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.
“TRIBUTES TO RETIRING SENATORS” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the Senate section on pages S11458-S11459 on Nov. 18, 2004.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TRIBUTES TO RETIRING SENATORS
Fritz Hollings
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the end of the 108th Congress marks the end of an era. It marks the end of a remarkable career of a remarkable man.
I will not say goodbye to Senator Hollings. His personality, his sense of humor, his achievements, his legacy will forever be a part of this Chamber. But I do take a few minutes of the Senate's time to thank Senator Ernest Hollings.
I thank him for being an outstanding Senator. I thank him for his service to our country. I thank him for being a friend. I have been honored to call him my colleague for almost 40 years.
The man who is destined to become a legend in the political history of South Carolina politics was a New Year's Day baby. He was born on January 1, 1922. After graduating from the Citadel, he served in the U.S. Army during World War II. This combat veteran, who served in North Africa and in Europe, was awarded seven campaign stars and was discharged with the rank of captain.
After the war, he earned his law degree from the University of South Carolina in 1947 and then began his extraordinary career in public service in 1947. That was the year in which he earned his law degree.
In 1947, at the age of 26, he was elected to the South Carolina State Legislature where he served until 1954, while 1947 was the year in which I was sworn in at the West Virginia House of Delegates in Charleston, WV.
During his last 3 years in the South Carolina State Legislature, he served as its speaker pro tempore.
In 1954, at the age of 32, he was elected Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina.
Four years later, in 1958, at the age of 36, he became one of the youngest men ever elected Governor of his beloved State. From what I understand, he was an outstanding Governor. Senator Hollings would be outstanding in any office in which he would ever serve. He earned a reputation as the education Governor because he raised teachers' salaries, launched new and innovative educational programs, including a superb technical training program, and set up a commission that improved the State's higher education system.
In 1966 he was elected to the Senate. Here he has stayed for 38 years. I am glad he stayed. He has been a very colorful Senator, an outstanding and outspoken Senator with a booming voice.
The stentorian voice could be heard, I am sure, throughout this Chamber, without a public address system. When he first came here we had no public address system in the Senate. When I first came here, we had no public address system in the Senate, but we had Senators who could be heard. It was a practice in those days for other Senators to gather closer to the Senator who was speaking. It was also a practice for other Senators to be informed when a new Senator was going to speak. New Senators did not speak the first week or the first month, but only after several months did they speak. Before they spoke, the word went around that so and so was going to deliver his maiden speech or her maiden speech. In those days there was one lady in the Senate, Margaret Chase Smith of Maine. But we didn't have any public address system.
I recall when we started to discuss having a public address system in the Senate, I was opposed to it. I wanted the Senate to remain the Senate of the decades that had preceded our own times.
But he was colorful and he was a Senator who had that booming voice that could be projected and heard in the galleries, and today Senator Hollings does not need a microphone.
He was from the old school of Senators who placed public interest over partisan politics. Oh, that we had more Senators like that, more Senators like Senator Hollings who put first the public's interest, the interest of those people who are watching through that electronic eye just behind the Presiding Officer's desk; the eyes of the people come through that electronic eye, which extends the galleries beyond the capacity that we see here. It extends those galleries out to the outermost parts of the country, north and south, out to the Pacific, out to the great Rocky Mountains, out to the broad prairies, out to the farms, out to the hills of West Virginia, that great medium.
This Senator from South Carolina, unlike so many Senators of today, placed the public interest over partisan politics. And he still does. He never hesitated to criticize a President of his own political party as well as the opposition party when he knew in his heart and in his conscience that President was wrong. If it were a President of his own party, let it be.
While in the Senate, Senator Hollings has served on the Senate's Budget and Appropriations Committees, served as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, served as chairman of a number of Senate subcommittees. Just as he had been a loyal and proud servant of his own State of South Carolina, he has been a loyal and proud servant of our country. In the Senate, he has been a forceful advocate of a responsible energy policy. In fact, as early as 1967, Senator Hollings was warning that our country faced a future of energy crises, and he was calling for a national energy policy.
He authored legislation to create the Department of Energy and the Automobile Fuel Economy Act that requires the miles-per-gallon sticker on new cars.
He has been a determined advocate of a cleaner and healthier environment. In this effort, he formulated legislation to protect our marine environment, sponsored legislation to prevent the dumping of polluting materials in the ocean, and authored the Coastal Zone Management Act to protect our coastal waters and tidelands. He is the recognized legislative ``father'' of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA.
In the Senate, Senator Hollings continued promoting technical training as he fought to establish trade schools that specialize in retraining workers and offer alternatives for people who choose not to pursue a university degree.
In the Senate, Senator Hollings has tenaciously opposed trade deals that threaten American jobs. Oh, if there were more like him. His fights in this area have involved opposing Presidents, opposing Presidents whom he charged were ``giving away the store'' in our trade treaties. He has fought to protect and increase Social Security benefits for our elderly Americans.
Concerned about the widespread poverty across the South, in 1968, he undertook a series of ``hunger tours'' that highlighted the issue. He later authored a powerful study, ``The Case Against Hunger: A Demand for a National Policy'' that advocated programs to address the persistence of abject poverty in the United States. Putting his words into action, he helped lead the congressional effort to establish the Women, Infants, and Children--WIC--nutritional assistance program, and he helped to advance the Nation's community health centers, which provide primary and preventive health services in underserved communities.
Long before the Bush administration's record-breaking budget deficits, long before today's incredible $7 trillion national debt, Senator Hollings was an eloquent and powerful advocate of budget discipline. I did not always agree with his efforts, such as the Gramm-
Rudman-Hollings law, but I never questioned Senator Hollings's dedication to trying to restore fiscal sanity to America's deficit addictions.
Although he has long been a Senator of power and influence, during the great majority of his time in this Chamber, he remained the junior Senator from his State. Even after serving 36 years in the Senate, he was still outranked by his colleague from South Carolina, Senator Strom Thurmond, making Senator Hollings the longest serving junior Senator in history, whatever that means. I have often wondered, having been a junior Senator and being a senior Senator now, what we mean by ``junior Senator''? Well, we know what it means, but that is all.
It was at the age of 80 that Senator Hollings finally became the senior Senator from South Carolina. He had earned it. He had earned it just as he has earned the respect and the gratitude of the people of South Carolina and the men and the women in this Chamber.
Now, unfortunately, my friend and colleague is leaving us. Again, I will not say farewell to him. I will only thank him for his service and wish him well in his private life.
I will always remember and cherish our years of working together on the Appropriations Committee and for the best interests of our great country.
It isn't enough that we say in our heartsThat we like a man for his ways;And it isn't enough that we fill our mindsWith psalms of silent praise;Nor is it enough that we honor a manAs our confidence upward mounts;It's going right up to the man himselfAnd telling him so that counts.
Then when a man does a deed that you really admire,Don't leave a kind word unsaid,For fear to do so might make him vainOr cause him to lose his head;But reach out your hand and tell him, ``Well done'',And see how his gratitude swells;It isn't the flowers we strew on the grave,It's the word to the living that tells.
Now, unfortunately, my friend and colleague--a strong colleague on the Appropriations Committee, where we two have served all these many years--is leaving us. Again, I will not say farewell to Senator Hollings. I will only thank him for his service and wish him well in his private life. I will always remember and cherish our years of working together.
I shall always remember, too, that loyal, dedicated, devoted helpmate, Peatsy, who stood always at his side, always there to be his best confidant. Yes, Erma and I will miss Peatsy.
In closing, then, let me speak just a few words from the ``Character of the Happy Warrior'' by William Wordsworth, because I think they represent my feelings toward Ernest Fritz Hollings:
Who is the happy Warrior? Who is heThat every man in arms should wish to be?
* * * * *
'Tis, finally, the Man, who, lifted high,Conspicuous object in a Nation's eye,Or left unthought-of in obscurity,--Who, with a toward or untoward lot,Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not--Plays, in the many games of life, that oneWhere what he most doth value must be won:Whom neither shape or danger can dismay,Nor thought of tender happiness betray;Who, not content that former worth stand fast,Looks forward, persevering to the last,From well to better, daily self-surpast:Who, whether praise of him must walk the earthFor ever, and to noble deeds give birth,Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame,And leave a dead unprofitable name--Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;And, while the mortal mist is gathering, drawsHis breath in confidence of Heaven's applause:This is the happy Warrior; this is heThat every man in arms should wish to be.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized.
Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I am happy to yield to the Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the remarks of the junior Senator from Pennsylvania, I be recognized to speak as in morning business for up to 25 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized.
____________________
