Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I wish to make some remarks about our wonderful colleague who passed away last week, Senator Bob Bennett. Two of Senator Bennett's favorite Senators are here on the floor this afternoon--Senator Feinstein and Senator Alexander. What Senator Bennett liked so much about Senator Alexander and Senator Feinstein is what we have seen this afternoon. The two of them have a difference of opinion with respect, I gather, to the Iran deal. I happen to share Senator Feinstein's view, but the two of them are trying to find common ground here in the Senate. That is the Senate at its best, and that is exactly what Bob Bennett liked so much about both my colleague from California and my colleague from Tennessee. So I think it is very fitting that I open my remarks about Senator Bennett after having listened once again to the Chair and ranking member talk about how the Senate is supposed to do business.

There are so many wonderful things to say about Bob Bennett, but I thought I would begin by talking about Senator Bennett's favorite subject because of something he created. He saw it is a great opportunity for the Senate, and he called it the grand bargain. Whenever I had a chance to sit down and talk with him--I had joined the Finance Committee--he would talk about the opportunities that were related to taxes. He often talked with Senator Alexander and me, as my colleague remembers.

He talked to us about health care and taxes. He was very interested in innovation. By the way, I think he was one of the first Senators who purchased a hybrid vehicle close to 20 years ago, and he used that discussion to branch into the kinds of building connections that you have to do when you are talking about how you are going to increase the standard of living for Americans in a constantly changing world where you are really dealing with global economics. We don't just sell stuff to people down the street; we are competing against economic forces from all over the world.

When Senator Bennett talked about his idea of a grand bargain--and you could be sitting with him in the Senate dining room, for example, and he probably took out a napkin if he couldn't find a piece of paper--what he was interested in was what I call principled bipartisanship. In other words, nobody gets everything they want, but what you try to do is find principles that you feel strongly about and principles that the other side feels strongly about--and that is what Senator Alexander and Senator Feinstein were talking about this afternoon--and you find some common ground.

It was very fortunate, as I look at my career in public service, that I had a chance to work with Bob Bennett. I will tell you, the way I see it, there was no better grand bargain in life than a friendship with Bob Bennett. We differed on plenty of stuff, just as I am sure Senator Feinstein and Senator Alexander differ on matters. Bob would always say: Ron is pro-choice, I am pro-life; Ron was against the Iraq war, I was for the Iraq war. But we didn't spend our time arguing about those kinds of things. What we were interested in was finding ways to solve problems.

I remember one example that I think my colleagues on the floor remember as well. Back at the time of Y2K, the turn of the century--oh, my goodness, one would have thought that western civilization was going to end. We were going to have this technology meltdown. It was going to be chaos around the world. Well, there were two bills at the time, two pieces of legislation. There was a bill from our former colleague, Senator Dodd, and Senator Bennett. I was a young upstart member of the Commerce Committee. Senator McCain, knowing my interest in technology policy, basically gave me a great honor by saying ``Why don't you be my running mate?'' because he was the chairman of the committee. So there were two bills; one was Senator McCain and I as the junior running mate, and the other was Bob Bennett and Chris Dodd. Everybody said there was going to be all kinds of fighting among the four of us. Nobody is going to agree. Nobody will pass a piece of legislation, and the country, as a result, will not be prepared.

Well, because of Bob--I basically was the newcomer to the Senate. This was a big, important piece of legislation. Bob and Chris Dodd and Senator McCain basically said: We are not going to have any part of some bickerfest here in the U.S. Senate; we are going to solve a problem. And they did. You bet, it picked up opposition. There were some folks on the progressive side who had reservations about some provisions, and there were some folks on the conservative side who had reservations about the legislation. We passed a bill. I remember going down to the Y2K center that night and staying up all night. I can't claim that our legislation was responsible for such a smooth-running transition, but we like to think that the fact that the Senate decided to set aside partisanship and actually get something done was constructive.

The reality is that Bob Bennett firmly believed that he was elected to do more than just get reelected. I think that was right in the core of how he worked in the U.S. Senate.

I have been in public life awhile. I was the director of the Gray Panthers for a number of years when I was a young man with a full head of hair and rugged good looks. I was always dreaming about being a major part of health reform, so I put together a bill. I said: I think my party is right that we are never going to get health care fixed unless we have universal coverage; otherwise, it will be cost shifting, and there won't be prevention. But the Republicans had a valid point, too, that there ought to be a role for the private sector.

So I was talking to Republicans, and Senator Alexander remembers these visits. I went in to see Senator Bennett, whom I watched on the floor talking about health care, and he sounded like someone who might be interested, but I still thought it was a long shot. I said: My God, he is a really conservative fellow from Utah. He and a progressive fellow from Oregon probably don't have much in common, except for the fact that they are both tall. I talked to him in his office. He later said to a newspaper person: I gave the closest thing that you do in the Senate to convey that I really wasn't interested because you never say no, especially to somebody sincere. He said that a number of times. So he thought about it, and he spent time talking to people.

I remember this as if it were yesterday because his seat was across the aisle, just a few seats away. He and Senator Rockefeller were the tallest Senators at the time; Senator Kerry and I kind of came in--I don't know--third or fourth or something like that. He came bounding over and he said: I want to do this with you. And I did a kind of double take because I thought, I don't think I am hearing this right. He said: Yes, you are talking about how the Democrats are right about universal coverage, and I am going to have to get my side kind of acclimated to that, but you acknowledge that there ought to be a role somehow, some way for the private sector. I said: You bet, that was the point. He said: I am in.

So one of his newspapers--in looking at all the kind things that have been said--said that Bob Bennett did so much good work. We hope what his career stood for was that you could find common ground and that the Senate would remember going forward that bipartisanship is not a death sentence. Bipartisanship is a chance to find a way to solve problems, whether it was Y2K, which was exciting, or something else.

I think it is worth mentioning, because I did a stint as chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, that Bob Bennett put together a truly impressive public lands bill. It involved one of his fast-growing counties--Washington County--and several hundred thousand acres of wilderness, of land management, by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service alike. Suffice it to say that when I heard about it for the first time, Senator Bennett asked for my help, and I thought, man, there is no way he is going to be able to move something like this because you had all the progressive environmental organizations, you had lots of people from the counties who of course resisted these sorts of things, and you had lots of challenges in the West putting together public lands policies. We saw it again here recently in eastern Oregon. But Bob Bennett pulled it off. He pulled it off because he pretty much just smothered both sides with attention. Each side would have a point. He would respond. He would send his staff down to talk to people. And those who wouldn't normally possibly agree came together and found common ground on public lands policy.

I remember because the President signed it in 2009, Senator Bennett and I were in the back--I guess largely because we were the tallest-- and we talked about how unlikely it was that we would be there and that we would have all of these opportunities to serve together.

As we remember Bob Bennett, my hope is we will understand, as did Senator Bennett, that, much like today, neither side had enough votes to get everything it wanted. That was the case then, and it continues to be the case today. He understood that no single party had a lock on all the good ideas, but rather than just shrug his shoulders or go out and race for a microphone in order to score some sort of quick political advantage, Bob Bennett, in his career in the Senate, stood for what we call principled bipartisanship.

I imagine there are going to be a number of farewells this week to a wonderful friend, a terrific Senator, in my view, and an even better person. I just hope that apropos of what we have seen with Senator Feinstein and Senator Alexander, as they approach another big vote, let's put as much of our time and effort into finding common ground as possible. Sometimes it can't be done. I get that, and Bob Bennett did too. But certainly we can put vastly more time and effort into finding common ground, pursuing what Bob Bennett was all about because he was a U.S. Senator who gave public service a good name.

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Mr. WYDEN. Thank you.

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