[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 212 (Tuesday, December 15, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S7483]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Tribute to Michael B. Enzi

  Mr. President, next, my friend Senator Enzi. True collegiality and 
camaraderie have sometimes been hard to come by in Washington these 
past few years, and that is why I think about someone who never lets 
the temperature rise, who is always willing to find that common ground. 
As I heard him say and have heard him say many times before his closing 
speech here, in his words, ``I always believed we could agree on 80 
percent of the issues and on 80 percent of each issue, and that if we 
focus on the 80 percent, we can do great things for the American 
people.'' I remember his saying that when he would work with Ted 
Kennedy--and their genuine friendship--and I remember he said that many 
times to me as we worked on bills together.
  One of the first bills that I worked on a few years coming in here 
was with Senator Enzi, and it was about our paramedics and using the 
experience that they had gained serving in the Iraq and Afghanistan 
conflicts, making sure that when they came home, they could use that 
experience immediately and put it to work on being paramedics in our 
own country because we had a shortage, and we still do, and we wanted 
to respect that experience--so many of them in small towns where they 
would have to travel then to get the final degree they needed to be 
able to continue working as a paramedic. Mike and I wanted to make sure 
that experience they had in serving our country would be put to good 
use and would allow them to get those degrees faster.
  I was also fortunate to work with Mike on trying to turn the page on 
U.S.-Cuba policy and forge a new path. He was always willing to work 
with me on that and be one of the cosponsors of my bill to lift the 
embargo--something that I hope will eventually get done in his honor, 
as he understood that the way to get to democratic change in Cuba was 
by enhancing our relationship and that the Cuban people did not 
necessarily share the same views--and many of them do not--of their 
government and that so many people in Cuba love America and that it was 
very important for us to improve that relationship.
  As chair of the Budget Committee--and one of only two accountants in 
the Senate--Senator Enzi has also been dedicated to addressing our 
deficit and debt challenges. He has long urged the Federal Government 
to move to biannual budgeting, something that I support, as well, and 
something that my friend Jeanne Shaheen has been working with him on.
  Senator Enzi has a lot of smart proposals that he has put forward. I 
mostly, though, will remember his spirit--his spirit that we saw, and 
see, every week at the Prayer Breakfast--of course, he can still come 
back to that as a former Member--but also the work that he did in the 
Senate and how he would genuinely try to find common ground.
  I have told him many times how much I love his State, having once 
bicycled from Minneapolis to Jackson Hole to get there--1,200 miles in 
11 days with my dad--and when my husband and I, in the middle of the 
pandemic, decided to drive one place this summer, we drove to Wyoming 
and hiked in the Tetons. So I look forward and I hope to see Mike and 
Diana there, and my hope for him is all the best in his retirement.