[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 55 (Tuesday, March 29, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H3955-H3964]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           PAYING TRIBUTE TO THE HONORABLE DONALD EDWIN YOUNG

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that 
all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend 
their remarks and submit extraneous materials.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Louisiana?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from 
Arkansas (Mr. Hill).

                              {time}  1845

  Mr. HILL. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Louisiana for 
yielding.
  Madam Speaker, I rise today to join my colleagues on this House floor 
and remember our good friend, the dedicated dean of the House, 
Congressman Don Young, from the great State of Alaska.
  Don had a fire in him. He exuded joy in everything he did. And when 
he walked into a room, you knew he was there.
  Don was passionate in his desire to serve the people of Alaska, and 
for almost 50 years, he did just that. Don loved this House and chaired 
two of our key committees, Natural Resources and Transportation.
  As a freshman, yes, I, like, so many new members, sat mistakenly in 
his seat. The big bear growled me away.
  Once during a vote series, I voted ``no'' on a Don Young bill 
building roads in Alaska and walked out of the Chamber. Three minutes 
later, the whip team is texting me. Representative Ann Wagner is 
texting me: Don Young is screaming your name on the House floor. He 
wants to know why you voted ``no''. I went to dinner.
  The next morning, I found him and asked if he still needed me. He 
asked why I was a ``no''. I told him, and he smiled with that great big 
smile and asked if I could vote for his Alaskan fishing bill the next 
week. I said, yes, you bet, Mr. Chairman. You bet.
  I would like to extend my condolences to Anne, his children, and all 
who loved him. Don was a great man who will not be forgotten. May his 
life of service be an example to us all.
  Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Louisiana.

[[Page H3956]]

  

  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Huffman).
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Madam Speaker, there is so much I would like to say about my friend, 
Don Young. And some of you are probably wondering how could Don Young, 
the crusty, old conservative from Alaska be friends with a liberal 
Democrat from California like Jared Huffman, an environmental radical.
  Well, it wasn't because we agreed on Arctic drilling. It wasn't 
because we agreed on the Endangered Species Act or so many other 
things. We fought about those things.
  In fact, I will always remember our colleague, Mike Levin's, first 
Natural Resource Committee hearing. Don Young was shaking his fist at 
me, saying that he wanted to go out in the hall to settle our 
differences, and Mike couldn't believe it. And I told him that was 
nothing. That was tame by Don Young standards. You should have seen him 
last year.
  Don didn't actually wink when he did these things, but he didn't need 
to because we both knew that the next time I saw him, we would be 
laughing about it, having a glass of Chardonnay.
  Believe it or not, we did find some things to work on. We had a 
mutual love of fishing and salmon. We found lots of legislation to do 
together on those subjects.
  We both represent a lot of Indian country. We found common cause 
there. We worked together on national and international wildlife 
conservation. Now, he wanted to conserve wildlife so he could kill it. 
I wanted to conserve it so I could admire it generally, but we found 
common cause, and we did a lot of good work together.
  I will always remember that when I met with Don in his office, I 
would be sure to bring a bottle of Chardonnay from my district because 
it was Anne's favorite and because in the odd years, when Don was 
actually drinking, he liked it too.
  I am so glad that in addition to getting to serve for almost 10 years 
with this legend of the House, I got to have a lot of fun with him. I 
got to play paddle ball in the gym. I got to travel with him and Anne 
to Europe. I got to go fishing.
  In fact, I went to his fishing tournament in Alaska last year. I was 
the only Democrat there. My reward was Don put me on his boat with Karl 
Rove, and I spent about 9 hours on the water with Don Young and Karl 
Rove. That is an experience I will never forget. And it too was an 
awful lot of fun, just like everything with Don Young.
  So with Don Young gone, I have no doubt there are going to be plenty 
of other people around here that I will find things to fight about 
with. It is the other part that I will miss, and I think the 
institution will miss.
  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from 
California.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Babin).
  Mr. BABIN. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend and neighbor across the 
Sabine River for having this special order honoring Representative 
Young.
  We are here to honor the dean of our House, Congressman Don Young. 
For nearly half a century, Don devoted his life to serving the people 
of Alaska and our Nation, starting his long career in Congress just 4 
years after we landed an astronaut on the surface of the moon. A 
staggering thought.
  ``North to the Future'' is the motto of our 49th State. It is meant 
to represent Alaska as the land of promise. Throughout 10 different 
administrations, multiple wars and conflicts, national tragedies, the 
invention of the worldwide web, September the 11th, and much more, Don 
never stopped trying to spread the motto of his home State to the rest 
of our Nation because he saw America as a land of promise.
  He understood the need to learn from our successes and our failures, 
adapt and push forward boldly, and bold he was. I will miss his fiery 
personality, his fearlessness, and his unique ability to get bills 
expedited if he concluded that they were taking too long.
  I share Don's fierce love for Alaska and the great outdoors, and I 
routinely visited his great State to hunt and fish over many years. If 
you have seen Alaska's breathtaking terrain and wildlife, you will 
never wonder why Don adored that State so much. He stood by his 
State through the thick and the thin.

  It was an honor to walk with him in these sacred Halls, to serve 
alongside of him in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, to 
hear the wisdom that he gleaned throughout his many years in Congress, 
and to call him my friend.
  God threw away the mold after he created Don Young. History will 
remember him fondly, as it very well should. Anne and his children are 
in my prayers.
  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Babin).
  I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber) that 
served on both the National Resources Committee and the House 
Transportation Committee with Congressman Young.
  Mr. STAUBER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the dean of the 
House and my friend, Congressman Don Young.
  The great State of Alaska and the Eighth Congressional District of 
Minnesota, which I have the honor of representing here in Congress, 
have many shared similarities and qualities.
  These are the values that Don and I shared to fight for our way of 
life, to promote the responsible use of our abundant natural resources, 
and to provide for our children and grandchildren infrastructure built 
to last.
  This made working alongside the dean such a pleasure and an honor. We 
served together on the Natural Resources and Transportation Committees, 
and I will never forget the countless times he helped me out through 
the kindness of his heart.
  Since first being elected to office in 1973, Don picked up a range of 
helpful tips, funny stories, and congressional experience that he was 
never shy about sharing.
  His wife, Anne, along with the rest of his family, are in my prayers. 
Don's legacy of service will never be forgotten, and he will always be 
remembered as a titan for the people of Alaska and our great Nation. 
May he rest in peace.
  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).
  Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Louisiana for 
leading this tonight. I really appreciate it.
  There is so much that could be said about that. I think the really 
personal things about Don Young are what I would like to reflect around 
this place.
  When I first got here almost 10 years ago, we had kind of a common 
kinship in that we are both actually from northern California. He was 
born in a town near Meridian, California, not far from Yuba City, which 
is my back yard too, part of a rice farming outfit there.
  I knew his brother Doug from Woodland, part of Republican politics 
there. Both these guys are obviously characters.
  So, for Don, though, you could tell he was just a pillar, just being 
around him. Of course, his portrait is on the wall in the committee 
room and such, his work on transportation, but it is the small things 
that really make a difference; his warmth, him and his wife Anne, for 
me and my staff that would be around him at various events going on 
around the district.
  We talk a lot about that chair over there, right. And so I sat in the 
chair, not because I didn't know, because I did know, and I wanted to 
see what would happen.
  So I am sitting there, and he walks in. I got this thumb on my ear 
here. He grabbed it, and I said oh, I guess it is time for me to go. 
Sir, I am just warming the chair up because you are from Alaska. You 
need the chair warm for you. He bought that, but I got right out of 
there too.
  Now, just recently, I think it was last Wednesday, you know, he was 
in a wheelchair recently due to issues and such. And so we were heading 
to the elevator over here. And most of the time you might yield to that 
and let somebody with that issue going on have the elevator to 
themselves. Not this group.
  Me and about four other guys, we all piled in there with him because 
we all wanted to be with Don Young, even just for a short elevator ride 
and see what he was going to say and what kind of things were going to 
go on.
  That is the man we all love and are going to miss terribly and whose 
sweet

[[Page H3957]]

wife, Anne, God bless you. It has just been a pleasure knowing and 
being with you here.
  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Bost).
  Mr. BOST. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana for 
yielding.
  You know, a lot of people are saying a lot of things here about Don 
tonight as we are talking about his life and his service.
  Now, let's put it in perspective. Many of the people in this House, 
whenever he first came in, many weren't even born. In my case, I was in 
seventh grade, never knowing that I would meet somebody like Don Young.
  When I first came into this great assembly, there was a gruff, noisy 
person that sat back in that chair that we have talked about all along, 
yelling about this and talking about that, and I just wondered who he 
was.
  After serving with him on the Transportation and Infrastructure 
Committee, getting to know him, I realized that that gruff and that 
noise, let me explain something to you, has a heart that was bigger 
than the noise ever could be. The kindness that he didn't want to show 
when you were around him for just a little bit, you understood.
  But, also, what is so great is the amount of us that were able to tap 
into his knowledge of the institution, of the things that he has seen; 
ten Presidents, nine Speakers, someone said over 2,000 Members that 
have come through that have served with Don Young.
  Anytime someone has been in a position that long, the knowledge that 
they gain and the way that they can deliver for their district is 
amazing.
  This last week when we found out Don passed--unfortunately, in the 
world of social media, you put things out, and you put it out as 
positive as possible. But there was one person that responded in a 
statement, when I said he was there 50 years, well, that is why we 
should have term limits.

  Really? Don Young had term limits. Every 2 years. He went back to the 
people of Alaska, and the people of Alaska spoke every 2 years.
  Why did they do that? They did that because they had a great 
Representative that knew and understood and loved the State that he 
represented.
  Now, think about this. He sat in this House when he could have moved 
on to the Senate. It was the same run. He could have been Governor, but 
he chose to stay in this House because he believed in this House and 
the job he was doing for the people of Alaska. He served them well.
  I was blessed by the fact that I got to go and participate in the 
fundraiser that his first wife had put together, and that is a fishing 
tournament that allows for that money to be given to the native 
children of Alaska that are in need.
  After that, he married Anne. And to Anne and the family, his first 
love was his family, and we thank them for giving him to us, not only 
the ones that serve here today but the ones that have served over the 
past 50 years, and to this Nation that will be forever grateful for a 
man who stood up, told the truth, and used this institution to make 
this Nation better.

                              {time}  1900

  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from 
Alabama (Mr. Palmer).
  Mr. PALMER. Madam Speaker, I rise this evening with a heavy but 
grateful heart, heavy with the grief that comes from losing a friend 
but very grateful for having such a friend and colleague as Don Young.
  Congressman Don Young was truly an iconic figure in the history of 
the United States House of Representatives. Serving the great State of 
Alaska for three-quarters of its existence as a State, Don was 
determined to do all that he could for the people he both served and 
loved.
  One of my favorite memories of Don was at the beginning of my second 
term in our organizational meeting, and he was in disagreement with our 
Speaker. He said, ``You may be the Speaker, but I am Don Young.''
  This House will not be the same. There may be Members who will sit in 
his chair, but there will never be another that can take his place. 
There was and is only one Don Young. My colleagues and I extend our 
deepest sympathy to his family and his wife, Anne. We will all miss 
him.
  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Gohmert).
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, Don Young of Alaska was a fixture in this 
House. He was the kind of fixture that didn't just look pretty, because 
that wasn't his thing. He added immeasurably to everything else here.
  He and I have been on the Natural Resources Committee for years 
together, ever since I have been here. Since I ticked off Republican 
leaders over the years, I was not going to end up being the chairman, 
so I got to sit by him for years. That has been a real pleasure.
  He was a practical man and understood the contribution that he was 
making, and it was truly a massive contribution to this country, to 
Alaska, to the people of America. You never had to wonder where he 
stood, and I loved that about him. He didn't pull punches. He told you 
what he thought, and he didn't require a lot of words to do that.
  His laugh was contagious, but so was his love for America. He 
dedicated his life to making this a better place for all of us. He 
loved Alaska, he loved Alaskan people, and if someone tried to tell him 
that, gee, the Tribal folks in Alaska would be better off if you never 
drilled, he wouldn't have any of it. He would get upset at that point, 
tell them they didn't know. He had lived with those people, he had been 
there, he knew.
  Don Young was a survivor, and though we bid farewell to his remains 
today, his spirit will survive as long as there is a Capitol.
  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from 
Louisiana (Mr. Higgins).
  Mr. HIGGINS of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, Don Young was my friend. 
Years ago, before I entered Congress to serve my country at this level, 
as a police officer I was called upon to address the annual gathering 
of the Alaskan State Troopers. I will always remember, as our plane 
entered Alaska, the mountains rose from the Earth, and I had never 
witnessed such magnificent splendor of the Lord's creation. It was awe 
inspiring. Frightening even.
  A couple of years later I met Don Young, and I understood more both 
about Alaska and creation and, by extension, I understood more about 
all children of God.
  Don Young, his spirit, his voice echoed through this Chamber, and 
every day that I sat next to him for over 5 years I recalled the 
Scripture that came to my mind when I felt and saw those magnificent 
mountains arising from the Earth. I recalled the Scripture advised us 
in Micah, said, ``Hear ye now the Lord saith; Arise, contend thou 
before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice.'' This Chamber 
has echoed the voice of Don Young for five decades, and now he has gone 
to his reward.
  May I say to you, Don, you are the mountain of Alaska, you have been 
a dear and honored friend. You will be missed, loved, respected, and 
your memory shall always be honored. I am a better man, having known 
you. I thank my colleague, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves), 
for leading this Special Order.
  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. I thank my friend from Louisiana for his 
heartfelt message.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Baird).
  Mr. BAIRD. Madam Speaker, today I rise to pay tribute to my good 
friend, Representative Don Young.
  The House of Representatives has been home to many unique individuals 
throughout its history, perhaps none more memorable than my colleague 
and friend, Representative Don Young.
  His office walls are adorned with various mounted animals, and a 10-
foot grizzly pelt, a homage to his favorite place, Alaska. For 49 
years, Representative Young dutifully served his beloved Alaska, 
fiercely advocating for his home and the constituents he proudly 
served.
  When I first came to Congress, Don was among the first to welcome me 
and show me the ropes. This Chamber is far quieter without his 
boisterous laugh. It is dimmer without his smiling face. We will miss 
this unforgettable giant, and I will miss my friend.
  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Mast).

[[Page H3958]]

  

  Mr. MAST. Madam Speaker, dammit, I am going to miss my friend Don 
Young. My other close friend, Representative Higgins and I, we sat next 
to him pretty much every single day for nearly the last 6 years, and I 
can tell everybody that for every story that you have heard about bears 
and bear traps and snowshoeing and dog sledding and Iditarods and 
eagles and hunting and everything else that you heard about him, there 
are a dozen stories that you have not heard but you wish you heard. 
They were that good.
  He was resilient. He was a mountain of a man, as you have heard from 
everybody. He was a fearless friend, and the only thing that he loved 
more than his country and his State of Alaska was his family and his 
wife, Anne, and that all encompassed just one of the most incredible 
men I have ever had the honor of knowing.

  My friend, Don Young, we are going to miss you, and may you rest in 
peace, my friend.
  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. I thank my friend from Florida.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. 
Westerman), the ranking member of the House Natural Resources 
Committee.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. Madam Speaker, it is my honor to stand in this Chamber 
tonight and to pay tribute to one of the longest serving and I think 
one of the most effective Members to ever stand in this Chamber. Don 
Young was not just the longest-serving Member, he was also a mentor and 
a friend; and he is someone who will be dearly missed.
  Outside of Don's service as a legislator, just sitting and talking 
with him and hearing the stories of his life, he told me one time about 
running a 100-mile trap line in the remote part of Alaska, and it was 
like I was speaking to some character out of a novel or out of an 
Outdoor Life magazine article. He seemed to have done everything.
  It is the stories that I think we are going to remember from Don. He 
passed very great legislation that had to do with everything from 
fisheries to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. He was behind that. But 
everybody who knew Don will remember the stories. We asked some of 
Don's former staff members if they could share stories, and I have got 
many pages, too many to read, just treasures here.
  I want to share one story from David Whaley, who was a staff member 
for Don. He says one of my favorite Don Young stories is about the 
original Magnuson-Stevens Act, then known as the Fisheries Conservation 
and Management Act, or FCMA. The legislation extended U.S. jurisdiction 
over fisheries out to 200 miles. Many people have heard the story about 
the House passing the bill first and doing all the heavy lifting, and 
then the Senators getting all the credit. But not many people know that 
both the State Department and the Department of Defense were opposed to 
extending our jurisdiction out to 200 miles.
  In the old days, if the President was flying to a Member's district, 
the Member would often be offered a ride on Air Force One back to the 
district. After both the House and the Senate had passed the FCMA, 
President Ford was flying somewhere that required a refueling stop in 
Anchorage, so Congressman Young was offered a ride.
  As it happened, the Secretary of State was also on board. After they 
took off, the President asked Congressman Young into his office on the 
plane and had the Congressman debate the merits of the legislation with 
the Secretary of State. Congressman Young then got off the plane in 
Anchorage not knowing what the President was going to do. As we all 
know, the President signed the bill, and that is a story of how Don 
Young out-debated Henry Kissinger.
  What a remarkable career, what a remarkable man. I got the privilege 
on my first trip to Alaska with Don to be on a fishing boat with him 
for the day, and the only thing I regret is that we didn't have a video 
camera recording all the stories. Those are things that I will cherish 
about Don.
  But I want to share a personal story that Don shared with me out here 
on the House floor. A former member from Arkansas named Jay Dickey, who 
Don thought the world of, was always telling people about his friend 
Jesus, and after Jay died, Don just caught me on the floor and he said, 
``I want you to know something. Your predecessor told me about his 
friend Jesus,'' and he said, ``And I put my trust in him, and some day 
I am going to go see him.'' I thought about the Scripture in Romans 
that says if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe 
in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 
That wasn't the conversation I was expecting to have with Don Young 
that day, but I am glad he had that conversation because I know some 
day I am going to see Don again. That is the way Don was. He told 
stories that gave encouragement, he told stories that were reassuring, 
and that was probably the most reassuring story that Don ever shared 
with me.
  We are going to miss him, but we can learn from his example. I again 
thank the gentleman from Louisiana for hosting this Special Order.
  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, it is an honor to yield to 
the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished majority 
leader of the House.
  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from 
Louisiana, Garret Graves, for yielding. I thank him for taking this 
Special Order for a special person.
  Now, I must say I am not going to have any funny stories about Don, 
although funny stories there are. Nor can I say that I ever fished with 
Don, because I didn't. Nor did I ever hunt with Don. I didn't. But I 
served 41 years with Don Young, and I got to know him very well: As a 
friend, as a Member of this House, as a fellow American; and, yes, 
incidentally as a Republican and a Democrat because neither Don nor I 
proceeded in our relationship on the basis of our party affiliation but 
on the basis of common ideals, common objectives, and common love for 
this country.

                              {time}  1915

  I am honored to join my colleagues in paying tribute to my friend Don 
Young, who represented the State of Alaska in this House for 49 years.
  Don was one of three people who were senior to me in this House. 
There are two Republicans, Mr. Smith and Mr. Rogers, who I think both 
have the same seniority, so maybe they are co-deans of the House. But I 
am the senior Democrat in the House, and therefore, I had a long time 
to work with, to know, and to grow in respect for a crusty curmudgeon 
who could be as tough as nails but could also be as nice as you would 
hope a fellow colleague to be.
  As a matter of fact, I was here working as--I wasn't an intern 
because I was getting paid. I was at Georgetown Law School working when 
Alaska became a State. When Alaska and Hawaii became States, they 
became States together. The theory was that Alaska would be a Democrat 
State and Hawaii would be a Republican State. I use that analogy 
because who knows what we are going to be 10 years from now or 20 years 
from now, so making decisions on a partisan basis probably is not what 
we ought to be doing.
  But Don loved Alaska, and as the junior Senator from Alaska said 
today at the memorial service held for Don as he lay in state, an honor 
few Americans get--less than 50 Americans. Don Young got that honor.
  Many, of course, have commented on the sudden and unexpected nature 
of his passing. Surely, however, death had to take him by surprise 
because if he had seen death coming, death would not have stood a 
chance.
  Don Young was ferocious. He was ferocious for his constituents, for 
whom he felt a sacred responsibility and delivered so much over his 25 
terms in office. He said, ``I will defend my State to the dying 
breath,'' and that he did.
  When he was taken from us, Don was on his way home from legislative 
session, headed back to meet with his constituents and make sure they 
knew how he was fighting for them in Washington.
  Don was ferocious, but he also was gentle. Those who got to know him 
saw that behind that often-prickly facade was a tender and warm-hearted 
man who cared about his country and cared about his colleagues. He 
cared most of all about his family.
  The love he felt for his family, for his constituents, and for the 
institution was as enormous as the State he represented.
  I particularly was close to Don and fond of Don because he loved this 
institution. I love this institution. It is one

[[Page H3959]]

of the unique institutions of the world where the only way you can get 
here is for your neighbors to choose you. Nobody can appoint you. No 
Governor can appoint you. No President can appoint you. No majority 
here can appoint you. You come here because your neighbors respect you. 
And Don's neighbors 25 times over almost 50 years got the opportunity 
to say: Don Young, we trust you, and we want you to go to Washington to 
represent us.
  There is only one Member of Congress from Alaska. They have two 
Senators but only one Representative. What an honor for all of us to be 
selected by our neighbors to represent and articulate their voice in 
the Halls of this Congress.
  I respected Don, and he respected me. On many occasions, we stood and 
worked together on behalf of this institution and on behalf of the 
Members of this institution.
  Don had a passion, as we all know, for decorum, known for tapping his 
cane and urging whoever sat in the chair to call the vote. ``Regular 
order'' would come from the seat at the back of the Chamber because he 
felt that the Chair was not bringing the vote to a close soon enough. 
And he was right. It didn't mean that the Chair closed the vote because 
we were waiting for other people to come because they were late--but 
never Don Young. When the bell rang, Don Young answered the call. He 
never sat in the corner. He was always ready for the fight. He was 
always ready for the challenge.
  When votes were called, we weren't always on the same side. That is 
what is written here. We were very rarely on the same side, but we were 
always on the same side when it came to Members, this institution, and 
the American people.
  In fact, just because we were on opposite sides, it did not mean that 
we were on opposite sides from a personal standpoint. I hope all of us 
could learn that lesson. We are all chosen by our neighbors, as I said, 
to be here. For that reason alone, we ought to respect one another.
  I don't mean that everybody does things that ought to be respected 
all the time; they don't. But it is important to understand, 
particularly now as Putin is testing whether democracies can work. Xi, 
the leader of China, and Putin wrote a 5,000-page paper just about 6 
weeks ago. Their premise was democracies cannot succeed because they 
cannot come together, and they cannot make decisions in a timely 
fashion.
  Don Young was somebody you could go to in a very collegial fashion, 
and if you disagreed, you disagreed with honor on each side. But if you 
agreed, you joined hands to accomplish the objectives of that 
agreement.
  I always knew that Don believed he was doing the best he could for 
those he served, and he spoke and voted with his convictions. Whenever, 
as I have just said, we found common ground and common cause, it was a 
pleasure working with him and knowing that I had alongside me someone 
so fiercely devoted to getting a job done on behalf of his people and 
on behalf of our country.
  It says here that now Don is at rest. The good Lord is saying, if 
that is rest, I am in real trouble because that guy is not stopping. He 
is still punching. He is still fighting. He is still yelling out 
``regular order.''
  We are better for having known him and served with him.
  I join in offering his wife, Anne--who I hugged and gave a kiss to 
earlier today. I said how much I grieved his loss and shared her love 
for this extraordinary man. His daughters will miss him. Their families 
will miss him. We will miss him. And this institution will miss him.

  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Maryland for his remarks.
  Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Madam Speaker, Don Young served in this Chamber for nearly five 
decades, for nearly 50 years. Prior to that, he was a teacher, a 
trapper, a gold miner, a boat captain, a legislator--an incredible 
background for somebody to serve in this Chamber, such a diverse 
background and diverse experiences.
  I was in a meeting with him last year at the White House, and he 
stood up and said to President Biden: I need a picture with you. I have 
had a picture with nine other Presidents, and I need one with you.
  I mean, just think about that, with nine other Presidents that he 
worked with, that he served with. The history there is unbelievable.
  Everybody in this Chamber has a Don Young story. Everybody has an 
interaction that is incredibly memorable.
  One of them that I won't forget is when we were at the White House 
and a bill was being signed into law that opened up the energy 
production in Alaska in an area--I think he told me he had been working 
on this for 30 years. He was so excited about it, and he turned around, 
looks back, and says: What I lack in intelligence, I make up for in 
perseverance.
  Thirty years to get something done, but he wasn't going to stop.
  There are so many stories about Don Young and that famous knife. That 
knife has been pulled out and involved in so many stories across that 
50 years. I will bet that everybody in this Chamber has a story about 
that knife.
  I believe there have been over 2,170 Members of the House who served 
with Don Young, and I think that all of them have a story of the knife.
  I was standing in the back of the Cannon Caucus Room during a 
Conference meeting where there was a heated discussion about changes in 
indirect spending, and Don Young took it to the back of the room with 
the then-Speaker of the House, John Boehner. Don is right up in Speaker 
Boehner's face. I think that this is covered in Speaker Boehner's book. 
He got right up in his face, and he is yelling at him. Don takes that 
knife out--and to be clear, it was not open--but he had that knife 
right at the Speaker's neck. The Speaker's security detail starts 
walking in, and Boehner looks at them, and he is like, no, he is 
harmless.
  There are so many stories, and they are all true--so many more. But I 
also want to say that while many people view this and believe this is 
the Don Young, the Don Young with the scowl that is portrayed in the 
media, I think this is the Don Young that so many of us actually know.
  Don Young would swear. He would scream. He would yell. He would have 
his growls and his scowl. But this is the Don Young that we knew. He 
was a grizzly bear on the outside, but Don Young was a teddy bear on 
the inside.
  I have been subjected to the yelling and the screaming and cursing 
and everything else, and I finally realized after years that I could 
just go to him and say, ``Don, shut up,'' and he would just make that 
face and start chuckling, the biggest teddy bear of a man.
  There is a lot more to Don Young.
  This is Don Young and Congressman George Miller, who was the ranking 
member of the House Natural Resources Committee. This was in the late 
nineties.
  Don Young actually enacted 123 pieces of legislation, one of the most 
successful legislators to ever serve in this body.
  This picture was taken after years of negotiation among these folks. 
This is Congressman Chris John of Louisiana, as well as the famous 
Congressman John Dingell of Michigan and Congressman Billy Tauzin of 
Louisiana. This was landmark conservation legislation that these guys 
worked on.
  Don recognized the art of the deal. He recognized when you could 
actually get something done working together with other people. I will 
say it again, with 123 bills signed into law, Don was an amazing 
legislator.
  He was also tough as nails. Something that people don't know, and I 
will go ahead and violate his HIPAA privacy here: Don Young was 
scheduled to have back surgery this week. He goes to the doctor, ``I 
have been having back pain,'' and folks will remember him walking 
around with a cane. He goes and gets a back X-ray and an MRI. He had a 
broken back. He had a broken back and was walking around, continuing to 
do his job fighting for the people of Alaska with a broken back. Don, I 
will say it again, was tough as nails.
  Madam Speaker, to the citizens of Alaska, I would like to tell you 
that Don Young absolutely bled for your State. He fought for it; he 
defended it; and he bled for the State of Alaska. I will tell you that 
I know this because I worked for him. I had the honor of working for 
Chairman Young on the Transportation Committee, and it was always 
Alaska first.

[[Page H3960]]

  There is a huge alumni class of hundreds and hundreds of people. I 
would tease Don all the time that I was the only person that was able 
to overcome the stigma of Don Young and make something of myself. I 
said that in jest, I want to be clear to the hundreds of Don Young 
alumni who are out there that is a phenomenal group of people.
  Some people advocate for term limits in this body, and I agree. I 
think that term limits should happen. I think that some people when 
they are here for 2 weeks it is pretty clear that they should be term-
limited.
  But I will also tell you that Don Young, after nearly five decades 
fighting for the State of Alaska, he shouldn't have been subjected to 
term limits. He fought for that State every single day.

                              {time}  1930

  On the Wednesday before his death, he and I stood right over on the 
side of this Chamber, he was in his wheelchair, and we had a 
conversation. He was talking about the House versus the Senate. He was 
talking about how in the Senate, his senators had to work together and 
figure it out.
  He talked about how, for Alaska, he was the people's voice. He was 
the only one. He was the people's voice. There was no delegation to 
fight with or negotiate with. It was Don--a State that is nearly one-
fifth the size of the Continental United States; three times the State 
of Texas. Take that, Texas.
  Many people believe that the fact that Alaska has one Member of 
Congress is because of a pesky little thing called the Census, or 
counting population, or the Constitution.
  Madam Speaker, I submit to this body that the reason the State of 
Alaska has just one Member is because all you needed was Don Young.
  Madam Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the 
distinguished gentlewoman from the State of California (Ms. Pelosi), 
the Speaker of the House.
  Ms. PELOSI. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Madam Speaker, I thank Congressman Graves for arranging this special 
tribute to a devoted patriot, a serious legislator, and endearing 
colleague and friend, the dean of the House, Congressman Don Young. I 
thank Mr. Graves for his leadership in putting this together. I am 
pleased to join our distinguished Democratic leader, Mr. Hoyer, who is 
still here on the floor now for this.
  Madam Speaker, this morning, Congress had the sad and official honor 
of welcoming Congressman Young back to the Capitol to lie in state in 
Statuary Hall. As Speaker, it was my solemn privilege to join in paying 
tribute to this legendary leader, as his historic public service 
brought luster to the Congress and to the country.
  It was always clear that Don was passionate about his position and 
his patriotism, and about working in this institution to make a 
difference.
  As an Army veteran, he was a force for ensuring our servicemembers, 
veterans, and military families got the care they earned;
  As a former teacher and passionate advocate for quality education for 
all of our Nation's children; and
  As a champion for Alaska--as Congressman Graves pointed out, and Mr. 
Hoyer as well--he was relentless in delivering investments to his 
beloved home State, especially lifting up Native communities in honor 
of his late wife, Lu.
  When Don became dean in December 2017, he said right here on the 
House floor: I love this body. I believe in this body. My heart is in 
the House.
  He loved the House and the House loved him. Indeed, Don Young was an 
institution in the House of Representatives. As was said this morning, 
49 years for the 49th State, The Last Frontier, which he loved; Alaska.
  While a committed conservative, he was more than willing to work 
across party lines if it meant delivering for his beloved home State of 
Alaska. And as dean, he cherished the duty to bring Members together 
and to defend the dignity and integrity of this institution.
  I, myself, was personally honored to be sworn in as Speaker two times 
by the distinguished dean, Don Young, in 2019 and 2021.
  As dean, he cherished his duty to bring Members together, as I said. 
Despite political differences, many of us on the other side of the 
aisle enjoyed close personal friendships with him built on our shared 
reverence and respect for this institution.
  His salmon dinners were legendary. His personality was similarly 
legendary.
  While we are devastated by the loss of our dear friend and colleague, 
each of us has a duty to honor his unending love for the House and the 
towering legacy he leaves behind.
  Again, I call to attention the fact that George Miller, who served 
with him wrote--it is online in The Hill--an article he wrote with John 
Lawrence as opinion contributors. But George Miller and Don Young were 
back and forth, chair and ranking member, on the Interior Committee and 
the Committee on Natural Resources. You have to read it because any one 
sentence taken out of context, you might not appreciate, but let me 
just read what he said at the end: ``Saying you miss Don Young doesn't 
mean he was right all the time or that he was invariably wrong; it 
means the House is diminished by his loss. He was a great Congressman 
and a great friend; Alaska was fortunate to have him.''
  May it be a comfort to his beloved wife, Anne, his dear children, 
Dawn and Joni, and his 20-some darling grandchildren that so many in 
the Congress and the country mourn their loss.
  Madam Speaker, I include in the Record the statement of George Miller 
and John A. Lawrence.

          Don Young: A Conservative Who Believed in the House

                (By George Miller and John A. Lawrence)

       Don Young, the Alaska congressman who died on March 18 at 
     88 and who is lying in state today, was a hard-nosed, in-
     your-face, unapologetic, old-line conservative. An ardent 
     hunter and gun advocate, the walls of his legendary Rayburn 
     building office looked like the workplace of an over-active 
     taxidermist: covered in heads, hides and horns of the 
     creatures that had the misfortune to cross paths with this 
     former teacher, trapper and river boat captain. A descendent 
     of the early conservationist movement that preserved open 
     lands and wildlife so he could drill and graze on the former 
     and shoot the latter, he had no patience with public land 
     purists who demanded minimal human intrusions on the natural 
     ecosystem. It is fair to say he was much more Safari Club 
     than Sierra Club.
       Don was not a subtle personality, as many discovered 
     throughout his career. If he was unhappy with your criticisms 
     or bored with your speechifying, he might pull out his 
     hunting knife and hold it to your throat or jam it into the 
     dais next to you at a hearing. The chief proponent of logging 
     old forests and drilling the fragile coast, he was a hero to 
     his Alaska constituents who sent him to Congress longer than 
     any other sitting member, but a desecrating exploiter of the 
     public's resources to environmentalists, especially those in 
     the other 49 states.
       But if Don was a throwback to an earlier age of gruff, 
     sharp-elbow politics, he also retained that era's deep love 
     for the House in which he spent the bulk of his life, where 
     he chaired two committees and served as Dean--and where it 
     was not considered an act of treachery or political suicide 
     to reach across the aisle.
       There is often a tendency when someone dies to sand off the 
     hard edges and portray the recently departed as something of 
     a saint. Don would be the first to acknowledge he was no 
     saint, and he'd be furious with anyone who tried to sand off 
     his rough edges. He would bellow like a wounded grizzly when 
     he made concessions on the Tongass forest or the Alaska Lands 
     law, but once the deal was struck in the negotiations, he 
     would go out on the floor and defend the work product of his 
     committee.
       Even so, Don remained a pariah to most national 
     environmental activists for promoting projects like the 
     Trans-Alaska pipeline or drilling in the Arctic Wilderness 
     (both issues on which we strongly disagreed with him), and 
     many of his own colleagues were angry with him for pushing 
     through the $400-million Gravina Island ``bridge to nowhere'' 
     that became a paradigm of congressional pork and provoked 
     Congress to ban earmarks. But the people who worked on those 
     projects and would have driven on that bridge (it was 
     cancelled in 2005) were Don Young's constituents, and he was 
     doing what congresspeople have done since time immemorial: 
     taking care of the district. And it's worth noting that the 
     House, after a decade of prohibition, has resurrected--with 
     greater transparency--earmarks as a crucial way of securing 
     the votes to pass legislation.
       Because he was very much his own man and did not suffer 
     fools (or anyone else, for that matter) lightly, Don was 
     skeptical of the new breed of hyper-partisans who emerged 
     halfway through his long tenure in the House. Back in 1994, 
     he was one of just a handful of Republicans who refused to 
     embrace Newt Gingrich's ``Contract With America,'' a 
     collection of half-baked, rhetorical broadsides against the 
     Democratic majority under which he had always served. Asked 
     why he declined to embrace the campaign

[[Page H3961]]

     document, he matter-of-factly declared, ``Because it's a 
     crock of shit.''
       Later in the decade, Don unexpectedly joined with leading 
     environmentalists to support the Conservation and 
     Reinvestment Act (CARA) that offered up vast lands for both 
     hunting and backpacking but also included greater protections 
     for landowners and restrained federal land acquisitions. Down 
     at the White House, plying the bill's key sponsors with Diet 
     Cokes as they happily missed floor votes, Bill Clinton 
     professed his commitment to the bill to a delegation that 
     included Republicans like Young who had just voted to impeach 
     him. When Young left the West Wing after a couple of hours, 
     he marveled, ``No president has spent that much time with me 
     since Nixon'' three decades earlier.
       Don helped build a stunning bipartisan coalition for CARA 
     that passed the House with over 300 votes but stalled in the 
     Senate. When asked why he could not get the bill past the 
     upper house, he blamed ``those crazy, god-damned right-wing 
     bastards.'' When he was reminded ``Don, you're a crazy right-
     wing bastard, you know,'' he answered, ``That's true, but I 
     know how to cut a deal.''
       The House Don Young leaves behind is one where knowing how 
     to cut a bipartisan deal is a much more difficult challenge 
     than in his glory days, wielding the gavel at the Resources 
     and Transportation committees. His departure marks one more 
     loss of the kind of people who were willing to take tough 
     stands and live with the fallout, good or bad, because it was 
     vastly better than gridlock and cheap shot sniping.
       Saying you'll miss Don Young doesn't mean he was right all 
     the time or that he was invariably wrong; it means the House 
     is diminished by his loss. He was a great congressman and a 
     great friend; Alaska was fortunate to have him.
  Ms. PELOSI. Madam Speaker, frequently we will say at a service, ``I 
mourn with you.'' We are all mourning in the House with Anne, Dawn, and 
Joni because we have all lost a dear, dear friend, and we are praying 
for them at this sad time. He was a blessing to our country. May 
Congressman Don Young forever rest in peace.
  When I asked George Miller this morning, what word would you use to 
describe Don Young. He said: He was amazing. He shouted over the phone: 
He was amazing.
  And how appropriate that the family had suggested ``Amazing Grace'' 
as the song to be sung at his service earlier today as he laid in state 
in Statuary Hall.
  Yes, Don Young. Amazing. ``Amazing Grace.''
  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I want to give tribute to 
Don's wife Anne and to his daughters, Joni and Dawn, his sister, but 
his family goes well beyond that. I have a number of statements from 
former alumni of the Don Young staffer world that submitted statements.
  Madam Speaker, I include in the Record several statements written by 
former staffers of Congressman Don Young: Michael Henry, Pamela Day, 
C.J. Zane, Sherrie Slick, Duncan Smith, Zack Brown, Jerry Hood, Jim 
Coon, Sophia Varnasidis, Lisa Pittman, Colin Chapman, Holly Lyons, 
David Schaffer, Jason Suslavich.

                             Michael Henry


       Staffer to Dean Donald Edwin Young (R-AK)--Personal Office

                       (June 1996-November 1997)


                      House Committee on Resources

                      (November 1997-January 2000)


          House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

                     (January 20001-November 2002)

       Since the world lost the Dean of the House of 
     Representatives, Congressman for all Alaska, husband to Anne, 
     father to Joni and Dawn, friend and mentor, Don Young, I have 
     been asked several times to share a story or memory. How do 
     you sum up a person so impactful to your life, such a big 
     personality and titan legislator? I have been frozen, unable 
     to share much to encapsulate the man so important to so many, 
     including my family.
       What keeps returning to my mind is the dichotomy of Don 
     Young. He was both gruff and held as large a heart as anyone 
     I have ever met. He was strategic in what he did and said and 
     will be remembered for what appeared as gaffs. He lived 
     without bias and will be remembered for straight forward 
     opinions. And he lived every day on his own terms and was one 
     of the most selfless people I have ever met. Which is why no 
     one version of Don Young could ever sum the totality of his 
     complex personality.
       While our society is unlikely to allow another trapper 
     turned tugboat captain turn into a prolific legislator, we 
     should cherish the brash honesty that accompanied his sincere 
     caring and steadfast loyalty. While like all of us, I'm sure 
     he would choose to handle many situations differently with 
     the benefit of hindsight, I'm not sure he held any regrets. 
     And for those who disliked, Don Young for the caricature he 
     was made into, I will say it is that emotion which has fueled 
     the love the rest of us hold for the Dean of the North. 
     Nobody likes to be disliked, but that energy became part of 
     his lore and so many fiercely loyal to him.
       One thing that wasn't complicated about Don Young was his 
     proficiency as a legislator. The numbers simply do not lie. 
     And, with his passing, we owe him the reflection of what he 
     truly was--one of the greatest legislators our country will 
     ever know. Don Young was the original sponsor of 123 bills 
     signed into Law by 10 Presidents--8 more bills signed into 
     law than the ``Lion of the Senate'', Ted Kennedy advanced 
     during his similar time in the Congress. And while that 
     statistic makes clear his importance to the legislative 
     branch of government, it was one I don't recall him ever 
     boasting about.
       Don Young was far prouder of his service to the people's 
     body, the House of Representatives. Which spanned nearly 50 
     years. He routinely spoke about the 10 Presidents he worked 
     with and the 2,178 Members of the House of Representatives he 
     served with. It was the people and the relationships that 
     mattered to him, not how many votes he made (or missed), 
     getting the better of an opponent at a hearing or the 
     deference that was paid to him everywhere he went. He 
     appreciated a good deal and a real connection to the people 
     involved. He loved his colleagues and everyone he met with. 
     These were the people, as he liked to reflect, who taught him 
     something new every day. And that's what kept him in Congress 
     for so long--new issues that accompany each Congress and the 
     recalibration that comes with an ever-evolving body.
       As I try to bring a story to close my reflection on 
     Congressman Don Young, my Chairman on two full Committees, 
     House Committee on Resources and Transportation and 
     Infrastructure, I am drawn to the fact that one of the 
     greatest negotiations of his career occurred during the time 
     I worked for him. It was a negotiation that had him to 
     working, and often arguing, with Republicans as forcefully as 
     Democrats. And ably navigating the Senate as well as a 
     formidable President Bill Clinton. At one point, his dutiful 
     staffer (me) added in a relatively junior Congressman Richard 
     Pombo (R-CA) to a high-level negotiation. Some of us were 
     concerned that Chairman Young needed a conservative backstop 
     so as not to give too much to the Democrats as we pursued a 
     deal. The result was his getting his way with all the various 
     factions and the crafting the most significant conservation 
     legislation of the time. Unfortunately, this bill was not one 
     of the 123 Don Young sponsored that became law, but 
     nonetheless, one of his greatest legislative achievements. 
     Even though the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA) was 
     controversial on the left and right, he won a vote of 315 in 
     the House. That is legislating and that is what Don Young did 
     best.
       The speed in how fast legislators are forgotten is off 
     putting, but Don Young's legacy is secure. He was the best 
     boss hundreds of staff could have dreamed to have. He 
     empowered us to be creative. He was mostly supportive, even 
     after a blunder. He always took the time to help us get 
     better and never begrudged any the opportunity to grow 
     outside his office with a career move. He spent every day 
     with a servant's heart. He worked to make the institution of 
     Congress better and came to work each day seeking 
     opportunities for Alaskans. We are all a less with his loss.
                                  ____


                               Pamela Day


                                Team DY

                              (2003-2020)


                             Chief of Staff

                              (2009-2020)

       When I was hired by Congressman Don Young back in 2003, I 
     had no idea that I would call him ``Boss'' for the next 17 
     years. I also didn't know that when you joined ``Team DY,'' 
     you instantly inherited dozens, if not hundreds, of new 
     family members. Because when you worked for Congressman 
     Young, you were indeed treated like family, and even after 
     you left the office and moved on to your next job 
     opportunity, you never truly left. The Don Young alumni 
     network is vast and full of great people who have gone on to 
     do impressive things, but we all know that we owe a 
     tremendous debt of gratitude to Congressman Young for taking 
     a chance on us and giving us the opportunity of our lives to 
     do something important--work with him and represent Alaskans.
       I was his only female Chief of Staff and the longest to 
     serve in that position, 12 years. When I would tell people 
     who didn't know him that I was his Chief, they would look at 
     me and wonder how I could stay in that position for so long. 
     It was a tough job, but the truth is, he was a great boss. He 
     was loyal to a fault. He trusted staff to do the jobs they 
     were hired to do. He believed that he always had the best 
     staff on the Hill and was always gracious when one of us 
     would tell him it was time to move on. He never held anyone 
     back and was genuinely happy for staffers who left because he 
     knew that we would always be there for him. And in the days 
     since his passing, that is exactly what has happened. We've 
     all been there for each other. Once a DY staffer, always a DY 
     staffer.
       The Congressman had wonderful press staff over the years, 
     but he was his own best public relations department. There 
     has been much written about his gruff exterior and, at times, 
     cantankerous demeanor, but if you actually had the chance to 
     meet him in person then you know that wasn't who he truly

[[Page H3962]]

     was. I can't count the number of times constituents who had 
     never met him came to DC for a meeting, nervous about sitting 
     across from this giant personality and asking for his help. 
     If you were an Alaskan in DC, you met with him; he always 
     made time for them. They would be taken aback when he 
     jovially swung open his door and bellowed, ``Who do we have 
     here?'' followed by a big smile, handshake, and photo 
     opportunity in front of the giant Alaska map. During 
     meetings, he would share stories, compare notes about who was 
     related to who and if he knew their relatives (most times he 
     did), and then turn the floor over to them to make their 
     presentation. He loved learning something new every day. He 
     listened intently and asked thoughtful questions before 
     signing copies of that picture that was taken just moments 
     before and thanking them for corning in to see him. But my 
     favorite memory of working for him is what would happen after 
     the meeting. Almost inevitably, as they left the office and 
     headed down the hall, someone would say, ``wow--he's so 
     different in real life!''
       Alaskans will vote to send someone new to Washington to 
     represent them, but no one will ever replace Congressman 
     Young. He was one of a kind in every way possible.
       I want Alaskans to know that he loved Alaska. He loved 
     fighting for Alaska. And he never forgot what a truly awesome 
     gift and responsibility it was to be the Congressman for All 
     Alaska.

                               C.J. Zane


                           DY Chief of Staff

                              (1980-1992)


                          Former State staffer

       Many people who know and love Don Young know that he was 
     obsessively ``on time'' for meetings and following the 
     ``schedule'' whether in DC or traveling around Alaska. I was 
     once traveling in Alaska with Mr. Young and his wife Lu as we 
     did a series of stops in remote communities via small 
     aircraft (flown by long-time Young friend Paul Hagland), 
     which is the way a lot of Alaskans get from place to place. 
     We were on a tight schedule and Don was getting really 
     impatient because Lu and are were not plane-side ready to go. 
     We were each using the restroom in a small building near the 
     runway. When we emerged and approached the plane Don growled 
     about our being late. Lu said forcefully (as she could do), 
     ``Damn it Young, you just relax, we Have To Have Time To Take 
     Care Of Our Bodily Functions!!'' Needless to say, Mr. Young 
     knew when he was bested in an argument and needless to say 
     the rest of community visits went well and we're more or less 
     on time, but everyone had time to go to the bathroom and 
     there were no ``accidents'' on the plane. Even Don's vaunted 
     punctuality had to yield to the reality of the situation and 
     to the strength of his beloved wife Lu.

                             Sherrie Slick


  Special Staff Assistant, Ketchikan, Alaska Congressional Office (25 
                                 Years)

  Senators Stevens, Frank Murkowski, Lisa Murkowski, and Congressman 
                                 Young

       C.J. Zane and Congressman Don Young interviewed me and with 
     the support of Senator Ted Stevens and Senator Frank 
     Murkowski, hired me in 1987 to work in the Ketchikan 
     Congressional Office. Subsequently working for Senator Lisa 
     Murkowski. I retired after 25 years of service to the 
     delegation. Congressional Record Volume 158 (2012) Part 7.
       I have forgotten exactly what bill Congressman Young was 
     addressing in Congress which had to do with the fishing in 
     Alaska, but as he encouraged his vote, it was being televised 
     and I had it on TV in the office. All of a sudden Congressman 
     Young pounded loudly with his palm on the podium and raised 
     his voice with some strong language to emphasis the 
     importance of support for this bill which would support our 
     fishing industry and the economy of Alaska.
       Immediately my 2 phone lines began to light up in the 
     office. Calls from people who had been watching the 
     proceedings:
       The first call I caught was an elderly lady. In a very soft 
     and polite voice she asked me to thank Mr. Young for his work 
     for Alaska but please convey to the Congressman her wishes 
     that he return his manner of little more decorum in his 
     passion introducing his bills. The second call was from a 
     gruff, deep, loud voice: ``I just watched Congressman Young 
     fighting for fishermen and the industry . . . . thank him and 
     tell him to continue to give them ``hell'' and keep up his 
     passion in the good fight for the people and success 
     Alaska.''
       Illustrating that Congressman Don Young could be could 
     brash and boisterous or gentle and kind . . . . but he was 
     recognized as always being a strong, dependable ambassador 
     for Alaska.

                              Duncan Smith


                                Team DY

                               (10 years)

       I was one of the few lawyers Congressman Young ever hired. 
     I was his committee counsel on the Merchant Marine and 
     Fisheries Committee when he was Ranking Member on the Coast 
     Guard Subcommittee. We had a good laugh when he received a 
     Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Alaska. It was 
     my pleasure to serve with him. May he rest in peace.

                               Zack Brown


                       DY Communications Director

                              (2019-2022)

       In the days since his passing, we have rightfully 
     celebrated Congressman Young's incredible accomplishments and 
     recalled his larger-than-life personality. Specifically, much 
     has been said about the gruff demeanor he was known for in 
     the press. I came on to run Congressman Young's press 
     operations over three years ago. Back then, all I knew about 
     the Congressman was his reputation for being cantankerous and 
     eccentric. Admittedly, he himself was responsible for some 
     parts of this reputation, but the full picture has never been 
     understood.
       Here is the truth: Don Young did indeed run hot, but not 
     because of anger or mean-spiritedness. No, Don Young ran hot 
     because of his warmth, generosity, love of his staff, and 
     relentless passion for Alaska. ``Team DY'' was and always 
     will be a family, no matter what era of his career we served 
     in. Growing up, I never knew my grandfathers. It is 
     appropriate then that at the helm of this family was 
     Congressman Young--a man of great maturity, wisdom, and grit 
     who always had your back. Through him, I learned how to take 
     on life with his independent spirit and unyielding 
     authenticity. Team DY laughed, celebrated, and stood together 
     on behalf of Alaska. Congressman Young was with us every step 
     of the way, working just as hard as we did. The frequent 
     downtime in between votes, meetings, and travels across the 
     state gave us treasured time with the boss we loved. Over the 
     years, this bond between the Congressman and his staff only 
     grew stronger, and his loyalty to us underscored just how 
     much our team meant to him.
       Like so many others, the Congressman took a chance on me 
     and changed my life. He empowered me to always improve myself 
     and be there for those around me. He truly meant the world to 
     me, and I will never let anyone forget the work he did for 
     those around him. I was with him at the end, and it has been 
     difficult to process everything that happened. In the hours 
     and days after he passed, I felt enormous grief and anger 
     over my chance presence on-site as he left this earth. But as 
     I have had time to reflect, I now see this as a blessing. The 
     Congressman always trusted us to do the jobs we were hired to 
     do. On his final day on this earth, it was a tremendous honor 
     to support this incredible man at the end of his life, and to 
     put the skills he taught me to use by being there for Anne 
     and getting him back to the institution he loved. That was my 
     final assignment from the Congressman, and I hope I made him 
     proud. I'll miss this irreplaceable man dearly. I take 
     comfort knowing that his indomitable spirit and unrelenting 
     optimism will always be my North Star.

                               Jerry Hood


                       Director of State Affairs

                              (2006-2009)

       Our friendship spanned more than four decades. He was truly 
     a legend in his own time. He accomplished much. You can 
     travel the entire State of Alaska and everywhere you look you 
     will see his accomplishments. Don's fingerprints are in every 
     nook and cranny of the state. He loved Alaska but I will let 
     others tell you of all he did, and there is much to tell.
       If I could describe Don Young in one word it would be: 
     LOYAL. Yes, LOYAL in all caps. He was LOYAL to a fault. Once 
     he gave you his loyalty it was forever. He never gave up on 
     you even though you may have let him down. And sometimes that 
     loyalty didn't serve him well. However, Don Young didn't 
     expect loyalty in return for his. You see, that's the kind of 
     guy he was. He was LOYAL to his state. He was LOYAL to 
     Alaskans, he was LOYAL to his friends and he was LOYAL to his 
     family. I can assure you that every decision he ever made was 
     first and foremost made in the best interests of Alaska and 
     its citizens. Alaska is a much better place because of 
     Congressman Don Young.
       He spoke his mind. He told you what he thought. He never 
     broke with his values. He was true to himself from the first 
     day he took the oath until the day he died. Some say that 
     Washington changed Don but I can tell you that up until 
     Friday, March 18th, he was the same man as the guy I first 
     met in 1976. There aren't many politicians over the course of 
     history you can say that about. But then, he was one of a 
     kind.
       He went out the way he wanted. In the saddle.
       My fondest memories of Don were the times when we were able 
     to steal an hour or two fishing on the Naknek River. Just the 
     two of us. Our favorite cigars, fishing poles in hand and for 
     a few moments in time--just relaxing. We were fishing. We 
     certainly weren't catching. But we didn't care. Farewell my 
     old friend. I will miss you terribly.

                                Jim Coon


       Staff Director, Aviation Subcommittee, Transportation and 
                        Infrastructure Committee

                              (2004-2012)

       A former Transportation & Infrastructure Aviation 
     Subcommittee Staff Director under Chairman Young, I recall 
     several mornings when he would call me from his office. I 
     knew he had someone with him because he always had you on the 
     speaker phone--and when he did this he almost always had 
     constituents from Alaska with him.
       He would call and start out very nice, how's your morning, 
     did you get your beauty sleep, etc., and then on the turn of 
     a dime in his most powerful and loud voice he would

[[Page H3963]]

     say--``that bill you are working on for me, I don't want to 
     see the word _ in that bill, not on _ time, do you hear me!!! 
     And if I see it, there will be hell to pay. Have a nice 
     day!'' It was poetic.

                          Sophia A. Varnasidis


                       Resources Committee Staff

                              (2004-2017)

       I had stopped by Rep. Young's office to DY's Chief of 
     Staff, Pamela Day, as I would often do at the end of the work 
     day early in 2009. Rep. Doc Hastings had just taken over as 
     Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee, 
     which DY held the previous Congress. DY came into Pam's 
     office, sat down next to me and said ``how you doing' young 
     lady? They taking care of you over there?'' To which I 
     answered, ``yes, of course'' and thanked him for asking. He 
     then chatted with us for a bit, and left for the evening.
       I still makes me tear-up thinking about the kindness he 
     showed me in that moment. He lost his Ranking Membership, and 
     yet was concerned his staff that was held over under new 
     leadership were taken care of. I went through 4 changes of 
     leadership in my 13 years at Natural Resources, but DY was 
     singular in his love for his staff. Invited us over to his 
     home for Kentucky Derby viewing, threw the biggest Christmas 
     parties, and stayed to hold court and tell stories in his 
     office for hours. His personality was bigger than life, but 
     so was his heart. The media loved to cover him in his more 
     animated moments, but his real friends and those who worked 
     for him knew him to be fiercely loyal, and a caring and kind 
     soul. The true King in the North. May his memory be eternal.

                              Lisa Pittman


              Deputy Chief Counsel, Committee on Resources

                              (1995-2001)


                             Chief Counsel

                              (2001-2020)

       DY's first wife, Mrs. Lu Young, attended the first 
     Committee on Resources markup chaired by DY and sat in the 
     back row. Halfway through, she sent a note up to the 
     Chairman. We were a little nervous about what she might say. 
     Mrs. Young may have been petite, but she was fierce and 
     thoroughly had the big gruff Don Young wrapped around her 
     little finger. The note, which he opened in front of me (I 
     sat to his immediate left during markups) said ``Smile 
     more.'' And he did.
       Don Young was also instrumental in the House rules change 
     that allowed certain votes to be postponed and then voted in 
     series in committee. Like many other nonexclusive committees, 
     the Committee on Resources' members served on multiple 
     committees and given scheduling demands often had to be in 
     two places at once. Maintaining quorums and vote margins was 
     increasing difficult. DY successfully argued to the 
     Parliamentarian, House leadership and the Rules Committee 
     that if the Speaker could allow such action on the Floor, the 
     practice should be allowed in committee. As one of the most 
     active committees in the House, the Committee on Resources 
     certainly took advantage of the rule to produce more 
     substantive bills for the floor than just about any other 
     committee. And staff had fewer heart attacks.
       Finally, DY taught me to always bring at least three copies 
     of any remarks/talking points staff had prepared for him to 
     the House Floor. I'd usually hand him one when he first 
     reached the chamber and settled back in the unofficial Don 
     Young seat on the aisle in the last row of the right rear of 
     the chamber. Somehow he inevitably managed to misplace it 
     before our bill was called up (no doubt distracted by the 
     many Members who stopped by to talk to him). He'd often 
     signal me to give me another copy before we began. I keep the 
     third in the front of my Floor notebook for when he ambled 
     down the aisle to take his place at the manager's table, 
     sometimes with the talking points out of order or missing a 
     page. It didn't really matter much anyway--he rarely followed 
     the script and often spoke more eloquently from the heart 
     than any words typed out by staff.

                             Colin Chapman


                             Chief of Staff

                              (1997-2002)

       A story from my tenure as Chief of Staff, 1997-2002 on the 
     mischievous side of Chairman Young: In the late nineties and 
     early 2000's, the Alaska delegation was at one of its highest 
     points as far as seniority and power was concerned. The House 
     and the Senate were controlled by the Republicans. All three 
     members of the delegation, Rep. Young, Sen. Stevens, and Sen. 
     Frank Murkowski, had 20 or more years of seniority. They were 
     each Chairman of powerful committees. They were each, in 
     their own right, a powerful Member of Congress that liked to 
     control legislation and have things done THEIR WAY! And they 
     each had the strong, sometimes combustible, personality you 
     might expect of a Senior Member of Congress with Alaskan 
     heritage.
       In public, the Alaska delegation created and performed as a 
     united front. But the delegation meetings- That was a 
     different story . . . In the late 90's, the delegation was 
     working on opening Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), an 
     ongoing battle that replayed Congress after Congress. I 
     remember one delegation meeting where ANWR was the primary 
     discussion topic. The delegation was trying to decide how to 
     best move the legislation, and as always, the Senate side 
     strategy was the sticking point. Sen. Murkowski wanted to 
     move the legislation via the committee of jurisdiction, 
     Energy & Natural Resources, which he just happened to Chair. 
     Sen Stevens wanted to move it via an Appropriations and 
     Reconciliation process, a route that he controlled as 
     Chairman of Appropriations. Don Young's position was for the 
     Senate to pull their heads out of the . . . sand, pass the 
     bill in whichever way they could, and he would get it done on 
     the House side.
       At one particular meeting, held on Sen Stevens' turf in his 
     Capitol hideaway office, Chairman Young and Chairman 
     Murkowski were present at the appointed time with their 
     Chiefs of Staff. Stevens was late. After about 15 minutes of 
     waiting, the Junior Senator was getting antsy. He had 
     explained his plan for the ENR Committee while waiting and 
     why his committee was the best option. After about 20 minutes 
     of waiting, Sen. Stevens waltzed into the room. Effusively 
     apologizing for being late and launching into his plan of why 
     the Appropriation route was so much better than the ENR 
     route. Having just listened to the 15 minute ENR pitch, 
     Chairman Young knew that nothing would get accomplished at 
     this meeting because the Senate delegation's path forward was 
     still unclear.
       Mr. Young, who was standing in between the two Senators, 
     popped off a comment about how the one Senator thought the 
     other Senator didn't have a clue what he was talking about. 
     This launched the two Senators into a heated personal 
     argument. DY looked at me, chuckled, and said, ``Let's go 
     Colin, my work here is done . . .'' As we left, DY was still 
     chuckling to himself and commented about how much fun it was 
     to light the fuse and walk out of the room.
       As always, the delegation circled the wagons and pushed 
     forward with a united front. The ANWR fight wasn't successful 
     that year, but Chairman Young did eventually see it through!

                          Holly Woodruff Lyons

       My favorite memory of Chairman Young was during my first 
     year-and-a-half as a Committee staffer. I have to admit I was 
     initially a bit intimidated by Chairman Young. However, that 
     all changed in 2003. In October of that year, a toy gun was 
     brought to the House Offices by a staffer as part of a 
     Halloween costume. It set off a security scare and the 
     Capitol was locked down for several hours as the police 
     looked for the ``gun''.
       I happened to be on the Floor with a few other T&I Members 
     and staff as we had a bill on the schedule. Chairman Young 
     was with us. There was quite a bit of confusion that day and 
     things were already tense in the post-9/11 world. I will 
     never forget how Chairman Young chose to come over and sit 
     with his staff. He spent the time entertaining us while 
     providing a calm, steady and unflappable example. He regaled 
     us with one story after another of his time on the Hill. 
     These stories, as you can imagine, were both funny and 
     amazing, but I will not repeat them here. He also shared with 
     us his knowledge of the House Floor by pointing out things in 
     the Chamber and sharing interesting historical facts. He 
     literally had a captive audience, but we did not feel like 
     hostages. After that day, I was no longer intimidated by the 
     Chairman. He always commanded respect, but I had seen his fun 
     and friendly side. (The soft side of the grizzly bear, so to 
     speak.)

                             David Schaffer


          Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Staffer

                              (1984-2004)

       A passage from the book ``After: How America Confronted the 
     September 12 Era) by Steven Brill, which illustrates Chairman 
     Young's no-nonsense approach to his position as 
     Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair, in the 
     wake of 9/11:
       ``But he (Staff Director Schaffer) was also a stickler for 
     legislative procedure, which means hearings and debate, and 
     more hearings and more debate, and drafts and redrafts before 
     anything important is allowed to pass. So he was shocked on 
     Monday when is boss, Congressman Don Young, the burly Alaska 
     Republican who chaired the Transportation Committee, told him 
     that they had to pass a bill within a day or two. When he 
     protested that something this important and unprecedented, 
     not to mention expensive, never moved that fast, Young 
     thundered, ``We're at war, we have to do this now.''

                            Jason Suslavich


                    DY-Congressional Office Staffer

                              (2008-2015)

       While Don Young focused on transportation and resource 
     development, he was also a diehard champion of missile 
     defense. In fact, what many do not know the leading role that 
     Don played in locating our homeland missile defenses in 
     Alaska. In 1995, the Clinton Administration adopted a 
     national intelligence estimate (NIE) which made one very 
     startling conclusion--namely that U.S. homeland would not 
     face the threat of a missile attack until at least 2010. 
     Absurdly, the NIE arrived at this conclusion by excluding 
     threats to Alaska and Hawaii, as if only the contiguous 
     forty-eight states needed protection.
       Learning of this critical policy failure, Don jumped into 
     action and introduced the ``The All-American Resolution.'' 
     This important legislation expressed Congress' view that 
     ``any missile defense system deployed to protect the United 
     States against the threat

[[Page H3964]]

     of ballistic missile attack should include protection for 
     Alaska, Hawaii, the territories and the commonwealths of the 
     United States on the same basis as the contiguous States.'' 
     Language from this resolution was soon adopted into National 
     Defense Authorization (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 1999 and enacted 
     into law. This language helped to set the stage for the U.S. 
     to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) 
     Treaty, thereby allowing us to build our nation's first 
     homeland missile defense system at Fort Greely, Alaska--a 
     location which would protect ALL fifty states.
       From that point on, Don continued to strongly support 
     missile defense. He fought for defense budgets that were 
     driven by strategy, not defense strategies that were driven 
     budgets. For decades, he ensured critical military 
     construction for our missile defense systems--located at Fort 
     Greely, Clear Air Force Station, and Eareckson Air Station--
     expeditiously passed the House and were fully funded.
       Then in 2017, amidst a resurgent North Korean threat, Don 
     Young again championed our cause. He--along with Senator Dan 
     Sullivan (the bill's original author)--sponsored the 
     ``Advancing America's Missile Defense Act of 2017'' and led 
     the charge to include it into the House's FY 2018 NDAA. 
     Critically, this bill authorized an increase to our nation's 
     Ground-based Interceptor capacity by 50% and it laid the 
     groundwork for the construction of a new missile field at 
     Fort Greely--Missile Field 4--to house that added capacity. 
     During the debate on his amendment, the Congressman stated,
       ``I believe this reckless and calculated behavior by the 
     North Korean regime speaks volumes to the importance of the 
     strategically placed U.S. missile defense capabilities, 
     including the Ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely, AK 
     and other elements of the nation's ballistic missile defense 
     system. These forces guard this nation and are the first 
     responders against weapons of mass destruction.''
       He was right then and his words ring even more true today.

  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of 
my time.
  Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Madam Speaker, today is a solemn day.
  Today, in the National Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol, we paid 
tribute to the Dean of the House of Representatives, the late 
Congressman Don Young. And how fitting is it for Congressman Young to 
lie in state in National Statuary Hall. Much like this hall, Don Young 
is an icon--a pillar--in the history of the House of Representatives.
  Longevity as an elected official isn't a given--it has to be earned. 
And for 49 straight years, Don Young earned the honor of representing 
Alaska in Congress, which he considered the privilege of a lifetime. 
Congressman Young loved Alaska, and Alaska loved him. By the end of his 
tenure, not only was he the longest-serving politician in Alaska's 
history, but also the longest-serving Republican Member of the House of 
Representatives in U.S. history.
  Now, you may not think that a nurse from Texas and a frontiersman 
from Alaska would have a lot in common. And for the most part, you'd be 
right. But that never stopped us from working together when it meant 
the betterment of our constituents. We partnered on legislation that 
provided Pell Grants to Gold Star Families. We led an annual letter 
advocating for increased funding for the Innovative Approaches to 
Literacy (IAL) program. We spent long days and late nights together in 
the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee hearings. The list goes 
on and on.
  We also had the opportunity to travel the world together on CODELs. 
He sponsored valuable and worthwhile trips that I never hesitated to 
sign up for. And the farther away we got from Washington, the closer we 
became.
  My thoughts and prayers are with his beloved wife, Anne, with whom I 
had the pleasure of getting to know over the years, as well as his 
children, grandchildren, and all those who loved him. He will be dearly 
missed.
  Mr. NEHLS. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the Congressman for 
all of Alaska, the 45th Dean of the House, and my mentor and friend--
Representative Don Young.
  Don was a soldier, a riverboat captain, and a teacher--but his true 
calling was serving and representing the good people of Alaska.
  Throughout his 49 years in Congress, he was an icon and mentor to 
countless Members. When I first arrived here, Don was one of the first 
Members I met. In the short time I had with him, he taught me so much 
about the House and about being a true servant.
  Don's love of his family and the people of Alaska was rivaled only by 
his love of the land itself. He took countless members and staff to his 
beloved state to show them the pristine natural wonder of his state.
  This summer he was going to take me on a working trip to Alaska--and 
one of my great regrets in this body will forever be never getting to 
go with him.
  Rest in peace, my friend.

                          ____________________