[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 113 (Wednesday, July 13, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5074-S5076]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                       REMEMBERING HENRY DIAMOND

 Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I wish to pay tribute to a 
fellow Tennessean Henry Diamond, who passed away Sunday, February 21, 
here in Washington.
  He was a champion for land and water conservation, a tireless 
advocate for the cause of protecting and conserving some of this 
country's greatest natural treasures. He had the ability and 
personality to work across the political spectrum with members of both 
parties, nongovernmental groups, State and local governments, and 
others.
  Named by then Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Henry was one of the 
country's first commissioners of a newly created State environmental 
department. From that beginning, he left an indelible mark.
  I think back to the seminal Outdoor Recreation Resources Review 
Commission some 50 years ago in which Henry played a prominent role. 
The commission led to the creation of our wilderness areas, wild and 
scenic rivers, and the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which has 
invested billions of dollars from oil and gas revenues in well over 
40,000 projects all across this country.
  I am reminded of his involvement some 20 years later when he created 
and chaired a task force that pressed for a timely review of the 
country's commitment to land and water conservation, which prompted 
President Reagan to establish the President's Commission on Americans 
Outdoors. I chaired the commission when I was Governor of Tennessee. 
The commission's 1987 report called for a ``prairie fire of local 
action'' to inspire States and communities to build greenways and 
otherwise protect outdoor resources and provide opportunities for 
outdoor recreation.
  And then there was his work with Lady Bird Johnson as director of the 
White House Conference on Natural Beauty, which rallied Americans to 
support environmental initiatives and paved the way for an array of 
laws and programs Congress enacted to clean our air and water and 
ensure the continuing productivity of the natural resources on which 
our economy and our quality of life depend.
  His close friendship with the Rockefeller family led to their 
contribution to the Nation of some outstanding landscapes in Wyoming, 
Hawaii, and Vermont.
  After he left public service, Henry started one of the premiere 
environmental law firms that still bears his name, Beveridge & Diamond, 
where he continued to champion conservation.

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Henry coauthored ``Land Use in America'' with another great 
conservation leader Patrick Noonan to take stock of our Nation's 
accomplishments, challenges, and new thinking in how we build 
communities to meet the needs of American families while protecting the 
lands we treasure.
  In 2008, Henry Diamond helped create a task force I cochaired with 
our former colleague Senator Jeff Bingaman that envisioned a new day in 
protecting landscapes of value and fulfilling the promise of the Land 
and Water Conservation Fund, tying in recreation, health, education, 
jobs, and more. This endeavor initiated one of President Obama's 
signature conservation programs, America's Great Outdoors, implemented 
by another of our former colleagues Ken Salazar, whom the President 
chose as his Secretary of the Interior.
  There is so much more to Henry Diamond's long and distinguished 
career, from chairing the National Park Service's 75th anniversary 
conference to serving on various boards and commissions, including 
Resources for the Future, the Environmental Law Institute, and the 
Jackson Hole Preserve.
  His many contributions were recognized in 2011 when he was awarded 
the Interior Department's highest citizen honor, the Lifetime 
Conservation Achievement Award.
  Henry Diamond was an exceptional lawyer, a mentor to colleagues and 
young conservationists, and someone many of us regularly turned to for 
advice and support.
  We will miss him. We will miss his tireless efforts to protect the 
best of our Nation's natural endowment, the lands and waters that 
sustain us. Our condolences to his wife, Bettye, and to their family 
and to all who valued his friendship.
  May he rest in peace.
  I ask that Henry's remembrance from Beveridge & Diamond and his New 
York Times obituary be printed in the Record.
  The material follows:

                            [Feb. 23, 2016]

                      Henry L. Diamond--1932-2016

       We are saddened to announce the passing of one of our 
     founders, Henry L. Diamond.
       Henry was an early advocate for conservation and greatly 
     influenced the development of environmental law in the United 
     States. His work on the Outdoor Recreation Resources 
     Commission under President Kennedy laid the foundation for 
     the creation of the Land and Water Conservation Fund and our 
     national system of protecting wilderness areas and scenic 
     rivers.
       He later served as Executive Director of the 1965 White 
     House Conference on Natural Beauty. This bipartisan event 
     helped to elevate environmental issues on the national agenda 
     in the years leading up to the establishment of the U.S. 
     Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the major 
     federal environmental legislation that guides our nation 
     today. He was a member and Chairman of the President's 
     Citizens Advisory Committees on Recreation and Natural Beauty 
     and Environmental Quality.
       He served as the first Commissioner of New York's 
     Department of Environmental Conservation. As Commissioner, he 
     led a 533-mile bike ride across the entire state of New York 
     to advocate for the successful legislative passage and voter 
     approval of the Environmental Quality Bond Act of 1972 that 
     provided $1.2 billion for water and air pollution control and 
     land acquisition.
       In 1975, Henry moved to the private sector, joining the 
     nascent environmental law firm that would become Beveridge & 
     Diamond. His practice included advising leading companies and 
     numerous municipalities on high profile environmental 
     matters. He also served as a mentor to many young lawyers 
     inside and outside the firm.
       While in private practice, Henry remained a tireless 
     advocate for land and water conservation. He served on more 
     than 30 boards and commissions, including Resources for the 
     Future, the Environmental Law Institute, The Woodstock 
     Foundation, The Jackson Hole Preserve, Inc., and Americans 
     for Our Heritage and Recreation. He chaired the National Park 
     Service 75th Anniversary Conference, which produced the 
     influential Vail Report, and co-authored the 1996 survey Land 
     Use in America. He recently co-chaired the bipartisan Outdoor 
     Resources Review Group, sponsored by Senators Jeff Bingaman 
     and Lamar Alexander. The group's report, Great Outdoors 
     America, served as a catalyst for President Obama's America's 
     Great Outdoors initiative.
       Henry's close friendship with Laurance Rockefeller over 
     many years allowed him to facilitate some of Mr. 
     Rockefeller's gifts to the National Park Service. These 
     included the JY Ranch in Wyoming, additions to Hawaii's 
     Haleakala National Park, areas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, 
     and the establishment of the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller 
     National Historical Park in Woodstock, Vermont. His pro bono 
     work included representing the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy in 
     its defense of the constitutionality of rail banking.
       Henry's contributions to conservation and the field of 
     environmental law are widely recognized. In October of last 
     year, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) presented Henry 
     with its Environmental Achievement Award before an audience 
     of more than 700 environmental professionals from the private 
     sector, government and non-profit communities. With 
     assistance from some of Henry's ``contemporaries and 
     collaborators,'' we produced a brief tribute video that 
     debuted at the ELI award dinner after warm introductory 
     remarks from former U.S. Park Service Superintendent Bob 
     Stanton.
       In 2011, he received the Secretary of the Interior's 
     Lifetime Conservation Achievement Award, the Interior 
     Department's highest honor for a private citizen. He was also 
     the recipient of Pugsley Medal of the American Academy for 
     Park & Recreation Administration in 2008.
       As Pat Noonan, founder and Chairman Emeritus of The 
     Conservation Fund, said in the ELI Tribute video, ``Henry 
     Diamond embodies the values of public service, political 
     insight, and private sector activity. He has blended all of 
     those into his life's work in a remarkable mosaic that has 
     led to the conservation field, the environmental field, and 
     sustainability that we now have today. It's a remarkable 
     legacy.''
       Earlier this year, Henry penned an inspiring charge to us 
     all in an article in the ELI Forum entitled, ``Lessons 
     Learned for Today.'' Calling for a return to the spirit of 
     the 1965 White House Conference, Henry wrote, ``We must 
     return to the spirit of that afternoon in 1965, where 
     government-citizen cooperation, high-level leadership, and 
     bipartisanship can again be brought to bear on today's 
     unfinished agenda. We cannot allow complacency to take hold. 
     There is work to be done.''
       As all of Henry's friends and colleagues observed 
     throughout the years, he was renowned as a witty story 
     teller, a master at trivial pursuit, and an iconic 
     commentator on political talent and lack thereof. He loved 
     biking, hiking, reading history, and listening to the oral 
     histories of presidents and other leaders.
       Henry was an exceptional lawyer, a fine mentor to his 
     colleagues, and a devoted conservationist. We are proud of 
     uphold the high standards and traditions of excellence he 
     set.
       Thank you, Henry.
                                  ____


                       [From the New York Times]

Henry Diamond, Lawyer at Forefront of Conservation Movement, Dies at 83

       Henry L. Diamond, a lawyer who went from the vanguard of a 
     nascent environmental movement half a century ago to become 
     New York State's first environmental conservation 
     commissioner, appointed by Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller on the 
     inaugural Earth Day in 1970, died on Sunday in Washington. He 
     was 83.
       His death, at a hospital there, was confirmed by his wife, 
     Elizabeth, who did not specify a cause but said Mr. Diamond 
     had Parkinson's disease.
       Mr. Diamond may not have been a gung-ho outdoorsman in the 
     mold of Theodore Roosevelt; he liked to bike and hike and was 
     a frustrated gardener. In 1959, however, after he had hitched 
     his political star to the Rockefellers instead of the 
     Kennedys, who were also courting him, he embarked on a career 
     in conservation and a fruitful 40-year association with 
     Laurance Rockefeller, the Rockefeller brother whose portfolio 
     was devoted to the environment.
       At the time, in the early 1960s, ``ecology was thought to 
     be for eccentrics,'' Mr. Diamond recalled in a recent article 
     in The Environmental Forum.
       ``Conservation was an afterthought on political 
     platforms,'' he continued, ``slightly ahead of Esperanto and 
     a single tax.''
       But by 1970, the environmental movement had gathered steam, 
     prompting activists to declare April 22 of that year Earth 
     Day and to promote it as a day of national consciousness-
     raising about environmental threats.
       Governor Rockefeller chose the day to sign legislation 
     creating the State Department of Environmental Conservation 
     and to name Mr. Diamond, at 37, to lead it, months before 
     Congress established a comparable federal agency.
       The governor went so far as to declare that people were 
     ``ready to slow down the pace of economic progress to protect 
     the environment.''
       After his appointment, Mr. Diamond symbolically took to the 
     streets to help collect litter. In the preceding years, as a 
     protege of Laurance Rockefeller, he had served on White House 
     advisory panels on conservation.
       As the state commissioner, Mr. Diamond biked 533 miles from 
     Niagara Falls to his home in Port Washington on Long Island 
     in 1972 to promote a $1.2 billion state bond issue to pay for 
     water and air pollution controls and to purchase and protect 
     pristine private land.
       ``It has been just crazy enough to give us an invaluable 
     amount of publicity,'' he said on reaching New York City.
       The bond referendum passed.
       During his more than three years in the job, New York was 
     in the forefront of efforts to ban certain pesticides, 
     eliminate polluting phosphates from detergents and protect 
     vast swaths of the Adirondacks.
       The state also became ensnarled in a controversy over 
     Consolidated Edison's plans to build a hydroelectric plant at 
     Storm King

[[Page S5076]]

     Mountain in the Hudson Valley. Mr. Diamond said at the time 
     that he had grave reservations about the plan, but he also 
     said he had no choice but to approve a permit because his 
     department's jurisdiction was limited to the project's impact 
     on water quality. Environmentalists defeated the project 
     after 18 years of legal and administrative challenges.
       He resigned the post in 1973 to become executive director 
     of the Commission on Critical Choices for Americans, a body 
     created by Governor Rockefeller to set goals for the nation 
     and to keep him in the limelight for a potential presidential 
     campaign.
       In 1975, Mr. Diamond joined what became Beveridge & 
     Diamond, a Washington law firm that describes itself as the 
     nation's largest dedicated to environmental and natural 
     resources law. Through the firm, he advised corporations and 
     municipalities and served on dozens of nonprofit boards and 
     commissions.
       Henry Louis Diamond was born in Chattanooga, Tenn., on May 
     24, 1932, a descendant of Jews from Russia and Poland who 
     paused in their migration for a generation or so in Ireland. 
     His father, Louis, was a shopkeeper. His mother was the 
     former Esther Deich.
       Mr. Diamond received a bachelor's degree from Vanderbilt 
     University in 1954, served in the Army and graduated from 
     Georgetown University Law Center.
       In addition to his wife, the former Elizabeth Tatum, who is 
     known as Betty, he is survived by their daughter, Laura 
     Diamond Decker.
       After law school, Mr. Diamond was hired as a news writer 
     for CBS-TV in Washington. He also worked for the federal 
     government's broadcast enterprise Voice of America. But he 
     aimed much higher: the White House.
       Interviewed by Robert F. Kennedy for a job in his brother 
     John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign, Mr. Diamond 
     turned him down, apparently concluding that the candidate was 
     too young to be elected and that Nelson Rockefeller, a 
     Republican, offered more promise. Kennedy was 43 when he was 
     elected.
       A friend later introduced him to Laurance Rockefeller, who 
     by then was the chairman of the Outdoor Recreation Resources 
     Review Commission, an advisory panel created to review the 
     nation's environmental challenges and recommend legislative 
     remedies.
       Mr. Rockefeller hired Mr. Diamond to edit the commission's 
     27-volume report, which inspired legislation to preserve the 
     nation's wilderness and scenic rivers.
       President Lyndon B. Johnson named Mr. Diamond counsel to a 
     Citizens Advisory Committee on Recreation and Natural Beauty, 
     which was charged with drafting an environmental agenda. 
     President Richard M. Nixon reappointed him to its successor 
     group, the president's Advisory Committee on Environmental 
     Quality, and Mr. Diamond became its chairman.
       A 1965 White House conference convened by President 
     Johnson's citizens committee recommended strip-mining 
     controls, bans on billboards and burying power lines.
       The conference created ``a bridge from traditional 
     conservation to a new environmentalism and prompted a surge 
     of groundbreaking legislation,'' Mr. Diamond wrote in The 
     Environmental Forum.
       In 2011, the federal Interior Department gave him its 
     Lifetime Conservation Achievement Award.

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