[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 19580-19581]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO COLIN McMILLAN

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I take a couple of minutes to speak 
about the tragic death of Colin McMillan, who was a very outstanding 
citizen of our State of New Mexico. He had distinguished himself as a 
businessman and also as a public servant in Roswell. In Santa Fe, he 
served in the State legislature, with a leadership position, and also 
here in Washington, where he served in the Department of Defense in the 
previous Bush administration. He was influential and effective in all 
of the positions he held. He was extremely well respected for his 
straight dealing and his integrity.
  I met Colin first when I was in law practice in Santa Fe and he was 
in our State legislature. As I indicated, he had a very prominent 
position, a leadership position, in our State legislature back in the 
1970s. Since then, our paths have crossed many times. Most recently, we 
spoke when he came to my office to discuss his nomination by President 
Bush to serve as the Secretary of the Navy.
  This is a position I strongly supported him obtaining and I told him 
I was looking forward to him being back in Washington. I know he and 
his wife Kay were looking forward to returning to Washington. He spoke 
with great enthusiasm about his plans in that new position.
  His death is a loss to us in New Mexico, and it is a loss to the 
country. We will be deprived of his leadership.
  I know he was a very good friend of my colleague, Senator Domenici, 
for many years and a political ally in New Mexico for many years. His 
loss will be noted and regretted by all of us in New Mexico.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, last night I took a couple of minutes to 
tell the Senate that a good friend of mine, but also a great New 
Mexican, was dead, Colin McMillan. My friend and colleague, Senator 
Bingaman, just spoke of him.
  It is remarkable that Senator Bingaman would speak of him with such 
glaring words when, as a matter of fact, they ran against each other in 
a statewide campaign.
  The truth is, he was a truly outstanding man. His death is rather 
unexplainable. We still do not know enough about it, but we do know 
that he was too young to die and had succeeded at just about everything 
he tried in his life, starting out at the

[[Page 19581]]

University of North Carolina where he was a Phi Beta Kappa in the 
college of engineering and became an enormously successful geological 
engineer. He was one of those who was first to grab on to the modern 
techniques of discerning what lies below the surface and, thus, became 
an expert and developed a successful company helping others locate oil 
and gas. He formed his own exploration company and became an oil and 
gas entrepreneur.
  Along with that achievement, he had a western craving to own a ranch, 
and he had a beautiful ranch. I have been there many times. It is a 
great place to hunt quail. His ranch is renowned for quail. My son 
Peter and I and others in New Mexico have been there with him many 
times. It is rather ironic that he was found dead at the ranch 
yesterday some time during the day by the ranch hands.
  When I spoke this morning with my oldest son, he used the word 
``brutal.'' I use it today. It is truly brutal for those of us who knew 
him. All we can say is he succeeded at almost everything he wanted to 
do in life. Clearly, there are few in New Mexico who will achieve as 
much as he. He was really looking forward to becoming Secretary of the 
Navy, taking great pride in being a Marine officer for 3 years after 
completing his baccalaureate degree in North Carolina.
  I and my wife Nancy clearly have had a very tough personal loss in 
his death, and there is not much more I can say other than he will be 
missed. We will all find out someday, perhaps in the hereafter, how all 
this happened. In the meantime, all we can say is we will miss him 
terribly, and we wish for all of his family an understanding beyond 
normal capacity to apprehend, that there will come upon them some 
understanding as to why all of this happened.
  He had been sick. He had a recurrence of cancer that inflicted him 
some 2 years ago. Everybody thought he was recovered and recuperating 
quite well. At least we thought so and his family thought so, when this 
tragedy occurred.
  I thank the Senate for the time.
  Mr. President, before we call on Senators, we are expecting closure 
of between 5 and 10 amendments, which we will present jointly this 
morning on this Energy bill. The biggest issue everyone has asked so 
much about is the electricity title. It is a very complex title. We 
have tried to put together a major bipartisan amendment. It is in the 
hands of all the Senators and, as a result, because it is so important, 
it is in the hands of hundreds of experts and lobbyists and companies 
across this country.
  By Monday, everybody should know what they want to do with it, to it, 
or for it. It will be offered Monday with the hope that we will begin 
serious debate on that amendment.
  CAFE standards has been one of those issues of importance. We have 
two of the major CAFE standards amendments pending. They were offered 
last night. We will work out a time for voting on them on Monday. We 
expected another CAFE standards amendment this morning, but it has not 
materialized. Let's hope it does so we can get them all lined up to 
dispose of them Monday evening.
  There are about five other major issues that are being worked on, and 
we hope we can prove that the Senate is capable of completing this bill 
in five additional working days, besides last night and today, and the 
previous time we spent on the bill.
  Everyone should remember, the majority leader said we are going to 
finish this bill. We are scheduled for our August recess next Friday, 
but we have been told those recess days will not commence until we have 
finished this bill. I hope everybody understands that is not said in 
any way other than in a positive way. There is plenty of time so long 
as Senators do not desire an inordinate amount of time on any subject. 
We probably have one or two climate change amendments. We probably 
have, as I indicated, an additional CAFE amendment and many amendments 
on the electricity section. Plus, I am sure the minority leader has 
some amendments with reference to mandating the percentage of wind 
energy and solar energy that must be utilized by the utility companies. 
That will be thoroughly debated and voted on. There may be a couple 
other major issues, but I think that covers most of them--and I covered 
them last night reminding everybody to get ready. We always have the 
idea around here that we will get ready when the time is necessary.
  People put off things until that ominous time. On Energy amendments, 
the time has come. The electricity amendment is in our hands. It is 
major legislation. We are going to proceed with dispatch, at least as 
much dispatch as the Senate will let us, and we will try to push that 
as nicely and calmly but as rigorously as we can for the next 5 or 6 
days in an effort to complete this bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota is recognized.

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