[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 52 (Wednesday, March 22, 2023)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E239]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       RECOGNIZING LINDSAY SLATER

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. MICHAEL K. SIMPSON

                                of idaho

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 22, 2023

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Lindsay Slater, who 
will be retiring at the end of the month after 23 years as my chief of 
staff. Lindsay has been a trusted chief of staff and good friend for 
many years, and while I hate to see him go, I am excited for him as he 
embarks on a new adventure after 26 years on Capitol Hill.
  Lindsay is originally from Wallowa in eastern Oregon, and he began 
working for Congress for Representative Bob Smith in 1997 after getting 
his law degree from Southwestern Law School and working for the Oregon 
Cattlemen's Association. In 1999 he became Legislative Director for my 
friend Greg Walden after working on his campaign. I watched as Lindsay 
negotiated a difficult agreement between environmental groups and 
ranchers that ended in collaborative legislation to conserve, protect, 
and manage the Steens Mountains in Harney County, Oregon. Lindsay 
impressed me with his work ethic and his ability to develop creative 
solutions that took all stakeholder views into account. When I found 
myself needing a new chief of staff in my second year in Congress, I 
turned to Lindsay. During the first few months that he worked for me, 
Lindsay not only took over managing my staff, but he also brought his 
work in the Steens to completion, helping Congressman Walden pass the 
Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area of 2000.
  Lindsay had only been with me a few months when I put his creativity 
and flexibility to the test. He was spending August break touring the 
Idaho National Lab and familiarizing himself with the needs and 
priorities of Idaho's second congressional district when a massive 
wildfire began to rage in the Salmon National Forest. I called Lindsay 
up and said, ``Hey, let's go fight a wildfire.'' Lindsay surely thought 
I was a little crazy, but he was game for the adventure, so he called 
the Forest Service and asked if they would let the two of us come, no 
press or fanfare, to see what it takes to fight a major wildfire. They 
agreed, and within the next day or two we were being registered at the 
camp and issued our pup tents like rank-and-file firefighters. We 
helped serve dinner to those who had been doing the grueling work of 
fighting wildfires all day and saw firsthand that it takes a small city 
of 5,000 people to make that important work possible. When we were 
done, Lindsay and I packed up our pup tents and left them to it, taking 
our firsthand knowledge of what it takes to fight a wildfire into the 
next two decades of our work together.
  Lindsay spent the next fifteen years using his experience and skills 
to help me develop an integrated community, recreation, and 
conservation plan for central Idaho to provide a comprehensive solution 
to the challenges that ranchers, recreationists, conservationists, and 
local leaders faced for many years. This project was not for the faint 
of heart, and Lindsay spent a decade and half meeting with all sides, 
listening to their concerns and ultimately finding common ground. It 
was long, often thankless work, but in 2015 we passed the Central Idaho 
Economic Development Act. The Boulder-White Clouds is now protected, in 
perpetuity, by creating 275,665 acres of wilderness area, and Lindsay 
was instrumental in making this happen.
  Over the past three years, Lindsay has applied his patient problem-
solving skills to the Columbia Basin Initiative, working with 
stakeholders, tribes, elected representatives and others to try and 
understand the challenges surrounding salmon recovery, dams, and energy 
and transportation in the Columbia River and Lower Snake River Basin 
and find real solutions to those challenges. This is the largest river 
restoration project in the world, and Lindsay's office is the war room, 
with maps and data and legislative proposals papering the walls. I do 
not know what the ultimate outcome will be for the management 
challenges of the Columbia and Lower Snake River, but I truly believe 
that people will come to view the Columbia Basin Initiative as the most 
comprehensive, thorough, and fair solution to the challenges we face 
there. Just as he did with the Boulder-White Clouds and the Steens, 
Lindsay threw himself into this complicated problem and deftly worked 
to unravel the knots to produce a comprehensive solution to problems 
others are unwilling to take on.
  In fact, Lindsay's fingerprints are all over all the major 
legislative victories I have had during my time in Congress. He played 
a crucial role in crafting the original Land and National Park Deferred 
Maintenance (LAND) Act, which eventually became the Great American 
Outdoors Act, a widely supported and bipartisan recreation and public 
lands bill. Lindsay was also instrumental in crafting and passing 
legislation to fix the wildfire suppression budget, ending the practice 
of fire borrowing and restoring the funding intended for those 
important land management projects that make our forests healthier and 
more resistant to fire. Of all we have accomplished over the past two 
decades, I believe this will have the greatest and longest-lasting 
impact, and in fixing wildfire funding, Lindsay and I came full circle 
from that weekend at the fire camp all those years ago.
  Amid all these major legislative accomplishments, Lindsay has led my 
staff with compassion, support, and encouragement. He is notorious for 
calling people into his office just to ``see how things are going,'' 
because he genuinely cares how people are doing and wants to know that 
the office is functioning well. I know that there is a generation of 
staffers who have left my office and gone on to do incredible things 
who still view Lindsay as one of their greatest mentors and 
cheerleaders. Lindsay showed up with a steady, calm, and positive 
attitude every day, and as a result both past and current members of 
Team Simpson would claim that ours is the happiest office on Capitol 
Hill.
  I have often said that I may get the credit for these things, but it 
is my staff who does the real work. Lindsay has been an exemplar in 
this respect, and, as my chief of staff, he has taken it to the next 
level by taking good care not only of me but of the staff that works 
for me. He has been loyal and trustworthy, and I would not be where I 
am today without him diligently paving the way. I will miss him as a 
chief of staff but am glad to have him as a friend, and I wish him the 
best of luck as he begins his next adventure.

                          ____________________