[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 178 (Friday, December 9, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7008-S7009]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO DAVID VITTER

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, today I pay tribute to the senior Senator 
from Louisiana, my friend David Vitter. Over more than a decade, I have 
had the privilege to get to know David as a colleague and a friend. 
When he retires in January, he will be greatly missed.
  David is a New Orleans man, born and raised. In his younger years, he 
achieved impressive academic feats, graduating from Harvard and earning 
a Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford. As he is fond of telling, 
after his time in England, he applied to three law schools--Harvard, 
Yale, and Tulane--and chose to attend the best of the three: Tulane.
  Just a few years later, he won a seat in the Louisiana House of 
Representatives. There, he earned a reputation as an ethics crusader--a 
reputation that has stuck with him throughout his career. Many 
observers credit him in no small part with the transformation of his 
home state's politics--once famously dominated by colorful but 
ethically questionable characters--and he should be rightfully pleased 
at the fruits his efforts bore for the State he loves. In Washington, 
his work to strengthen ethics laws at the Federal level may not have 
always made him the most popular among his colleagues, but they reflect 
the same spirit of reform and willingness to stand up for what he 
believes in that have been the hallmarks of David's career.
  On the legislative front, David has been a champion for his 
conservative

[[Page S7009]]

values and his beloved Louisiana. Taking office in 2005, he almost 
immediately was faced with one of the greatest crises any senator in my 
tenure has had to confront: Hurricane Katrina. As his State has faced 
Katrina's devastation and other natural disasters, Louisianans could 
always count on David to deliver for them, no matter what. Throughout, 
David mastered the skill of fighting as hard as anyone when the 
situation called for it--as he did as the top Republican on the 
Environment and Public Works Committee, pushing back against the 
overreach of the EPA--and then turning right around and making partners 
of those who were his most entrenched opponents--as he did by working 
with liberal Democrats to update the Nation's water infrastructure and 
pass a once-in-a-generation reform of the Nation's toxic chemical laws.
  David's work in the Senate has produced an impressive legacy for him 
and for Louisiana. As he embarks on his next chapter, I send my best 
wishes to him, his accomplished and lovely wife, Wendy, and his four 
children.

                          ____________________