[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17332-17333]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTES TO MIKE JOHANNS

  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I come to the floor to praise the public 
service of and bid farewell to my friend and valued colleague from 
Nebraska, Senator Mike Johanns.
  With my remarks, I celebrate not just Mike's last 6 years in the 
Senate but also his 30-plus years in public service that will culminate 
with the end of this term.
  At the highest levels of government in both the legislative and 
executive branches, Mike's life of public service has been punctuated 
by great accomplishment. From the Lancaster County Board in Nebraska to 
the Lincoln City Council, from his service as mayor of Lincoln to his 
service as the 38th Governor of Nebraska, from his service as the 28th 
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and throughout his tenure in the Senate, 
Mike has demonstrated a commitment to those with muted voices in our 
political system, including small business owners, veterans, those 
impaired by mental illness and most certainly America's farmers and 
ranchers.
  In the Senate, Mike's leadership and bipartisan efforts to repeal 
purposeless tax reporting requirements in ObamaCare, his championing 
new trade agreements, and his contribution to the development and final 
passage of a new farm bill this year all describe a strong conservative 
legislator committed to stimulating economic growth through reduced 
government spending, lower tax rates, and reduced regulatory burdens on 
American business.
  I have appreciated Mike's partnership on key legislation, including 
his joining me to cosponsor the bipartisan Congressional Accountability 
and Line-Item Veto Act of 2009. During the 112th Congress, we were both 
cosponsors of the Foreign Earnings Reinvestment Act, a bipartisan 
effort to let corporations reinvest earnings kept overseas by our high 
corporate tax rates back into the American economy.
  I was also proud to join Mike as an original cosponsor of his bill, 
the Two-Year Regulatory Freeze Act of 2011, which sought to give the 
American economy a much needed reprieve to burdensome and confusing 
Federal regulations that frequently hinder economic growth. Mike was 
also an original cosponsor of the Jobs Through Growth Act, and many 
others.
  I am also grateful that he joined in helping replenish the Forest 
Service's aging air tanker fleet. A decade ago the Forest Service had 
roughly 40 large air tankers to fight wildfires that burned millions of 
acres of land across Western States, including Nebraska and Arizona.
  Today they own eight large air tankers. Senator Johanns and I saw an 
opportunity to transfer several excess Department of Defense aircraft 
to the Forest Service to temporarily address this shortage, and that 
has happened.
  While Mike and I have had disagreements along the way, I have always 
respected his knowledge and experience as a farmer, foreign trade 
expert, and the Nation's former Agriculture Secretary.
  I am proud of the areas where we agree: reining in certain farm 
subsidy programs, advocating for free trade agreements with Colombia, 
Panama, and South Korea, and even working together to kill the proposed 
USDA catfish office--a little known $15 million program inside the last 
farm bill that we both highlighted as wasting taxpayer money and that, 
from a trade perspective, was negatively impacting our cattlemen and 
soy farmers.
  We also agree on the need to help returning veterans seeking to 
reenter the workforce as beginning farmers, an effort he championed in 
our last farm bill. I have long applauded Senator Johanns for calling 
on Congress to pass laws to stop farm subsidies from going to 
millionaires while he was a sitting Secretary of Agriculture.

[[Page 17333]]

  As much as I respect the substance of Mike's accomplishments in 
public service, I have valued how he has achieved them with a quiet, 
purposeful dignity and, indeed, a vibrant sense of humor. He has never 
been opposed to bipartisan cooperation whenever it is needed to further 
the interests of his constituents or the greater Nation.
  For these reasons, his approach to governance in legislating has 
earned him the respect of colleagues and constituents across the 
political continuum. It should also serve as an example to all of us in 
this body who remain behind.
  In an email Mike wrote to his friends last February announcing his 
decision not to seek reelection in 2014, Mike wrote: ``With everything 
in life, there is a time and a season.''
  Well, to my friend and valued colleague, Mike Johanns, I bid fair 
winds and following seas in all that he and his lovely wife Stephanie 
do, and I thank him for his service and his friendship.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Madam President, I rise and second what my friend and 
colleague from Arizona said.
  It has been a privilege of mine to serve in this body for 12 years--
and I will be making some comments about that tomorrow--but during my 
early years in the Senate the Secretary of Agriculture was Secretary 
Mike Johanns.
  Being a very active member of the Agriculture Committee and being 
chairman for 2 years during then-Secretary Johann's tenure, I had the 
opportunity to work with Mike on a day-to-day basis and, boy, what a 
pleasure it is to work with one of the finest gentlemen and public 
servants I have ever known. He is smart, and he is political when he 
needs to be political, but he has as much or more common sense as, 
again, any public servant I have ever known.
  For the past 6 years, he has been my next-door neighbor in the 
Russell building, so we see a lot of each other coming and going and 
have the opportunity to visit on a regular basis.
  As I leave at the end of this term, one of the real Members of the 
Senate I am going to miss is Mike Johanns. I publicly thank him for his 
service and thank him for his commitment. I wish him and Stephanie the 
best, but what I really thank him for is the great friendship he and I 
developed over the years.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I join the Senator from Arizona and the 
Senator from Georgia--my senior Senator, Mr. Chambliss--to rise for a 
minute and talk about Mike Johanns.
  I want to amend that. I don't want to just talk about Mike Johanns, I 
want to talk about him and Stephanie Johanns.
  In the South what we have is what we call a two-for. Mike and 
Stephanie are a two-for. They are a great pair for America, and they 
are a great pair for the State of Nebraska.
  As a Senator from an agricultural State, I know the value that Mike 
brought to the Cabinet of the United States when he was Secretary of 
Agriculture.
  I know from his serving the State of Nebraska when he was Governor 
what a great job they did. I know the past 6 years, working side-by-
side with Mike Johanns has been a real treat. He is a gentleman, and he 
is a scholar. He doesn't do anything where he doesn't know what he is 
doing, and if he is not always right, he is almost always right because 
he always has Stephanie there to guide him in the right direction.
  I pay tribute to a great Senator, and a great personal friend, Mike 
Johanns, and his lovely wife Stephanie.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.

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