[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13785]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



   EXTENDING APPRECIATION TO CHAIRMAN OF SUBCOMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE 
                             APPROPRIATIONS

  (Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute)
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I wish to use this moment with all of our 
colleagues to extend deepest appreciation to our fine chairman of the 
Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug 
Administration and Related Agencies, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. 
Skeen), for his leadership and great victory on this bill. It has been 
a joy to work with him, and I know that under the rules of the House 
because of rotation, he may not be able to serve in this capacity in 
the next year, although I hope we can change those rules. But I want to 
say he has been a true gentleman, a real scholar, someone who 
understands farming and ranching from the get-go. He truly is an 
advocate for our farmers and ranchers and a real friend to every single 
Member of this House. It has been a joy to work with him on this bill 
in this first year of the new century.
  Mr. SKEEN. If the gentlewoman will yield, I thank all my colleagues. 
I would like to say I am very humbled about this, but I do not let it 
show. I thank her for being the great lady that she is because she has 
been a real joy to work with and so for the rest of our committee. Just 
as with most of the people that sit in this Chamber day after day, I 
appreciate what wonderful people they are and what a wonderful job they 
are doing for the public that we represent. I thank them very much from 
the bottom of my heart.
  Ms. KAPTUR. I am sure the gentleman would agree with me that the 
gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) did an excellent, very fair-handed job 
with dispatch in the chair throughout these deliberations which lasted 
many, many hours, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 hours on this bill alone. To Hank 
Moore, Martin Delgado, John Ziolkowski, Joanne Orndorf; and our 
detailees, Anne DuBey and Maureen Holohan; and certainly Jim Richards 
from your staff and Roger Szemraj from my own and David Reich from the 
minority staff, I think they did an outstanding job on this very 
complicated bill.
  Mr. SKEEN. They are the real movers and shakers. We just do not let 
them know it too often because they get a little bit large in the head. 
But they are wonderful folks. I thank all the staff folks who have done 
so much for all of us. They make us look good every day.
  Ms. KAPTUR. In closing, Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that the 
judge of every Member in this House really is the character of that 
individual in the end. The gentleman from New Mexico truly is a 
gentleman of his word. There is not a Member of this House on either 
side of the aisle that cannot go up to him and get a fair hearing. In 
the end, that is the measure of ourselves as an institution. It is just 
a joy to work with him and to serve with him.
  Mr. SKEEN. I thank the gentlewoman for those kind words. After 
listening to all the work that we have done, particularly on one of 
these programs, I am going to mail a coyote to everybody who is left 
because we do not need them at the ranch anymore.
  Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will yield, I just 
wanted to ditto what the gentlewoman from Ohio has said, thanking the 
gentleman who is a gentleman in the truest sense, not the political 
sense.

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