[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18907-18908]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO DEPARTING SENATORS


                              Mark Begich

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, Alaska is a State unlike any other State in 
the country. Often referred to as the ``last frontier,'' Alaska's 
landscape is as breathtakingly beautiful as it is immense. Its 
residents are some of the most kind and accepting people one would ever 
meet. Any person who represents the State of Alaska must possess a true 
love for the exceptional beauty of this region and the vastness of it. 
It is so far away from everything. The capital Juneau, you can only get 
there in an airplane. That is the only way you can get to the capital 
of the State of Alaska. So I am going to spend a little bit of time 
talking about Senator Mark Begich and his faithful service to the 
people of Alaska.
  There is no surprise that he is dedicated to Alaska and the people of 
Alaska. His father, Congressman Nick Begich, was dedicated to Alaska, 
as has been his mom Peggy. They moved to the then-Territory of Alaska 
in 1957 to teach school. Congressman Begich became involved in Alaskan 
politics and successfully ran for a seat in the U.S. House of 
Representatives.
  Tragedy struck. The whip of the House, Hale Boggs, and he were in 
Alaska campaigning and they were flying to an event. The plane 
disappeared. They searched, they searched, they searched. After 2 
months, Congressman Boggs, Congressman Begich, and the pilot were 
declared dead. Their plane and bodies to this day have not been found. 
They are hidden someplace in the vastness of Alaska, in one of the

[[Page 18908]]

mountains or the many bodies of water. We don't know.
  In spite of this heartbreaking loss, the Begich family has pushed on. 
His mother continued to raise six children alone while managing real 
estate properties and being active in local politics.
  By the age of 17, Mark had already acquired his mother's business 
acumen, starting his first business, a jewelry venture, and also owning 
and managing real estate. One reason Senator Begich has been a good 
Senator is because of his innate business acumen.
  At age 26, he was elected to the Anchorage Assembly, which is the 
city council, a position he held for 10 years. Then in 2003 he was 
elected mayor of Anchorage. He served two terms before running for the 
Senate.
  Now, 2008 was a dark time for Alaskan politics, but Mark's Senate 
victory brought a fresh face and new hope to the State. From the time 
he stepped foot on the Senate floor, he has not let the people of 
Alaska down. He has fought to expand economic opportunity, to defend 
the rights of Alaska Natives, and to fortify rural Alaska. Senator 
Begich's efforts to reform the Alaskan veterans health care system was 
exemplary, and it is a blueprint for a bipartisan solution that the 
Senate reached this year to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs.
  Senator Begich has made tremendous contributions to the Senate over 
the past 6 years. I know he will continue to fight for what is best for 
Alaska as he transitions into the next stage of his life. I hope public 
service is somewhere in Mark's future. Every State needs a man of his 
quality. He will always have his wife Deborah and his son Jacob by his 
side.
  I can remember the first time I saw Jacob was right behind us by the 
Ohio clock. President Obama walked by and that little boy yelled 
``Obama!'' So his little boy loves politics.
  It has truly been an honor to serve with Senator Begich. I am glad he 
has been part of our leadership team as head of the steering committee. 
He has done a remarkable, good job. I thank him again for his service 
to the Senate and certainly to our country.


                               MARK UDALL

  Mr. President, the famous English poet William Blake once said, 
``Great things are done when men and mountains meet.'' There could be 
nothing more apt when talking about Mark Udall than when we talk about 
men and mountains. He knows mountains. He has climbed nine Himalayan 
peaks. He has climbed Mount McKinley. He has climbed 99 of the highest 
summits in Colorado, and that is the place where we have the great 
Rockies. Those are big mountains. He once attempted to scale Mount 
Everest but was stopped by a severe storm. Some of us, while we were 
waiting to finish our work on Saturday, told me they were hoping to go 
skiing on Sunday.
  I said: Where are you going to go skiing?
  I don't know the name of the place.
  How high is that place?
  Eight hundred feet.
  In the Sierra Nevada mountains where I am from, and the Rockies, that 
is not a mountain. We have mountains in Colorado and Nevada.
  Mark Udall once attempted to scale Mount Everest and was nearly there 
when one of the most violent storms came. Using good sense, he decided 
they shouldn't do it, and it was the right thing to do. People die by 
saying they are stronger than nature. He understands his limitations, 
and his limitations are not very much. Mark is a tremendous athlete. He 
could do anything athletically. He has the genes of his dad, Morris 
Udall, whom I had the good fortune of serving with in the House of 
Representatives. Morris Udall is the only person to have played 
professional basketball being blind in one eye, couldn't see, but he 
was able to adjust his perceptive qualities with a basketball hoop to 
play professional basketball.
  We all felt Mark's loss when his brother Randy was found dead. He was 
found dead in the place he loved more than anyplace else, the Wind 
River Mountains in Wyoming. That is where Randy loved to go. That is 
where Mark loves to go. People told Randy he shouldn't go alone, but he 
went alone and it appears maybe he had a heart attack while he was out 
there. They found him several weeks later in the mountains he loved, 
dead. It was real tough for Mark, who looked up so much to his brother. 
Mark, though, has met many mountains and done many great things.
  He served in the House of Representatives where he was stellar. But 
it is the work in the Senate where his greatest feats have been 
accomplished. In 2013 there were storms in Colorado and there was 
catastrophic flooding. It was very bad. Lives were lost, homes washed 
away. The people of Colorado needed help, and Mark would not stop. He 
held up legislation until the people of Colorado got what they 
deserved. He helped secure nearly $1 billion in Federal assistance for 
the people of his State, money to rebuild homes, bridges, roads, and 
reestablish lives.
  While he dedicated himself to protecting the people of Colorado, he 
also was committed to safeguarding the constitutional rights of all 
Americans. Who has done more in exposing what has been going on with 
the invasion of people's privacy? No one has done more than Mark. He 
has done this in a number of different ways. But as a member of the 
Intelligence Committee, his work sounded the alarm about the National 
Security Administration's bulk data collection program. He fought to 
end the CIA's detention and interrogation program, and together with 
Senator Feinstein has pushed to make public the committee's study of 
the CIA's torture program.
  People have said: Perhaps if Mark had not been so concerned about 
individual rights, about the bulk data collection, about the torture, 
maybe he would have been reelected. But that is not Mark Udall. He 
comes from a family with a long tradition of public service, as I have 
indicated. His uncle Stewart was Secretary of the Interior, after 
having served in Congress for many years representing the State of 
Arizona, as did his dad Mo Udall. Mo Udall was one of the most 
recognizable Congressmen in the entire 20th century, having run for 
President, and he had a sense of humor that was really quite 
remarkable.
  Here in the Senate Mark has cousins. It has been interesting. During 
the last few years, we have had a lot of cousins: Mark, Tom, Mike Lee, 
Gordon Smith--all cousins, first cousins. How did that come about? Mark 
would, as he did just a day or two ago, look and kind of smile and say: 
It could have been polygamy. And it was. But they are a very, very 
close family, a very close family.
  In spite of the closeness of Tom and Mark--two brothers could not be 
closer than these two men. They climb mountains together. I have talked 
to them about putting on crampons, these spikes you put on your shoes 
to climb the ice. These are adventurers.
  So we are going to miss Mark. But he has forged his own path and his 
own legacy.
  Now, as his time in the Senate draws to a close, he will carry that 
legacy to other endeavors.
  I wish Mark all the best. It has been such a privilege to serve with 
him. He will be deeply missed.

                          ____________________