[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 20]
[House]
[Page 27576]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          HONORING STAFF WHO WORKED ON HEALTH CARE LEGISLATION

  (Mr. WAXMAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a minute to thank the 
staff that worked so hard on the health bill.
  We could not have brought this legislation before the House today 
without the hard work and the professional standards of the House 
Legislative Counsel and the Congressional Budget Office. The staffs of 
these two offices spent many evenings and weekends under relentless 
deadline pressure helping us to solve the many technical challenges we 
faced in putting this bill together.
  I particularly want to thank the outstanding staff of House 
Legislative Counsel who worked under the tireless direction of Deputy 
Legislative Counsel Ed Grossman: Jessica Shapiro, Megan Renfrew, Warren 
Burke, Henry Christrup, Larry Johnson, and Wade Ballou.
  I also want to thank the talented staff of the Congressional Budget 
Office: Bob Sunshine, Pete Fontaine, Holly Harvey, Phil Ellis, Tom 
Bradley, and Kate Massey.
  Finally, I want to thank the staffs of three committees that worked 
on this bill: Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, and Education and 
Labor. Their expertise was remarkable, and their efforts--on both the 
Democratic and Republican side--Herculean.
  In particular, I want to commend my committee Health staff, who 
worked under the direction of the incomparable Karen Nelson: Alvin 
Banks, Steve Cha, Bobby Clark, Brian Cohen, Alli Corr, Sarah Despres, 
Jack Ebeler, Tim Gronniger, Ruth Katz, Purvee Kempf, Anne Morris, Andy 
Schneider, Camille Sealy, Naomi Seiler, and Tim Westmoreland.
  I yield at this time to the distinguished chairman of the Ways and 
Means Committee.
  Mr. RANGEL. Thank you, Mr. Waxman, and also Chairman Miller.
  As most of you know, the legislation from the three committees was 
blended, but so were our great staffs blended. We are here to thank 
them all for the great work that they put in, the countless hours that 
they put in to make this legislation a reality.
  On the staff of the Committee on Ways and Means in the office of the 
Health Subcommittee, I would like to thank Chairman Pete Stark, who 
worked on this legislation, Janice Mays, John Buckley, Cybele 
Bjorklund, Debbie Curtis, Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, Jennifer Friedman, 
Geoff Gerhardt, Tiffany Swygert, Drew Crouch, Marci Harris, Tom Tsang, 
Drew Dawson, Ruth Brown, John Barkett, Matthew Beck, Lauren Bloomberg, 
Brian Cook, and Cameron Branchley.
  Because this legislation was the product of the three committees, I 
would like to thank the Health staffs of the Committee of Energy and 
Commerce as well as Education and Labor.
  We are indebted to our staffs for the work that they have done. We 
want to thank the capable analysts at the CBO and the Joint Committee 
on Taxation. We may not always agree with all of the work that we have 
done, but we have put in a lot of long hours. They've worked day and 
night for all of us, for the Congress, and for our great country.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Reclaiming my time, I also want to single out Virgil 
Miller and Katie Campbell, who worked on Mr. Dingell's staff and worked 
very closely with all of us.

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