[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17585-17586]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO BETH STEIN

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, in 1997, Beth Stein, a talented young 
woman armed with a razor-sharp mind and relentless attention to detail, 
arrived on Capitol Hill as counsel to a true American hero, U.S. 
Senator John Glenn. As his investigative counsel, Beth played a key 
role in the inquiry into campaign finance abuses in the 1996 election. 
And she helped to lead investigations into other critical issues, 
including food safety, Medicare fraud, waste, and abuse, and the 
relationship between thyroid cancer rates and exposure to nuclear 
fallout from Nevada testing in the 1940s. After working for Senator 
Glenn, Beth went on to serve as election counsel to Representative 
Steny Hoyer and as Judiciary Committee counsel to U.S. Senator Maria 
Cantwell.
  The work of a U.S. Senator is only as good as the staff that he or 
she hires, and in 2004 I was fortunate to convince Beth to join my 
staff, where she has served ever since. Throughout that time, she has 
served in a number of different capacities, distinguishing herself in 
each and every one of them. I owe a debt of gratitude to so many of my 
staff members across my career, but I would be remiss if I did not 
single out Beth for her especially meritorious contributions to my 
office over the past decade.
  Beth began her work in my office as counsel, providing excellent 
advice on myriad constitutional and civil rights issues, among other 
things. One of her most noteworthy accomplishments from this time 
related to the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, located not far from 
Burlington, IA. The history of the covert nuclear weapons program at 
the IAAP is a fascinating one that I could recount for hours. Suffice 
it to say that for decades the men and women of the Iowa Ammunition 
Plant worked on a secret nuclear weapons program, handling highly 
radioactive materials with protective gear of only cotton gloves--
gloves that were intended to protect the weapons material from contact 
with humans, not to protect humans from contact with dangerous 
radioactive materials.
  After my office helped to uncover the long history of dangerous 
working conditions at the IAAP, we still had to address the needs of 
hundreds of men and women who were exposed to radioactive materials and 
to try and help them receive compensation and health care to deal with 
the high rates of cancer and respiratory disease associated with their 
work. For years we struggled with various Federal agencies. We tried to 
seek a legislative fix. We sought an administrative remedy. It was 
finally under Beth's leadership that the men and women of the IAAP were 
designated a special exposure cohort, which made them eligible for 
compensation and medical care to account for medical expenses and lost 
wages. It is not an exaggeration to say that, but for Beth's efforts, 
the former workers of the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant might still be 
waiting on the Federal Government to appropriately compensate them for 
their service to our nation.
  So much did I value Beth's work that when she decided that she wanted 
to take a step back and spend more time with her kids, I convinced her 
not to leave the payroll entirely but to stay on to work on special 
projects. In that capacity, Beth played a critical role in one of my 
proudest achievements, the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments 
Act of 2008. This law was written in response to several Supreme Court 
decisions narrowing the definition of disability under the Americans 
with Disabilities Act. These narrow interpretations led to the denial 
of the ADA's protections for many individuals that Congress intended to 
protect under the ADA. The ADAAA made a number of changes to restore 
the intent of the ADA and to ensure that its protections were broadly 
available to persons with disabilities. Though the ADAAA passed the 
Senate by unanimous consent, a fact that is a credit to the Senate, one 
should not take from this the idea that it was easy. It required long 
negotiations and difficult choices involving Congress, the 
administration, disability rights organizations, and business 
interests. Beth played a critical role in these negotiations, deftly 
managing both the politics and the policy. The result of her steady 
guiding hand is abundantly clear today: the ADA, as amended by the 
ADAAA, continues its impact as one of the landmark civil rights laws of 
the 20th century, the Emancipation Proclamation for Persons with 
Disabilities.
  When I became chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions, one of my first acts was to establish an 
investigative unit to provide critical oversight and investigations 
work. There was no question in my mind that Beth, with her 
relentlessness, eye for detail, and penchant for sifting through 
detritus to reveal the truth, was the person for the job. As my chief 
investigative counsel, she has delivered time and again, for example, 
uncovering labor abuses by government contractors that led to a White 
House Executive order clamping down on such abuses. Beth also played a 
key role in producing HELP Committee reports on the abusive use of 
seclusions and restraints in our Nation's schools, on barriers that 
stand in the way of the economic security of persons with disabilities, 
and on the rapid growth of e-cigarettes and their marketing.
  Most noteworthy was Beth's leadership of the HELP Committee's 
investigation of abuses in the for-profit sector of higher education. 
This investigation spanned several years and culminated in the release 
of a multi-volume report detailing in remarkable detail the abuses by 
some for-profit colleges--in particular, their misuse of taxpayer 
funds, their poor educational outcomes, and the need for greater 
Federal oversight of these schools. This investigation was monumental 
both in its scale and in its level of detail. Beth oversaw every aspect 
of this very delicate investigation, which resulted in much greater 
scrutiny of the for-profit industry and which also put the 
investigations arm of the HELP Committee on the map.
  About a year ago, I asked Beth to return to my personal office to 
serve as legislative director. In that capacity, she has done yeoman's 
work managing the legislative staff, helping in the unenviable job of 
closing our Senate office, and continuing to provide the excellent 
counsel that had made her indispensable for the past decade. And she 
has done all of this while continuing in her role as chief 
investigations counsel for the HELP Committee.
  Mr. President, when I was growing up, my parents didn't talk 
politics. We didn't know politicians. But we knew this: When my family 
hit rock bottom in the late years of the Depression, with my father out 
of work and with no way to provide for his family, the government gave 
us a hand up. Dad got a postcard in the mail notifying him to report 
for employment with the Work Projects Administration, the WPA. Dad 
always said that Franklin Roosevelt gave him a job. That opportunity 
gave my father dignity and enough money to put food on the table, and, 
maybe most important of all, it gave him hope.
  As a proud Midwestern progressive, I have fought to give opportunity 
and hope to those who truly need it and deserve it, including working 
families seeking affordable health care and childcare, family farmers 
struggling to stay on the land, young people paying for college, and 
seniors seeking financial security in their retirement years.
  But I haven't done it alone. Every Senator stands on the foundation 
of his or her staff, and on my staff Beth Stein has been a rock-solid 
cornerstone in that foundation. For her counsel, intelligence, and 
excellent work, and for helping me to be the best servant I can be to 
the people of Iowa and the United States, for working alongside me to 
do our best to give people hope, I extend my deepest gratitude to my 
counselor and friend Beth Stein.

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