[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Page 8230]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               CELEBRATING GOVERNMENT WORKERS NATIONWIDE

  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the hundreds of 
thousands of civilian and military employees who have chosen to 
dedicate their lives to public service. This week, from May 3 through 
May 9, we celebrate Public Service Recognition Week. Organized by the 
Public Employees Roundtable since 1985, this week allows us to honor 
those who have chosen to serve their country and to educate the public 
about the broad variety of services government provides.
  President Kennedy once said: ``Let the public service be a proud and 
lively career. And let every man and woman who works in any area of our 
Nation's government, in any branch, at any level, be able to say with 
pride and honor in future years: `I served the United States Government 
in that hour of our Nation's need.''' Our Nation is most certainly in a 
time of need. Great uncertainty exists about the state of world 
relations, the direction our Nation is headed, and the economic welfare 
of our society. Unfortunately, the pride and honor associated with 
public service has been diminished by a lack of respect. Rather than 
commending the important work Federal civilian employees do side-by-
side with our military employees, society too often seeks to belittle 
their contributions; choosing instead to characterize the civil service 
as a large, inflexible bureaucracy.
  At the Federal level, we are experiencing a disturbing trend. The 
ranks of bright, active, and well-trained Federal employees are slowly 
diminishing. Of our 1.8 million Federal civil servants, 50 percent will 
be eligible to retire over the next five years. At the same time, a 
national poll by the Partnership for Public Service found that only one 
in four college-educated Americans expressed significant interest in 
working for the Federal Government. A recent survey by the Council for 
Excellence in Government said that young people, while eager to find a 
job that will allow them to help people, are less likely to choose 
government jobs than work in the non-profit sector.
  In my view, however, if our young people understood the expertise, 
the sacrifice, and the dedication required to serve the public, they 
would be less inclined to belittle this calling and more inclined to 
answer it. Young people should know, for instance, that civilian 
employees from agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Capitol Police and 
the FBI worked side by side with the Coast Guard and the Marine Corps 
Chemical Biological Incident Response Force from Indian Head, MD to 
respond to the discovery of ricin in the Dirksen Senate Office 
Building.
  Without the civilian Federal researchers at the Human Genome Project, 
we would know much less about the make-up of the human body and, more 
importantly, be much further away from providing cures to genetic 
disorders such as cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia. Their work--a 
complete description of the draft of the DNA sequence of the human 
genome--was completed faster than originally planned.
  Without the hard work done by the civilian employees at the National 
Security Agency, we would likely be without a few things that today we 
consider basic necessities, such as computers and cassette tapes. 
Further, the development of more advanced theories and technologies 
such as quantum mathematics, nanotechnology, biometrics, and 
semiconductors--which are quickly changing our world's technological 
landscape--would have been hindered or never started but for the 
efforts of NSA's dedicated and innovative employees.
  The employees at the National Institute of Standards and Technology's 
Building and Fire Research Laboratory are about as inconspicuous a 
group of researchers as exist. But without them there would be no 
standard coupling for fire hoses or hydrants. If you do not know why 
that's important, consider the devastating fire that destroyed 2,500 
buildings in an 80-block area in the heart of Baltimore in 1904. 
Responders came from fire departments in D.C., New York, and 
Philadelphia to help put out the blaze. But each department's hoses had 
different threads, so they could not be linked to Baltimore's hydrants, 
making them almost useless. After the fire, the Building and Fire 
Research Laboratory's predecessor, the National Bureau of Standards, 
worked with the National Fire Prevention Association to develop 
national standards and codes for fire equipment, which departments 
still use today.
  Finally, thanks to scientists at the National Cancer Institute, NCI, 
and the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, women's chances of detecting 
ovarian cancer earlier and possibly recovering have increased. Working 
together, NCI and FDA discovered that patterns of proteins found in 
patients' serum may reflect the presence of ovarian cancer, even at 
early stages. Currently, more than 80 percent of ovarian cancer 
patients are diagnosed at a late clinical stage and have a 20 percent 
or less chance of survival. This research may increase those chances.
  During this Public Service Recognition Week, I urge my colleagues to 
take a moment to appreciate advances such as these that our Nation and 
society have made as a result of the hard work of Federal civil 
servants. When President Kennedy initially released his Peace Corps 
proposal, the reactions he received convinced him that ``we have, in 
this country, an immense reservoir of such men and women--anxious to 
sacrifice their energies and time and toil to the cause of world peace 
and human progress.'' Things have not changed. The American populace is 
still full of men and women who want to serve. The challenge for us, as 
a Congress and a Federal Government, is to convince more of those men 
and women that civil service is a laudable way to serve their country.

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