[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 212 (Tuesday, December 15, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S7485]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Tribute to Tom Udall

  Madam President, Tom Udall and Jill, his wife, are friends of mine 
and Honey's, my wife. We have seen them from time to time and enjoy 
their company.
  Tom came to the Senate with a distinguished heritage. It is hard to 
talk about the environment in this country over the last 75 years 
without mentioning Stewart Udall, Mo Udall, and now Tom Udall and his 
cousins as well. He, too, was an important part of the Great American 
Outdoors Act. He has worked hard on the Appropriations Interior 
Subcommittee, working with Senator Murkowski not only to clean up the 
nuclear waste and defend our National Laboratories--we worked together 
on that--but he has worked on another area, too, and that is to make 
the Senate work and be more effective. He and I have had some different 
opinions about how to do that, but I have no doubt that during his time 
here, he has been one of the Senators whom one might call an 
institutionalist. He is someone who understands as Clarence Thomas once 
said about the Supreme Court when someone asked him: ``How can you and 
Justice Ginsburg get along so well when you have such different 
opinions?'' Justice Thomas said: ``We try to remember that the 
institution is more important than any of our opinions.'' I would say 
that this has been the attitude of Senator Tom Udall about the Senate.
  So seven of us will be leaving this place that Senator Prescott Bush 
said is where everybody in politics ultimately wants to be. Given how 
hard it is to get here and how hard it is to stay here, you would think 
it would be a place that people would want to be. My view of the Senate 
is just that--that it is hard to get here and hard to stay here, but 
while you are here, you might as well try to accomplish something good 
for the country. All of these colleagues of mine have done that, and I 
wanted to come to the floor today to salute each one of them.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record my remarks 
about each one of the Senators, as much as practical, following their 
remarks in the Congressional Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.