[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12845-12846]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             THANKING STAFF

  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, first of all, I will be very brief. What 
we just passed is a major bill. It took a lot of effort from a lot of 
people. Many times the Members get more credit than they should because 
the real heroes are the ones who are back there doing the work. I want 
to thank the staff who are responsible for the hours and a lot of late 
nights.
  I want to thank my chief of staff, Adrienne Jackson, as well as Alex 
Herrgott. They do a lot of late night work on these things, as well as 
many on the other side. In the case of Alex Herrgott, who was driving 
this thing, he has been doing this for me for over a dozen years. We 
have had a lot of successes.
  I also wish to recognize Susan Bodine, who is sitting right here. She 
is a long-time WRDA expert, going back to 2 years ago when we had the 
WRDA bill, in 2014. She actually worked on WRDA on the House side for 
11 years. I thank, as well, Charles Brittingham. These are the two who 
actually spent the time on my side of the aisle who put in the hardest 
and the longest hours. He was originally on loan to me from Senator 
Vitter, but now he is a full member of the EPW Committee. Few, if any, 
have better expertise on the core operation than Charles.
  I want to thank Joe Brown for his long hours, as well as Jennie 
Wright and Andrew Neely for their work on the Oklahoma priorities on 
this bill, along with Carter Vella and Amanda Hall.
  I want to thank Jason Albritton and Ted Illston on Senator Boxer's 
staff for their hard work with my team, and I thank Bettina Poirier, as 
always, for the hard work she did.
  I thank the hard-working Aurora Swanson at CBO. We really put the 
burden on CBO. They had to respond immediately on short notice in order 
to get this done. Everyone said it was going to be impossible during 
this work period, but she played a major part in that. I also recognize 
the scoring and work that was necessary from the Senate legislative 
counsel Deanna Edwards, Maureen Catreni, and Gary Endicott. Finally, I 
thank Neil Chatterjee for his work from the leader's office. It was 
very, very helpful.
  Of course, I already mentioned the hard work of my colleague Senator 
Boxer for making this bill a reality. It was a project that couldn't 
have been done any other way with any other people, and I am proud to 
have that behind us now.
  With that, I will yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.

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