Recognizing Lindsay Slater

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Lindsay Slater, who will be retiring at the end of the month after 23 years as my chief of staff. Lindsay has been a trusted chief of staff and good friend for many years, and while I hate to see him go, I am excited for him as he embarks on a new adventure after 26 years on Capitol Hill.

Lindsay is originally from Wallowa in eastern Oregon, and he began working for Congress for Representative Bob Smith in 1997 after getting his law degree from Southwestern Law School and working for the Oregon Cattlemen's Association. In 1999 he became Legislative Director for my friend Greg Walden after working on his campaign. I watched as Lindsay negotiated a difficult agreement between environmental groups and ranchers that ended in collaborative legislation to conserve, protect, and manage the Steens Mountains in Harney County, Oregon. Lindsay impressed me with his work ethic and his ability to develop creative solutions that took all stakeholder views into account. When I found myself needing a new chief of staff in my second year in Congress, I turned to Lindsay. During the first few months that he worked for me, Lindsay not only took over managing my staff, but he also brought his work in the Steens to completion, helping Congressman Walden pass the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area of 2000.

Lindsay had only been with me a few months when I put his creativity and flexibility to the test. He was spending August break touring the Idaho National Lab and familiarizing himself with the needs and priorities of Idaho's second congressional district when a massive wildfire began to rage in the Salmon National Forest. I called Lindsay up and said, ``Hey, let's go fight a wildfire.'' Lindsay surely thought I was a little crazy, but he was game for the adventure, so he called the Forest Service and asked if they would let the two of us come, no press or fanfare, to see what it takes to fight a major wildfire. They agreed, and within the next day or two we were being registered at the camp and issued our pup tents like rank-and-file firefighters. We helped serve dinner to those who had been doing the grueling work of fighting wildfires all day and saw firsthand that it takes a small city of 5,000 people to make that important work possible. When we were done, Lindsay and I packed up our pup tents and left them to it, taking our firsthand knowledge of what it takes to fight a wildfire into the next two decades of our work together.

Lindsay spent the next fifteen years using his experience and skills to help me develop an integrated community, recreation, and conservation plan for central Idaho to provide a comprehensive solution to the challenges that ranchers, recreationists, conservationists, and local leaders faced for many years. This project was not for the faint of heart, and Lindsay spent a decade and half meeting with all sides, listening to their concerns and ultimately finding common ground. It was long, often thankless work, but in 2015 we passed the Central Idaho Economic Development Act. The Boulder-White Clouds is now protected, in perpetuity, by creating 275,665 acres of wilderness area, and Lindsay was instrumental in making this happen.

Over the past three years, Lindsay has applied his patient problem- solving skills to the Columbia Basin Initiative, working with stakeholders, tribes, elected representatives and others to try and understand the challenges surrounding salmon recovery, dams, and energy and transportation in the Columbia River and Lower Snake River Basin and find real solutions to those challenges. This is the largest river restoration project in the world, and Lindsay's office is the war room, with maps and data and legislative proposals papering the walls. I do not know what the ultimate outcome will be for the management challenges of the Columbia and Lower Snake River, but I truly believe that people will come to view the Columbia Basin Initiative as the most comprehensive, thorough, and fair solution to the challenges we face there. Just as he did with the Boulder-White Clouds and the Steens, Lindsay threw himself into this complicated problem and deftly worked to unravel the knots to produce a comprehensive solution to problems others are unwilling to take on.

In fact, Lindsay's fingerprints are all over all the major legislative victories I have had during my time in Congress. He played a crucial role in crafting the original Land and National Park Deferred Maintenance (LAND) Act, which eventually became the Great American Outdoors Act, a widely supported and bipartisan recreation and public lands bill. Lindsay was also instrumental in crafting and passing legislation to fix the wildfire suppression budget, ending the practice of fire borrowing and restoring the funding intended for those important land management projects that make our forests healthier and more resistant to fire. Of all we have accomplished over the past two decades, I believe this will have the greatest and longest-lasting impact, and in fixing wildfire funding, Lindsay and I came full circle from that weekend at the fire camp all those years ago.

Amid all these major legislative accomplishments, Lindsay has led my staff with compassion, support, and encouragement. He is notorious for calling people into his office just to ``see how things are going,'' because he genuinely cares how people are doing and wants to know that the office is functioning well. I know that there is a generation of staffers who have left my office and gone on to do incredible things who still view Lindsay as one of their greatest mentors and cheerleaders. Lindsay showed up with a steady, calm, and positive attitude every day, and as a result both past and current members of Team Simpson would claim that ours is the happiest office on Capitol Hill.

I have often said that I may get the credit for these things, but it is my staff who does the real work. Lindsay has been an exemplar in this respect, and, as my chief of staff, he has taken it to the next level by taking good care not only of me but of the staff that works for me. He has been loyal and trustworthy, and I would not be where I am today without him diligently paving the way. I will miss him as a chief of staff but am glad to have him as a friend, and I wish him the best of luck as he begins his next adventure.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source