[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 204 (Tuesday, December 17, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7071-S7074]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MAIDEN SPEECH
Mr. CRAMER. Madam President, a very special thanks to my senior
Senator, my great friend, and our former Governor, Senator John Hoeven.
In fact, as he went through much of my speech for me, I thought to
myself: Why, this is kind of like when I played high school basketball
in Kindred, and we would be ahead by 20 points and the coach would get
me off the bench and say: Go in and try not to screw this thing up.
That is a little bit how I feel right now, but I thank him for the very
kind introduction. Most of it was true.
The idea of a maiden speech a year into your first term may seem a
little odd, but I actually kind of like the idea. It gives me a year's
worth of opportunity to reflect, which creates greater clarity about
the future and vision.
The first thing I want to say to all of my colleagues here is thank
you for being so welcoming--and I mean all of them. What they say about
the Senate and the collegiality of it is very true. It is not just
true. It is really important, and it is something worth preserving.
I can honestly say that out of the 99 that I have met, I love every
one, individually and collectively, and appreciate all they have meant
to me.
Kris and I have been married for 33 years. We have five children
together, and I am going to talk about one in particular in a little
bit.
Our children range in ages from 12 to 38, and that is too long of a
story to explain, but we love and are proud of all of them.
Our five grandchildren are a little closer in range. They range from
1 to 7, and we love every single one of them--Lyla, Beau, Nico, Chet,
and Willa--with all the love any grandparent could come with and with
all the love that God has for us.
I think it is important for people to know I am a child of God and a
follower of Jesus, and it informs everything that I do, both at home
and here and throughout life.
I think it is important to know a little bit about where you come
from. I was raised by loving parents. My dad was a rural electric
lineman who never once complained about going out in a storm to get the
lights back on for the farmers of our area. My mother was an elder care
giver when she wasn't pumping gas at the local Farmers Union station.
They did whatever they needed to do to help us kids and to provide for
our family. We never felt like we needed anything because we didn't. We
were loved, and we were well cared for and had great examples of
culture and work ethic and values that are North Dakotan.
I think it is important to understand where a person comes from, but
I want to fast forward a little bit to this last year. I said I was
going to talk a little bit about one of our sons. It was a tough
campaign. A lot of people think that North Dakota is this bright red
State and that everyone who runs there who is Republican wins. While
that certainly has been the trend, I think it is sort of important for
people to know that I am the first Republican in my lifetime to hold
the seat that I hold right now for the people of North Dakota. In fact,
the names of the previous Senators in this lineage are in this desk
that I stand at.
So it was a tough campaign. I got into the race late. I really didn't
aspire to be a Senator. I liked the House of Representatives and still
do, but the call came and I answered it.
But what made the year so tough--and, fortunately, it was shorter
than most campaign years in the U.S. Senate--is that I got in late. So
it was a short year, but in the middle of the campaign, in the early
part of the campaign, our 35-year-old son Isaac became very ill. He
suffered from alcohol-induced liver disease, and we spent a good month
and a half in the middle of an already short campaign at his bedside in
intensive care both in Bismarck and in Rochester at the Mayo Clinic. I
say that because it was perhaps one of the hardest 6 or 7 weeks of my
life, the deepest valley of my life, but it was also one of the most
instructive and informing. It was as informing as all those years in
North Dakota in the State office helping Senator Hoeven--then-Governor
Hoeven--build this dynamic economy.
Those several weeks with my son probably prepared me as well for this
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job as any. I got to see our healthcare industry up close. I got to
know more about addiction and mental illness and how tragic it is and
how devastating it can be and how consequential not dealing with it
actually is. It robs people of life. It is not just an inconvenience.
So it was instructive in those senses, but more than that, I got to
learn about our community.
I heard from thousands of Americans who watched this very public
tragedy play out in the public arena because of the very public job I
was seeking, and my faith in mankind was enhanced. My faith in God was
strengthened--learning that the sufficiency of His grace is more than
adequate not just for salvation but for life, and it makes everything
shall we say clearer for me today.
Senator Hoeven raised the subject of some of my committee
assignments, and I wanted to speak to that for a minute because he is a
very important part, as you can tell, of my public life and career.
While I stand on the shoulders of former Governor and former
Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer--John and I both served with him in
economic development when John was president of the bank in North
Dakota--it was John Hoeven who gave me my first entree into elected
office at the Public Service Commission in North Dakota and worked with
me. Then, of course, I had the opportunity to serve with him as he sat
on the farm bill conference committee when I served in the House of
Representatives.
When I had that very first important meeting with Leader McConnell to
talk about what committees I wanted to be on in the Senate, realizing
that I was coming from the House, where I only served on only one--I
served on the Energy and Commerce Committee. It is an important
committee, a big committee, but it was only one committee. Here, I
would serve on three or four or, as it turns out, five. The first thing
I did was look at Senator Hoeven's committee assignments, and I wanted
to assess how I could complement where he serves. He served on the
Agriculture Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
It made sense to me, with my environmental and regulatory background,
to serve on the Environment and Public Works Committee, where both
agriculture and energy development are greatly impacted. Whether it is
environmental policy or land policy, regulations that I think serve as
a bit of a taking of farmers' land are every bit as important as the
revenue they receive through safety net programs. So I sought and
received that.
With respect to the Banking Committee, John talked a little bit about
that and my role as an economic director in the State of North Dakota.
I have always liked macroeconomics, and it has intrigued me how
financial and economic policy go together. But as interesting as the
Federal Reserve is to me, and it is, and as important as the Export-
Import Bank is to me, and it is, it is really the community bank--like
the bank Senator Hoeven comes from and whose family started and was
building in North Dakota, the local credit unions, the farm lenders--
that is what drives me more than anything in the Banking Committee.
The Veterans' Affairs Committee is a great committee, and it is
something that I could never have imagined aspiring to or being
involved with. But I do know that John and I love veterans. North
Dakota is home to only 750,000 people, but 52,000 of them are veterans.
In North Dakota, patriots sign up at a rate four times the national
average. So public service in the form of wearing the military uniform
is really big and really important in our part of the country.
I had an opportunity for a number of years to chair the Rough Riders
Honor Flight in North Dakota, where we raised the money and organized
the trips for about 500 World War II veterans to come see the memorial
built in their honor. What a moving experience that was.
Before servicemembers return from duty, of course, they serve, and
that is why we should be working to give them the best resources we
can, which is why today is an appropriate day for this maiden speech,
because it is also a day we passed a very important National Defense
Authorization Act to provide the tools and the things our military men
and women need to be the dominating force for good in the world. It is
an honor to serve them.
I am the very first member of the Senate Armed Services Committee
from North Dakota. I didn't know that when I sought that committee
assignment to complement my Veterans' Affairs assignment, but I am
honored to do it. The reason I sought that one is because again, going
back, Senator Hoeven is a defense appropriator. I thought, how can I
best look out for North Dakota's assets? And the Armed Services
Committee seemed like the right place to be.
I also believe that North Dakota's assets are perfectly positioned
for the future of warfighting. So I am very grateful today for the
passage of the National Defense Authorization Act and for the
opportunity to serve on the Armed Services Committee.
We have Air Force bases in both Minot and Grand Forks. Their
histories are similar, but their new missions are very different. In
Minot, we have two-thirds of the nuclear triad and the B-52 bombers
that carry those impressive bombs and, of course, the intercontinental
ballistic missiles, which are being replaced now by the ground-based
strategic deterrent. The modernization of our nuclear triad in this
NDAA is very important to our State, and I am honored to have been a
part of seeing it through to completion.
We also have a very important space radar station in Cavalier--
something very few people know about. Very few people in North Dakota
are aware of that space station in Cavalier. Yet it is a very important
asset. Now, as we launch this sixth service, the Space Force, again, we
will see very important opportunities for North Dakota.
We also have an excellent National Guard--both Army and Air Force
National Guard--that does important work not just locally--and they do
great work locally--but around the globe. Every Member here can attest
to the power of their National Guard. Our ISR systems over in Fargo,
flying the UABs--it is just remarkable, what they do and what they
contribute to the national defense, our Air National Guard in Fargo,
the 119th Wing, the Happy Hooligans.
The Grand Forks Air Force Base--as I said, a base that was similar in
its founding to Minot--is now a UAB base, a global hot base where they
do important ISR work. Again, in the future of warfighting, the
importance of good intelligence is so critical, and the airmen in Grand
Forks are second to none in carrying out that mission.
Again, the strategic pick of my assignments was designed to
complement Senator Hoeven's and serve the good people of North Dakota.
I will spend a little bit of time talking about my service in the
House of Representatives because it is the People's House. I love the
People's House. Senator Thune from South Dakota served in the House of
Representatives, and he knows what it is like to be the only Member
from an entire State. It has its opportunities and its challenges.
I used to say to students who came to visit: If you want to know what
America looks like, go to the House of Representatives, sit upstairs,
look down, and you will see 435 people who are just like 700,000
others--just like each one of them.
The diversity of our country is perfectly demonstrated in the House.
I absolutely loved that, but I also knew how hard it was, because if I
could get my colleagues from South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and Alaska
to go along with me, I would have five votes. That is almost 10 percent
of California. That is a lot of relationship building to get things
done. Yet I love it. There are still things about the House that I
watch and love. There are things lately I watch and I wonder, but there
are a lot of things I love about the House. The Founders knew exactly
what they were doing when they created it.
To come here and be one of two, to be a Member of the U.S. Senate,
which is the equalizer for our legislative Chambers--our Founders
really knew what they were doing. To have an opportunity to work with
you all to provide a level playing field for the people of a smaller
State has been truly, truly marvelous.
I will not elaborate on my years as tourism director and economic
development director or even on the Public Service Commission because
Senator
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Hoeven has done a good job on that. I would just say this: The thing
that I learned more than anything on the Public Service Commission,
even though--I carried the pipeline portfolio; sited the original
Keystone Pipeline; sited thousands of miles of transmission lines,
electric, gas, oil; carried the coal portfolio in reclamation; and
worked with the Department of the Interior on those issues that are
very important to our State. What I learned more from all of that than
even big-time economics or engineering or energy security--as important
as those lessons were over the 10 years I served, the thing I learned
the most was how important the people are. In the wisdom of the
Midwest, the laws required that whether you were raising somebody's
utility rates, siting a pipeline or transmission lines, siting a
refinery or a coal-fired powerplant or a wind farm, you had to hold a
hearing in the community where the investment was taking place. In
other words, you couldn't hide behind the pillars of the State capitol;
you had to go to them and make it easy for them to come to you.
I learned from the people of the prairies of North Dakota about not
just life in general but how to site a pipeline. It was a farmer in
Walsh County who said about the Keystone Pipeline at an open meeting: I
don't know much about laying pipelines, but personally, I would try to
avoid that quarry you are going through.
So some very high-paid engineers moved the pipeline away from the
rocks and into better soil.
It was the mayor of Park River who came to a committee meeting and
said to me: I don't know much about pipelines, but you are going right
through the aquifer that serves the municipal water supply of my
community. I think it would be better to move it.
So I paid engineers to move it away from the aquifer.
Through the collective wisdom of the people of North Dakota and the
individual wisdom of many of the individuals of North Dakota, I learned
that was something not to be taken for granted or wasted, which is why,
in my service in the House and here in the Senate, I spend so much time
holding townhalls of all types--so I wouldn't rob myself of the value
and the benefit of the collective wisdom of the people I serve.
I am so grateful to Senator Hoeven. He is a skilled and accomplished
leader. He works tirelessly--you all know that--on behalf of the people
of North Dakota. He is relentless in his pursuit of things for North
Dakota. He has been a great friend and mentor. I am thankful for his
partnership and his willingness to work with me in the future, as he
did when I was on the Public Service Commission.
As we go forward, I do have a couple of thoughts about some
challenges. As I talked about this accessibility issue, this
opportunity we have particularly in small States to know the people we
work for really well and for them to have the opportunity to know us
really well and to collect their wisdom, I fear a little bit that the
lessons learned from being so close to the people are lost in this
town--not so much by Members of Congress, but I am a fervent advocate
of the administration and their officials getting out to our small
towns and into the towns of North Dakota and other towns throughout our
country.
It is an area where I think the Trump administration has excelled
beyond anybody. In fact, I believe this President to be the most
accessible President probably since Abraham Lincoln, who used to hold
office hours right in the White House, where people could come in off
the street and have an audience with him. And I am not just talking
about rallies. I am talking about a President who visits the State to
speak with leaders at roundtables and a Vice President who comes to our
military installations to meet with the airmen.
We have an Agriculture Secretary who has been to North Dakota--what,
three or four times, John?--not just to talk to the very important
leaders of the Farm Bureau and the farmers union and the commodity
groups, but I am talking about the farmers who get their fingers dirty.
We have a Commerce Secretary who, in the middle of negotiating with
China, came to North Dakota to talk to those farmers about the impact
of tariffs on their markets; a Veterans Affairs Secretary who studies
the alternative treatments being advanced and made available in Fargo;
an EPA Administrator who lets North Dakotans continue to lead the way
on promoting good waters of the United States policy; an Air Force
Secretary who understands air capabilities because she has seen them
firsthand; an Interior Secretary who came to listen to the concerns of
farmers and actually changed the direction of certain regulations as a
result of farmers pointing out how their personal property rights were
being stolen by the Federal Government; and a NASA Administrator who
observed the first ever university space program at the University of
North Dakota.
The list goes on and on, and I will spare you from it, but I think it
is an important lesson and testament to how good this country can be
and how much better it can be if we listen to the people in the
heartland. All of this is why, in addition to bringing people of
influence to my State so hopefully they can be influenced by it, I am
concerned about the sheer magnitude of our bureaucracy.
This week, we are going to hopefully pass a $1.5 trillion
discretionary budget or appropriations, but I worry about the people
who are going to manage that $1.5 trillion being so out of touch with
real, everyday Americans.
You can call it whatever you want. Some people call it the deep-
state, out-of-control bureaucracy, misguided but well-intentioned
public servants, power-hungry civil employees, whatever you call it. I
call it unelected bureaucracy that has codified corruption in many
cases. They turned their own interpretation of guidelines into
infallible laws, placing the creation and implementation of their
policies and processes above the needs of the American people whom we
serve and the elected leaders that send them there.
I had experienced it many times in the 6 years I had been in the
House, but I experienced it multiple more times in the Senate. Whether
this comes from a place of self-preservation or self-importance, I
believe it has to come to an end.
A defining part of my tenure since the day I arrived until the day I
leave will be to take on a bureaucracy that I believe has run rampant.
There are several Cabinet officials and agencies that can attest to
that statement already.
I am not unreasonable about it, I don't think. I don't intend to be,
but, Madam President, I am passionate about it. As I have made clear, I
do not believe in the abolition of government. But I do think
government needs to be more responsive to the people that pay for it.
We ought to be giving the people a government that is worth their
investment.
I aim as my highest goal at the highest level to return the focus of
the Federal Government back to the people. I have listened to so many
well-intentioned bureaucrats explain their process, explain their
system, explain their traditions and rarely do they talk about a human
being on the other end of all of that, so I am committed to doing what
is best for the people of this country with a very keen focus on the
750,000 North Dakotans whom I committed my life to serving. Their
individual and collective wisdom, along with their values, as old-
fashioned as they may seem to some, is our contribution to a great
nation. They would want me to say to all of you, Merry Christmas and
Happy Holidays.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I would just like to say how much I
appreciate Senator Cramer, the working relationship that we have, not
just here but a working relationship that goes back many, many years.
As you can tell, he speaks very well, but what comes through is not
only his commitment to his family and his faith, but his commitment to
the people of North Dakota and his commitment to the people of this
country.
It doesn't matter what issue he is working on. He takes the time to
listen to everybody, and he is always willing to explain where he is
coming from and why he comes to the conclusion he does. But there is no
question, he loves his faith; he loves his family; he loves his State;
and he loves this country.
Thank you, Madam President.
I yield the floor.
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The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
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