[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 12]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 17210-17212]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    THE PASSING OF WILLIAM J. COYNE

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. MICHAEL F. DOYLE

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, November 15, 2013

  Mr. DOYLE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to former Member 
of Congress William J. Coyne, who represented Pennsylvania's 14th 
District from 1981 until 2003. Bill passed away on November 3, 2013.
  I was honored to work with Bill for eight years as members of 
Pennsylvania's Congressional delegation from adjacent districts, and I 
have had the privilege of serving many of his former constituents since 
he retired in January 2003. I wanted to take this opportunity to 
remember Bill.
  Bill was born on August 24, 1936. He grew up in a house on Halket 
Street in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood, and he lived in that house 
for most of his life.
  Bill graduated from Central Catholic High School in 1954. He served 
in the U.S. Army in Korea from 1955 through 1957. He returned to 
Pittsburgh after completing his military service and began working as 
an accountant for a trucking company. He subsequently attended Robert 
Morris College, graduating with a B.S. in accounting in 1965. In all, 
he worked as an accountant for 13 years.
  Bill became involved in local politics in the 1960s, doing volunteer 
work on a number of local Democratic campaigns. He ran for office 
himself in 1970 and was elected to the Pennsylvania House of 
Representatives, where he served one term. He was elected to Pittsburgh 
City Council in 1973, and he served as a City Councilman from 1974 
until 1980.
  In 1980, Bill ran for Congress, and was elected to represent 
Pennsylvania's 14th Congressional District in the U.S. House of 
Representatives. At that time, the 14th District

[[Page 17211]]

consisted of the City of Pittsburgh and a number of adjacent 
communities in Allegheny County. He was re-elected 10 times and 
represented the 14th District in Congress for 22 years from 1981 until 
2003.
  During his first 2 terms in Congress, Bill served on the House 
Banking Committee and the Committee on House Administration. He also 
served on the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, known 
unofficially as the House Ethics Committee.
  In 1985, he was appointed to serve on the Ways and Means Committee. 
In addition, from 1993 through 1998, he served on the House Budget 
Committee.
  In the 1980s, when Bill started serving in Congress, southwestern 
Pennsylvania was experiencing high unemployment and economic disruption 
as a result of the decline of the steel industry, which up until then 
had been the dominant driver of the region's economy. Consequently, job 
creation and economic redevelopment were his top priorities when he 
began serving in Congress and throughout his service there.
  At that time, due to many young and working-age individuals leaving 
the region to seek work elsewhere, Pittsburgh had a disproportionately 
large elderly population--with more senior citizens than any 
Congressional District outside of Miami. As a result, Bill also focused 
his efforts on programs which, like Social Security, Medicare, and 
Medicaid, were essential to the health and well-being of older 
Americans. He worked on the Ways and Means Committee, for example, to 
protect Americans' pensions and other retirement benefits, enact a 
Medicare prescription drug benefit, and oppose efforts to cut federal 
safety net programs.
  Bill worked closely with local and state elected leaders to develop a 
plan for the region's renewal, which consisted of building on the 
region's greatest assets--its research universities, hospitals, and 
financial institutions--while attempting to preserve the region's 
remaining manufacturing base. His efforts to achieve those goals 
focused on federal investments in scientific and biomedical research, 
higher education, housing and community development, transportation, 
and the clean-up and redevelopment of abandoned industrial sites. He 
also pursued complementary tax and trade policies. He was actively 
involved in securing federal funding for important projects in 
southwestern Pennsylvania as well as efforts to preserve and expand 
federal programs nationwide.
  With hundreds of acres of shuttered steel mills in the region, Bill 
worked on the Ways and Means Committee to provide tax incentives for 
businesses and municipalities to clean up and redevelop vacant, often 
polluted industrial sites--often referred to as brownfields--including 
a provision in the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 which allowed businesses 
to deduct the cost of cleaning up brownfields sites in certain targeted 
areas. He also worked successfully to expand the brownfields tax 
incentive and delay its expiration date by several years. In addition, 
he supported legislation to create federal empowerment zones and 
enterprise communities, which provided tax breaks for businesses that 
operated in economically distressed areas.
  Bill believed that the federal tax code could and should be used to 
create or preserve American manufacturing jobs, and he worked 
successfully to make the federal tax-exempt Industrial Development Bond 
program permanent to keep U.S. manufacturing jobs from moving overseas.
  Bill also worked successfully to secure hundreds of millions of 
dollars in federal funding for local infrastructure projects--including 
reconstruction of the Drake, Library, and Overbrook trolley lines in 
Allegheny County and construction of an extension of the MLK Jr. 
Busway. He worked successfully to get local locks and dams updated--
most notably, Locks and Dams 2, 3, and 4 on the Lower Monongahela 
River--and a flood control project built along Saw Mill Run. Bill also 
secured the cost-free transfer of the Hays Ammunition Plant to the City 
of Pittsburgh for redevelopment. He secured millions of dollars in seed 
money for the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon 
University and the NASA Robotics Engineering Consortium. In addition, 
he worked successfully to enact a bill designating the Steel Industry 
Heritage Project in Homestead as a national heritage area to preserve 
the region's history and culture and promote local tourism.
  Bill was also an unabashed liberal--a vocal defender of workers' 
rights, women's rights, and gay rights as well as all of the New Deal 
and Great Society programs. He believed in tougher federal gun control 
laws--voting, for example, in support of the 1994 assault weapons ban. 
He opposed efforts to roll back American workers' rights to organize 
and bargain collectively, and he worked to expand protection for 
workers' rights in international trade agreements.
  Bill strongly opposed efforts to cut domestic spending programs in 
the 1980s and 1990s, especially programs to help local governments 
undertake important redevelopment activities--programs like Community 
Development Block Grants, Urban Development Action Grants, the Economic 
Development Administration, and General Revenue Sharing. Bill also 
worked with many of his colleagues to protect federal programs that 
served children, senior citizens, the disabled, and working families. 
On the other side of the ledger, he opposed increased defense spending 
in the 1980s and supported deep defense cuts in the 1990s after the end 
of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union. Bill worked on the 
House Ways and Means Committee to reduce the tax burden on low- and 
middle-income families. He was also actively involved in developing and 
enacting legislation to reform the Internal Revenue Service.
  In 2002, Bill decided to retire at the end of his 11th term. In 
January of 2003, he wrapped up his career in politics and returned home 
to Pittsburgh. In the 10 years since then, Bill has enjoyed retirement, 
dividing his time between his home in Pittsburgh and a home in Ireland.
  When you take into account his military service, his service in the 
Pennsylvania State legislature, his service on Pittsburgh City Council, 
and his 22 years in Congress, you can't help but conclude that Bill 
Coyne was a dedicated public servant. He was quiet but effective--and 
he was living proof that nice guys can get ahead. Bill Coyne was a 
credit to this institution and to his home town. Those of us who had 
the privilege to know him will miss him.
  He is survived by his long-time companion Kathy Kozdemba, his brother 
Philip Coyne, Jr., and many nieces and nephews.
  I'd like to include this eulogy given by his nephew Daniel Coyne at 
his funeral in Pittsburgh last week.

 Billy: A Eulogy for Congressman Bill Coyne Delivered at His Funeral, 
                            November 7, 2013

     (By Daniel V. Coyne, Managing Editor, Boston Consulting Group)

       Bill Coyne was my father's older brother, and I have the 
     honor and privilege of saying a few words about who he was 
     and the full life he lived.
       Bill, or Billy as I called him, was devoted to his long-
     time companion Kathy; to his surviving brother Philly; to his 
     nieces, nephews, cousins, and extended family; to his faith; 
     to the city of Pittsburgh, which he served for decades; and 
     to his neighborhood of Oakland, which gave rise to 
     characters, stories, and legends that made me wish I'd grown 
     up in a different time.
       He was best known, of course, for being a politician. 
     Articles about Bill Coyne always described him as quiet. But 
     that belied his passion and his commitment. He worked 
     incredibly hard for the things he believed in. Economic 
     development and opportunity, equality, measures to help the 
     working class. He was sometimes described as an old-fashioned 
     Democrat. I think he was very proud of that--proud to be 
     called liberal or progressive. Not that he'd ever brag about 
     it. Billy never cared for grandstanding, never sought the 
     limelight.
       To me, his legacy is not just about what he did, it's about 
     how he did it. Billy was civil, sincere, genuine, and 
     honorable. He epitomized everything that's good and noble 
     about the title ``public servant''. He simply wanted to help 
     people. He got involved in politics in the late 60s, he said, 
     because of the conditions of the country. He wanted to make a 
     difference. And that's what he and his dedicated staff did.
       In a 1986 profile of Billy in the Pittsburgh Press, Tip 
     O'Neill summed it up nicely: ``You can get a lot done for 
     your constituents when you have the respect and admiration of 
     your colleagues,'' he said. ``And Bill Coyne is one of the 
     best liked guys down here.'' Incidentally, when Billy heard 
     that the Press wanted to do a story on him, he had a one-word 
     response: ``Why?''
       Billy was more than a politician. He was a kind and 
     generous uncle. He was thoughtful and warm. He loved being 
     with Kathy and hosting Christmas dinners with her. He loved 
     being with his nieces, nephews, and cousins. He was happy 
     being in Pittsburgh, living a short walk from Halket Street, 
     where he grew up. And he was energized by the visits he and 
     Kathy made to Ireland several times each year.
       For his brother Philly's 90th birthday, a group of us 
     travelled to Ireland. Billy and Kathy were our guides. 
     Billy's excitement was infectious. He was like a little kid, 
     reveling in the music, the scenery, the streetscapes, the 
     people, being with our relatives. He wanted so much for us to 
     be a part of it. It reminded me of how he'd treat people who 
     visited him in Washington.
       I lived there for a few years while Billy was in office. 
     He'd sometimes sneak me and a friend onto the floor of the 
     House of Representatives for small occasions, like the State 
     of the Union Address. It was never to

[[Page 17212]]

     show off. Billy wasn't in the habit of trying to impress 
     people. I just think he saw the House floor in the same way 
     he and others who grew up in Oakland saw Forbes Field. It's 
     historic, and it's hallowed ground. But it's sort of public 
     property . . . you don't really need a ticket to get in. The 
     fact that it was there was permission enough.
       Billy did those sorts of things all the time. He'd go out 
     of his way to do something if he thought it would make you 
     happy. The fact is, Billy would go out of his way for anyone, 
     anytime. Selfless hardly begins to describe his compassion 
     and his sense of service. That's how he worked his job. 
     That's how he lived his life.
       His passing is a profound loss for Kathy, for Philly, and 
     for our whole family. We were blessed to have had him in our 
     lives, and we will miss him dearly.
       There's a quote, attributed to an ancient Chinese 
     philosopher, whom Billy was fond of. Kathy gave it to me. She 
     said that Billy carried it around in his wallet. It obviously 
     meant a lot to him, and I'd like to close by reading it:

     A leader is best when people barely know he exists
     Not so good when people obey and acclaim him
     Worse when they despise him
     But of a good leader who talks little, when his work is done 
           they will say:
     ``We did it ourselves''

                          ____________________