[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 5 (Thursday, January 10, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S138-S139]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         TRIBUTE TO MAE STEVENS

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to 
thank Mae Stevens, a member of my legislative staff, for her service on 
my behalf to the people of Maryland and the Nation. Mae Stevens has 
served as my environmental policy adviser since 2015. In this role, she 
has advanced my priorities as the ranking member of the Transportation 
and Infrastructure Subcommittee on the Senate Environment and Public 
Works Committee. She has dedicated much of her time as a member of my 
staff to formulating and advancing sound policies at the intersection 
of drinking water, wastewater, stormwater, source water protection, 
equity, and affordability. I very much appreciate all that we achieved 
during her tenure in my office. Mae has spent more than 7 years on 
Capitol Hill and, 9 years prior to that, at various nonprofit 
environmental organizations.
  Mae enrolled at Columbia University's School of International and 
Public Affairs to earn a master of public administration from 
Columbia's Earth Institute. After Mae received her MPA, she worked as a 
policy adviser in the clean energy program at Third Way. From there, 
she joined the office of Representative Russ Carnahan, who represented 
Missouri's Third Congressional District. Later, she worked for 
Representative Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania, who represented the 
17th Congressional District at the time.
  Mae learned about hard work from her parents. Her father Raymond 
``Art'' Stevens owned an ice cream parlor in Royal Oak, MI, and her 
mother Jaky Van Dox dressed mannequins in clothing stores in the metro 
Detroit area. They spent every extra penny they had on ice skating 
lessons for their daughter, teaching her the grit, dedication, and 
perseverance she uses every day in my office. I know they are extremely 
proud of the good work she has done in my office and will continue to 
do in private sector.
  Mae believes that people in every community across America--urban, 
rural, and suburban--have a right to expect that the water coming from 
their tap is safe to drink and that Congress will do everything within 
its power to ensure that happens. Mae helped me to ensure that, for the 
third Water Resources Development Act--WRDA--in a row, Congress 
included updates to our Nation's drinking water, wastewater, and 
stormwater infrastructure to meet our water infrastructure backlog 
demands, while addressing the needs of our communities and our 
environment.

[[Page S139]]

  Mae also fought for Maryland priorities in the Senate's 2018 WRDA, 
including helping me double the amount of Federal funding spent on 
drinking water infrastructure, nationally and at the State level, and 
reauthorize the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, WIFIA, 
a low-cost financing mechanism for large water infrastructure projects. 
Baltimore, MD, is one of 12 projects in nine States that will receive 
the first of the WIFIA grants in 2019. This will help the 1.8 million 
people served by the Baltimore Department of Public Works continue to 
have some of the cleanest, safest, and more reliable drinking water in 
the country.
  Clean water is not a partisan issue, and Mae worked with her 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle and Capitol Hill to develop 
legislation that will benefit our aging water resources and 
infrastructure. The Senate passed the 2018 WRDA reauthorization by a 
vote of 99-1, a testament to the hard, bipartisan work of the majority 
and minority staff on EPW, personal staff like Mae, and the committee 
members. I was proud to be involved.
  Mae conscientiously strives to reduce her personal carbon footprint. 
One way she does this is by commuting to and from work on her bike. She 
helped me to increase funding for the Transportation Alternatives 
Program, TAP, and ensure that cities and counties continue to have a 
voice in how Federal dollars are spent on these important programs in 
the Fixing America's Surface Transportation--FAST--Act.
  As the British primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall has 
said, ``"You cannot get through a single day without having an impact 
on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to 
decide what kind of a difference you want to make.'' I want to thank 
Mae Stevens for the difference she has decided to make--and will 
continue to make--and wish her the best of luck in her future 
endeavors. Of course, even though she is leaving the Hill, she will 
always be a member of Team Cardin.

                          ____________________