[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Page 3430]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO FEDERAL EMPLOYEES

  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, in closing, I want to do something I think 
the Presiding Officer has heard me do before. I try to come to the 
floor once a month and talk about some of the employees who work at the 
Department of Homeland Security. They work for us across this country 
and really around the world.
  This is the youngest Department, if you will, that we have in the 
Federal Government. It is about 12 years old. It sort of formed on the 
heels of 9/11. Twenty-two agencies that have some commonality in their 
focus or the way they touch the security of our homeland and the people 
who live in it kind of glommed together.
  The morale in the Department has not been good. There has been a 
great, sustained effort--and certainly we are trying to support it in 
our Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs--to turn a 
corner and let people know that not only is the work they do important, 
but we appreciate their efforts.
  I wish to say a few words today about some of the men and women who 
work tirelessly to keep us safe and secure, often without a lot of 
recognition and thanks. I am talking about the good people at the 
Transportation Security Administration, now led by retired Coast Guard 
Admiral Neffenger, Peter Neffenger, a very able and impressive leader.
  As the Easter holidays approach, many Americans will be traveling to 
spend time with their families around the country and even around the 
world. If you head to an airport, as many of my colleagues, their 
colleagues, and their constituents will be doing very soon, chances are 
you will interact with some of the hard-working men and women of the 
TSA who keep our skies safe. Nearly 59,000 people work at TSA. Many are 
focused on securing our aviation system, while others work to protect 
our service transportation networks, such as the train I took to work 
this morning and will be jumping on later today to go home.
  TSA's work is not only carried out by frontline employees whom we see 
at the airports as we check in and go through security, have our bags 
checked, our bodies checked, there are also many dedicated people who 
are hard at work behind the scenes. We never actually see them, but 
they are there keeping us safe too. These men and women perform the 
critical work of gathering and analyzing intelligence in order to 
identify potential threats to our transportation system and to mitigate 
them in real time.
  I would like to use the remainder of my time to highlight the 
outstanding efforts of some of these individuals. I learned about them 
yesterday while meeting with Admiral Neffenger, who happened to be in a 
meeting that we had in my office and was with me again today for a 
secure briefing in the SCIF. He shared with me something I was very 
happy to learn about. He told me of six members of the current 
intelligence team within TSA's Office of Intelligence and Analysis and 
how they recently received the 2015 Intelligence Community 
Counterterrorism Award for Education and Training from the Director of 
the National Counterterrorism Center. That is a mouthful, but it is 
quite an award, quite a recognition. These six individuals--three men, 
three women--developed a counterterrorism threat briefing for all 
frontline employees who man our checkpoints and transit systems so they 
can better understand the connection between intelligence and TSA 
security operations.
  In essence, these individuals are helping TSA frontline officers 
understand the ``why,'' if you will, behind their work. According to 
the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, these six or 
seven men and women ``exemplified the essential attributes of the 
counter-terrorism community: expertise, integration, collaboration, and 
information sharing.''
  While I cannot state their names here, maybe for obvious reasons, I 
do wish to say to all of you out there--you know who I am talking 
about--thank you for the work you do every day to ensure that your 
fellow Americans, people who work here and the people we represent, can 
travel safely and that our transit systems are secure. Thank you for 
the work you have done to ensure that your fellow TSA employees have 
the tools they need to carry out the critical work they do. Your 
dedication and your invaluable service are appreciated by me, by all of 
our colleagues in the Senate, our staffs, and by millions of Americans 
who travel throughout our country every single day.
  With that, I have probably said enough. I will say to the Presiding 
Officer, the staff, and everybody who might be tuned in, happy St. 
Patrick's Day. We hope good fortune shines on all of us and on our 
country, not just over this holiday and upcoming recess and a special 
day today but for a long time after that.
  Some of the people we have talked about today--their job is to make 
sure we are not just lucky, but that we are safe, secure, and 
successful going forward. There is an old saying: The harder I work, 
the luckier I get. I am talking about some people who work very hard so 
we can be fortunate and blessed in this country. I bid you a happy St. 
Patrick's Day.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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