On the recordJune 7, 2016
as the song said, it has been a long, strange trip getting here, and it has had its share of near-death experiences, as Senator Udall is intimately aware of. I was involved with Senator Merkley and Senator Booker in one of those near-death experiences. If this was a rocket with stages, one of the major stages was the Merkley-Booker-Whitehouse effort in the committee. I just wanted to say it was the first time the three of us worked together as a triumvirate. They were wonderful to work with. They were truly a pleasure. We had a lot on our plates. We made about a dozen major changes in the bill. I want to take just a moment to thank Emily Enderle on my staff, who was terrific through all of the negotiations and renegotiations and counternegotiations in that stage. But this was obviously a rocket that had many more stages than that one. I thank Chairman Inhofe and his staff for their persistence through all of this. Ranking Member Boxer was relentless in trying to make this bill as strong as she could make it through every single stage, and it is marked by that persistence. Senator Vitter and Senator Udall forged the original notion that this compromise could be made to happen, and they have seen it through, so I congratulate them. The House had a rather different view of how this bill should look.…
