to jam this bill
through today before their own Members have had a chance to digest this
Wall Street bailout provision. The fact sheet that Republican
appropriators sent around to their Members explaining the provision
doesn't even describe it accurately. According to the fact sheet, the
provision in question would ``protect farmers and other commodity
producers from having to put down excessive collateral to get a loan,
expand their businesses, and hedge their production.'' Whatever you
think about the bill, that description is flatly wrong. In fact, that
description applies to yet another Wall Street reform rollback that the
Republicans are pushing right now, which is attached to a completely
different bill.
Now, I don't know if Republican leaders in the House are deliberately
trying to confuse their Members into voting for a government bailout
program or whether they just can't keep straight all their efforts to
gut financial reform. Republican leaders are about to bring this bill
up for a vote. So here is the bottom line. A vote for this bill is a
vote for future taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street. When the next bailout
comes, a lot of people will look back to this vote to see who was
responsible for putting the government back on the hook to bail out
Wall Street.
To Republican leaders in the House, I would ask this. You say you are
against bailouts on Wall Street. I have heard you say it again and
again for 5 years. So why in the world are you spending your time and
your energy fighting for a provision written by Citigroup lobbyists
that would increase the chance of future bailouts? Why, in the last
minute as you head out the door and a spending bill must be passed, are
you making it a priority to do Wall Street's bidding? Whom do you work
for--Wall Street or the American people?
This fight isn't about conservatives or liberals. It is not about
Democrats or Republicans. It is about money, and it is about power
right here in Washington. This legal change could trigger more taxpayer
bailouts and could ultimately threaten our entire economy, but it will
also make a lot of money for Wall Street banks. According to Americans
for Financial Reform, this change will be a huge boon to just a handful
of our biggest banks: Citigroup, JPMorgan, Bank of America.
People are frustrated with Congress. Part of the reason, of course,
is gridlock. But mostly it is because they see a Congress that works
just fine for the big guys but won't lift a finger to help them. If big
companies can deploy their armies of lobbyists and lawyers to get
Congress to vote for special deals that benefit themselves, then we
will simply confirm the view of the American people that the system is
rigged.
This is a democracy. The American people sent us here--Republicans,
Democrats and Independents. They sent us here to stand up for them, to
stand up for taxpayers, to protect the economy. Nobody sent us here to
stand up for Citigroup.
I urge my Republican colleagues in the House to withhold their
support from this package until this risky giveaway is removed from the
legislation. It is time for all of us to stand up and fight.
Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________