Volume 164, No. 202 covering the 2nd Session of the 115th Congress (2017 - 2018) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“REMEMBERING PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Senate section on pages S8012-S8013 on Dec. 21, 2018.
More than half of the Agency's employees are engineers, scientists and protection specialists. The Climate Reality Project, a global climate activist organization, accused Agency leadership in the last five years of undermining its main mission.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
REMEMBERING PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I was honored to attend the ceremonies in the Capitol Rotunda and at Washington National Cathedral for former President George H.W. Bush. I first met President Bush when he was Vice President and I was the speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates. He visited Annapolis, and I presented him with a Maryland tie. He immediately took off his tie, which he gave to me, and put on the Maryland tie, which he wore with pride. He had a keen eye for detail, for the little things. I had a book on a shelf in my office which was still in the shrink-wrap packaging. He sent me a note--one of his thousands of famous personal notes--gently ribbing me, writing, ``It's good to see you are keeping up on your reading.''
I thing George H.W. Bush may have been the most qualified person ever elected President, starting all the way back to his high school years at Phillips Academy Andover, where he was president of the senior class, secretary of the student council, a member of the editorial board of the school newspaper, and captain of the varsity baseball and soccer teams. He was one of the youngest aviators in the Navy at the beginning of World War II and was barely 20 when his Grumman TBM Avenger was hit by flak during an attack on Japanese installations on Chichijima. He calmly delivered his payload, scoring several hits, before flying as far away from the island as he could in a plane with its engines on fire. He bailed out and ended up in an inflatable raft for four hours before being rescued by the submarine USS Finback. He flew 58 combat missions, for which he received the Distinguished Flying Cross, three Air Medals, and the Presidential Unit Citation awarded to the USS San Jacinto.
After his military service, he went to Yale University, graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in economics in 2\1/2\ years. He was president of his fraternity, captain of the Yale varsity baseball team, and elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He could have stayed back east in Connecticut, where his father Prescott would be elected to the U.S. Senate in a special election in 1952, but George Bush moved to Texas with his wife Barbara and their young son George W. Bush, where he cofounded Zapata Petroleum Corporation. He was a successful businessman when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 1964, losing to the Democratic incumbent, Ralph Yarborough. Two years later, however, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and he won reelection in 1968. The Seventh District was conservative, but George Bush voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and the Fair Housing Act, and he supported birth control and a women's right to choose.
In 1970, then-President Richard Nixon prevailed on George Bush to run for the U.S. Senate again. He did, but he lost again, this time to Lloyd Bentsen. President Nixon nominated him to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and the Senate confirmed the nomination unanimously. He served with distinction for 2 years. In 1973, he became chairman of the Republican National Committee and survived Watergate with his reputation and integrity intact. President Gerald Ford appointed Bush to be chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in the People's Republic of China. During the time he held this position, he was instrumental in improving U.S.-China relations.
From January of 1976 to January of 1977, George Bush was Director of Central Intelligence and incoming President Jimmy Carter considered keeping Bush in the post. He left the Central Intelligence Agency and became a part-time professor at Rice University's Jones School of Business and a director at the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations.
In 1980, George Bush ran for the Republican nomination for President, ultimately yielding to Ronald Reagan, who then chose Bush as his running mate. George Bush served as Vice President for 8 years and then, in 1988, became the first incumbent Vice President to be elected President in 152 years.
George Bush brought all of these qualifications and experiences to the Oval Office. Now, he only served one term; he was defeated in his bid for reelection in 1992. But many commentators have noted that he may be the most successful one-term President in U.S. history. Indeed, his accomplishments in 4 years compare favorably with the accomplishments of many two-term Presidents. I think the key here is that he knew how to reach across the aisle and forge bipartisan compromises. I would like to highlight four.
The first is the Acid Rain Program that was included in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. The Acid Rain Program established a cap-and-
trade regime to cut sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions. Cap-
and-trade was originally a Republican idea to harness market forces for environmental protection. Environmental groups and Democrats were wary, initially, of the authorizations to emit SO2 and NOX, known as allowances. They worried that a ``property right'' in polluting was being established, but the program exceeded everyone's expectation and is one of the most successful environmental programs in history. When George W. Bush was President, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, determined that the program has had a benefit-to-cost ratio of 40-1. Our technical knowledge of the best ways to structure cap-and-trade programs has grown exponentially since 1990; sadly, the political will has atrophied. Even though Republicans were the first to promote cap-and-trade, they have essentially abandoned the idea now, but President Bush saw the potential, and the enormous progress we have made in combatting acid rain is part of his environmental legacy that will endure.
The second accomplishment is the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, which our retiring colleague, Senator Hatch, championed with then-
Senator Tom Harken from Iowa. President Bush signed ADA into law in 1990, and it became known as the Emancipation Proclamation for people with disabilities. ADA literally changed the landscape of America by requiring buildings and transportation to be wheelchair accessible, and it required workplace accommodations for people with disabilities. Nearly 30 years after President Bush signed ADA into law, the improvements the ADA has made enjoy an 83 percent approval rating from the American public. Making life, education, and work more accessible to people with disabilities isn't just good for them; it is good for all of us as we benefit from the fuller contributions they are now able to make to society.
The third accomplishment, I am sure, was difficult for President Bush, and it cost him Republican support in his bid to win reelection in 1992: the 1990 budget deal he negotiated with Congress. At the 1988 Republican National Convention, he famously said, ``Read my lips: no new taxes.'' While he was a Texan by choice, he never lost the pragmatism characteristic of New Englanders. As a recession began to fuel a rise in budget deficits, he realized that he needed to work with a Congress controlled by Democrats and come up with a budget deal, stating ``it is clear to me that both the size of the deficit problem and the need for a package that can be enacted require all of the following: entitlement and mandatory program reform, tax revenue increases, growth incentives, discretionary spending reductions, orderly reductions in defense expenditures, and budget process reform.'' He understood that such a comprehensive framework is the only way to reduce the deficit. Unfortunately, the Trump administration and congressional Republicans still cling to the discredited notion of
``supply-side'' economics, which President Bush famously called
``voodoo economics,'' and our budget situation has become more and more precarious. I doubt President Trump is capable of displaying President Bush's pragmatism, deal-making ability, and willingness to sacrifice personal popularity for the greater good.
His fourth accomplishment fell within his ``wheelhouse": foreign policy and personal diplomacy. He prudently, successfully navigated the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. He showed remarkable but characteristic restraint when the Berlin Wall came down, and many historians credit that restraint with preventing a backlash from hardliners in Eastern Europe. Likewise, the relationship he carefully cultivated with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, including negotiating the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START, helped end the Cold War not with a bang, but with a whimper.
Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, President Bush carefully assembled a coalition that consisted of our traditional allies but also the Soviet Union and, even more crucially, other Arab nations to drive him out. He went to Congress and received authorization for the use of military force when it became clear that international diplomacy would not succeed in dislodging Hussein. ``Operation Desert Storm'' was well-planned and well-executed and succeeded in liberating Kuwait in less than 2 months. While many people have argued that President Bush should have extended the war to remove Hussein from power, he made it clear from the start that was never his objective. He presciently argued that pursuing Hussein into Iraq would destabilize the region and lead to a lengthy military conflict. President Bush optimistically spoke of a ``New World Order'' characterized by an era of historic cooperation between nations. He helped to bring such order into existence. It seemed durable at the time. Now, we realize that it needs more careful attention and nurturing than we, perhaps, previously thought necessary.
All of these accomplishments and more cemented George H.W. Bush's legacy. They alone would be impressive, but what became clear in the outpouring of respect and affection that followed his death is the acknowledgment of what a genuinely decent person he was. He was a humble and self-deprecating man. He respected our important institutions, and he respected people, including his opponents. He was deeply religious. He embraced the principle of noblesse oblige: to whom much is given, much more shall be required in return. As a result, he lived his life as a servant. He was committed to his country and to his beloved wife Barbara and his family, and to his friends. It seems he had an inexhaustible desire and capacity for making new friends from all walks of life, including former political adversaries such as the man who defeated him in the 1992 election, Bill Clinton. When President Bush spoke of his desire to see a ``kinder, gentler America,''--one illumined by a thousand points of light, he was sincere.
Since President Bush has died, many commentators have said that he represented a bygone era. I certainly hope not. If we are to continue succeeding as a nation, his fundamental decency, pragmatism, kindness, bravery, self-sacrifice, persistence, and optimism shine a bright light on the path we should strive to follow. If we wish to honor President Bush, we should reflect on his character and temperament and other sterling qualities and seek to emulate them. He was a great man. Perhaps even more important, he was a good man.
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