[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 21826]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                GAO EMPLOYEES EPITOMIZE PROFESSIONALISM

  (Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of all of the Members of the 
House. It is not every day that Members of the House and their staffs 
have to evacuate their congressional offices due to an unseen but 
potentially lethal health hazard. In fact, as all of us know, it was 
unprecedented.
  Today, on behalf of all of my colleagues, I want to express my 
sincere thanks to David Walker, the Comptroller General of the United 
States, and all the dedicated employees of the General Accounting 
Office who were relocated or otherwise inconvenienced to accommodate 
Members and their staffs while House office buildings underwent 
precautionary testing for anthrax.
  Those employees' graciousness and patience demonstrated their 
teamwork and the fact that their important work was uninterrupted when 
thousands, I emphasize, Mr. Speaker, thousands of us descended on GAO 
headquarters, is a tribute to their professionalism and to their 
Americanism. It also reinforced our American ethic that, working 
together, there is little that we cannot do.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the entire House, I thank David 
Walker, all of the employees at GAO for their cooperation, their 
graciousness and their facilitation of the business of America.

                          ____________________