[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 201 (Friday, December 23, 2022)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1349-E1350]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                             FINAL FAREWELL

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. FRED UPTON-

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, December 23, 2022

  Mr. UPTON. Madam Speaker, as I reflect on more than four decades of 
service in the Federal Government--working for our former Southwest 
Michigan Congressman David Stockman, then President Ronald Reagan, and 
finally in the U.S. House of Representatives--I am so grateful for the 
countless folks who have helped along the way including my peers, 
staff, and wonderful family who have helped me do my best day after 
day.

       ``One cannot count on luck. It comes and goes. But one can 
     count on hard work. ALSO, staying out of your OWN way . . . 
     and, for most folks, that's the hardest part.''--Amey Upton.

  I was asked last week what I want to be remembered for, and without a 
second thought I pointed to a small, simple brass frame with a motto 
that I picked up from my grandfather's desk when he passed away at 96 
years of age. It read, ``When in doubt, do the right thing!'' I have 
kept it at the center of my desk and work at the Capitol all these 
years.
  In this journey, I have been blessed by the sacrifice of many. First 
and foremost, my wife Amey, who as my best friend for some 40 years has 
watched me depart practically every week for a trip to Washington, 
D.C., making 99.9 percent of the nearly 22,000 votes cast. I often was 
at one of our district offices or community events most days of the 
week. I still vividly recall the Bangor town meeting on a Halloween 
Saturday morning in 1987 when the word came down that my wife's water 
had broken, and I had better get to the hospital pretty quickly. Then 
there was my son reminding me not to talk to strangers as a 6-year-old 
in the Watervliet 4th of July parade or having to miss my daughter's 
birthday to participate in a debate during one of my 25 contested 
elections. Obviously, the sacrifice of family time they all made was 
something they endured, especially last-minute schedule changes to 
long-planned family activities.
  My staff--such a blessing. Janet Zielke and Joan Hillebrands were 
with me all 36 years and a number of others more than 20 years. Joan 
actually started as a legislative correspondent and worked her way to 
Chief of Staff where she has been steadily guiding our ship for the 
last 25 years. Corey Hanson, Mitzi Fitzpatrick, and Nivia Marquis are 
the best in the business at solving IRS, small business, immigration, 
and veterans' issues among others. My communications folks handling 
press on local and national interests were always terrific, Caroline 
Banaszak and Jamal Ware helped finish up strong. Dale Shugars and Mike 
Ryan ran my two district offices, and I have known them both for many 
decades as leaders in their respective communities of Portage and St. 
Joseph. And before them, Al Pscholka, John Proos, Jeff Breneman, Clay 
McCausland, and Jack Baker held those same titles. Kaitlyn Peterson was 
my front desk traffic cop directing many constituent inquiries. All in 
all, we handled more than 1 million constituent inquiries. All my staff 
carried the same passion to do the right thing from the start. Whether 
it be D.C. staff or here at home, they effectively and proudly served 
so many thousands of people in our communities.
  Every Congressional office is different, but I established ours with 
my 2 Michigan offices handling my constituent services, and my D.C. 
staff preparing me on legislative issues. Almost everyone started as an 
intern, answering the phone, and hearing from constituents by answering 
the mail (remember, the internet didn't become widely available until 
the late 90s). From there, they moved up and were recognized for the 
experience they gained and dedication they demonstrated. My former 
scheduler and Officer Manager Bits Thomas started as an intern and then 
was my ``doorkeeper'' for a decade before she moved back to Michigan 
with her family. Her stellar successor, Suzanne Scruggs, once worked 
for a Cabinet member and is married to one of my first volunteers from 
1986, who later became my Legislative Director. He later went to law 
school at night and now helps run one of the most prestigious firms in 
Washington.
  Alec Zender was with us several years helping our farmers and small 
businesses, then went to fellow Michigander Rep. Jack Bergman.
  Last but not least, the point man and architect who shepherded 21st 
Century Cures, Mark Ratner. As resident comedian and my MSU sports 
rival, he served as my legislative right-hand man for nearly 20 years.
  And the list goes on. I am so proud of our team. I've been involved 
with a long list of issues, so long that there has been little time to 
stop and ``smell the roses.''
  It was the late State Senator Harry Gast who convinced me to serve on 
the House Transportation Committee when I was first elected so I could 
help complete US-31 connecting three interstates in Berrien County. 
There were a lot of bumps, potholes, and butterflies along the way, but 
I am happy to say the project is now complete. Also, my amendment in 
that first 5-year highway bill increased Michigan's share of each 
federal dollar from 72 cents to 90 cents, providing billions that would 
have otherwise gone to other states. Later helping to widen and improve 
1-94 with US-131 moving east towards I-69.
  Moving from Transportation to the powerful Energy & Commerce 
Committee in 1991 I had a terrific mentor in Chairman John Dingell. I 
served as Chair of the Oversight, Telecommunications, & Energy 
Subcommittees which eventually led to me becoming Chair of the full 
committee from 2010 to 2016. Speaker Newt Gingrich changed the 
seniority rules making the chairs compete for the chairmanships with a 
6-year term limit. Without that change, I would still be sitting as a 
senior member of the committee but still not having had a chance to 
lead it.
  Yes, bipartisanship was always a guiding principle. I learned that at 
the Reagan White House where a GOP President worked with a Democrat-
controlled Congress and got things done. Quite frankly, quite a few 
Americans probably voted with both hands to fill in ballot circles or 
punch the chad for him in 1980 yet we saw him win in a landslide 4 
years later except for Mondale's Minnesota. I always kept one of 
Reagan's mottos in mind, ``It doesn't matter who gets the credit, as 
long as the job gets done.''
  The Great Lakes has always been a top priority for me. I've worked to 
ban micro-beads, ensure water quality funds, establish an oil spill 
response team, pipeline safety and delivered on a plan with Governor 
Rick Snyder to replace Line 5 under the Mackinac Bridge at a $500 
million cost. I also spent time ensuring dredging our harbors, battling 
Asian carp, and authorizing a new lock for the Soo. If the 60-year-old 
lock went down, it would literally double the Nation's unemployment as 
iron ore could not make it to the steel mills for autos, appliances, 
and our manufacturing industries.
  As a vice-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solver's Caucus (PSC), we 
met virtually every week and were instrumental in passing the CHIPS and 
Infrastructure bills to help America remain competitive. We also played 
a role in the Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) that enabled so many of 
our small businesses to keep their employees paid during the COVID 
shutdown and provide a lifeline to maintain their presence.
  On the morning of September 11, 2001, I drove through the Pentagon 
parking lot about an hour before the plane hit the building. General 
Van Antwerp, whom I had grown up with on my street in St. Joseph, was 
spared because he was at a meeting out of the building, but a number of 
his staff were killed. As the Telecommunications Subcommittee Chair, I 
led a number of colleagues to New York City a few days later, where the 
rescue mission was still taking place at Ground Zero. We later passed 
legislation that was the top priority noted by the 9/11 Commission's 
report to allocate broadcast spectrum allowing law enforcement to have 
their own frequency to communicate. We did such by forcing the 
broadcasters to convert their analogue broadcast signal to digital and 
selling that newly created spectrum to the highest bidders in the 
telecommunications industry. This allowed them to produce devices with 
text and video, which created the 5G network, hundreds of thousands of 
jobs, and generated revenue to reduce the deficit.

  Supporting our troops and our brave veterans was always the easiest 
vote I cast. Whether it be Agent Orange or Burn Pits benefits or 
visiting our troops in harm's way in Iraq or Afghanistan, visiting our 
military hospitals here and overseas, count me as a grateful American. 
Allowing our vets to receive medical care in their home community if 
they prefer versus traveling across the state to a VA facility was also 
a choice I supported.
  I have had the opportunity to have many classified briefings on 
China, Ukraine, Russia,

[[Page E1350]]

and protecting American interests. We are a free nation because of our 
brave. It always has been a favorite moment for me to nominate 
qualified young men and women to attend our military academies. General 
Emery Upton was in the West Point class with George Custer and later 
served as Commandant. His statue is on Little Round Top in Gettysburg. 
And my 98-year-old dad served in World War II, including the Battle of 
the Bulge.
  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the enactment of 21st 
Century Cures the most important legislative achievement in that 
Congress when President Obama signed it into law in December 2016. I 
led a 3-year effort as chair of the Energy & Commerce Committee to pass 
this legislation, which expedites the FDA approvals of drugs and 
devices and was coupled with $45 billion in additional health research 
funding. We literally held dozens of round table discussions, hearings, 
meetings with disease groups, the FDA, National Institutes of Health 
(NIH), pharmaceutical companies, and research institutions like the 
University of Michigan, MD Anderson, Mayo Clinic, Harvard, and the 
Milken Institute. Fast forward 4 years to COVID. Pfizer's CEO told his 
folks that they would spend ``whatever it takes'' to find a vaccine and 
thankfully were successful. Cures allowed them to produce the vaccine 
prior to the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) and be able to deliver 
it across the country the very next day after receiving the EUA in 
December of 2020. This was probably 6-8 months earlier than would have 
happened without our legislation, saving hundreds of thousands American 
lives. Then-Vice President Joe Biden played a pivotal hands-on role, 
and we included the $1 billion Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot initiative as 
part of this bill. One of our great sources was Nobel Prize winner 
immunologist Jim Allison whose breakthroughs have been the answer to 
thousands.
  The terrible events of January 6 continue to dominate the news nearly 
two years later, including this week's release of the final committee 
report. That morning, I walked through the House floor back to my 
Rayburn office where I watched many of the protesters parading under my 
balcony to the White House grounds. I then watched the President's 
speech to the crowd on TV before they came back to the Capitol and 
certainly attempted to violently disrupt the counting of the electoral 
votes cast by each state. I saw the gallows on the Capitol lawn 
intended for Mike Pence, and thanked some of the SWAT team members 
laying exhausted in the Rotunda. Chilling. Michigan was one of the 4 
states that was going to be challenged despite the 154,000-vote 
difference. To date, there is still no credible evidence that our vote 
was fraudulent. I voted absentee in that election, as I did this last 
November 8, and I am confident that our system works. Under the law 
established in the 1800s, it only takes 1 Member from the House and 
Senate to force the full House and Senate to reconsider. This week the 
House and Senate adopted a legislative change requiring a minimum of 20 
percent of each body to challenge a states' certified count. In my 
estimation we avoided a massacre of my colleagues on the House floor by 
only 10-15 minutes. Trump's later statement that he did everything 
``totally appropriate'' was a key factor for my impeachment vote a week 
later and my support for a bipartisan January 6 congressional 
commission. In my view, the commission's unanimous support for their 
report issued this week prevented the facts from being swept under the 
rug and helped ensure preservation of the peaceful transfer of 
presidential power.
  More than a 1,000 folks provided testimony to get the truth that 
otherwise never would have been told. Where were these same souls who 
knew the intimate story when we debated impeachment? Crickets.
  One regret I will share was the failure of the Super Committee a 
dozen years ago to deal with the deficit. It had 6 members of the House 
and Senate: 6 Republicans and 6 Democrats. The rule was that we had to 
get 7 votes, and we could never get more than 6 as it turned out. We 
spent a couple months negotiating different alternatives but could 
never quite get there. I was one of the ``aye'' votes with fellow 
Michigan colleague and Chair of the House Ways & Means Committee Dave 
Camp, but we were 1 vote short. The looming budget deficit remains a 
threat that most certainly future leaders must address.
  My last 2 days in Congress were action packed. On Wednesday evening, 
I attended a joint session of Congress in which we heard from the 
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Earlier this year, I had a 
chance to listen as Zelenskyy addressed the bipartisan Problem Solvers 
Caucus by Zoom. It was encouraging to now see him in person as he makes 
the compelling case for Ukraine directly to the American people and 
their representatives. I have had the opportunity during my career to 
watch presidential national addresses and world leaders speak to the 
Congress such as Nelson Mandela, Queen Elizabeth, the Pope, and others 
from around the globe. I was especially proud to listen to President 
Zelenskyy on one of my very last days serving in the U.S. Congress.
  The House and Senate cleared a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill to 
keep the government open and funded through the 2023 fiscal year. I 
voted for the package, funding a number of priorities, including a 10-
percent increase in defense spending to $858 billion. The bill also 
includes $1.5 billion for the Advanced Research Projects Agency, that 
like its defense counterpart, will fund cutting-edge research that has 
the potential to save millions of lives. This is the next step for 21st 
Century Cures. The bill also includes $45 billion to help Ukraine 
defend its freedom and citizens against Russia's brutal invasion, 
including barbaric attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure.
  I supported Congress acting this year because it avoids the risk of a 
government shutdown to start the New Year, given the narrow majorities 
in the House and Senate. A shutdown would threaten America's security 
and cause disruption to vital domestic programs, including those that 
help improve health outcomes in our nation. It clears the deck for the 
next Congress to start fresh on FY '24 rather than mop up unfinished 
business 4 months into FY '23.
  On a closing note, I leave you with the words of a brave young woman:

       ``How wonderful is it that nobody need wait a single moment 
     before starting to improve the world.''--Anne Frank

                          ____________________