December 9, 2008 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S10829 

birthday was observed in a rousing rendition of ‘‘Happy Birthday.’’ 

It should be little surprise to anyone 

who has known Major Venning over the 

years—in his years growing up in 

South Carolina and Virginia or at college at the Virginia Military Institute—that he would become such an 

asset to the Corps. I have no doubt that 

he will bring the same sterling qualities in his next assignment with Company A, 4th Amphibious Assault Vehicle Battalion at Norfolk, VA. 

Major Venning will go far in his future endeavors with the Corps and beyond. I know that all Senators join in 

wishing him all the best and in expressing our heartfelt thanks for a job well 

done. 

f 

REMEMBERING RICHARD AND 

JEAN DEWINE 

Mr. MCCAIN. Mr. President, today I 

pay tribute to the parents of our good 

friend and former colleague from Ohio, 

Mike DeWine. Richard and Jean 

DeWine died just a few weeks ago, 4 

days apart from each other. Dick was 

85, and Jean was 83. They were together 

almost their entire lives, sharing a 

beautiful love story and 65 wonderful 

years of marriage. 

I had the honor of meeting Mike’s 

parents in February when I was visiting Young’s Jersey Dairy in their 

hometown of Yellow Springs, OH. It 

was a privilege to talk to them. They 

were so gracious and kind. I could see 

how proud they were of their son and 

how proud they were of our Nation. 

Mike spoke about his parents’ lives 

and especially their love of family at 

their joint funeral service held on November 5, 2008. In tribute to Dick and 

Jean, I ask unanimous consent that 

the entirety of his remarks be printed 

in the RECORD at the conclusion of 

mine. 

There were no two finer Americans 

than Dick and Jean DeWine. May God 

bless them and their family. 

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the 

RECORD, as follows: 

Thank you all so much for coming today 

and for your friendship and love. Thank you 

to JoFrannye, Patty, Jocelyn, and the choir 

for the music, and to our grandson Albert for 

playing the piano before Mass. 

Thank you Father Geraci and Father 

Hagan for being the celebrants today, but I 

have to say to Father Tom that right now, 

Dad must be thinking: ‘‘This Mass is much, 

much too long!’’ 

I once asked Dad why he kept going to 

Fairborn to Mass. He told me he found a 

great priest there, whose homilies were exactly 3 minutes long! 

Fran and I thank all of you who helped 

care for my parents, enabling them to stay 

in their home the last few years, especially 

Patrick, Jamie, Megan, and Barbara—thank 

you. All of my parents’ care givers have been 

just great. 

And, thanks to all of you who stopped by 

to visit my parents. Cousin Jerome, we 

thank you for always being there to brighten 

my parents’ day. 

When I was growing up, I always thought 

that I had the greatest parents in the world. 

I never changed my mind. 

My parents both grew up in Yellow Springs 

and both lived on Xenia Avenue. Dad was 

born at home in a house, which is the present 

day Wind’s Cafe Wine Cellar. They lived next 

door to the family feed store. Growing up 

practically in the feed store, itself, and right 

in the heart of Yellow Springs, Dad was surrounded by a colorful cast of characters who 

would make a novelist proud! He could remember watching out his bedroom window 

on Saturday nights, as fights would erupt between patrons of the local bars. 

One time, when Dad was a young boy, my 

grandfather asked him if he wanted to ride 

with his employee, Jimmy, when he took a 

feed delivery to Springfield. He told Dad he 

could drag the bags from the back of the 

truck up to the front, so that Jimmy 

wouldn’t have to get on and off the truck to 

get them. 

Before leaving town, Jimmy and Dad each 

had a dime and bought a 5-cent Bluebird pie. 

Since they both had a nickel left over, 

Jimmy asked my young Dad if he wanted to 

play the numbers. And, he did! 

Later that day, when they got back to the 

feed store, my grandfather, shouted, ‘‘Dick, 

the Sheriff’s been looking for you! Were you 

playing the numbers? Dad ran out of the 

store, screaming, ‘‘The Sheriff will never 

find me!’’ 

He went out and hid among the stacks of 

feed sacks. When my grandfather finally 

found him, all he said was, ‘‘Here’s your $25— 

you won!’’ 

At the same time, my mother was growing 

up not far up the street. Mother’s father was 

a professor of literature at Antioch College. 

He was an expert in Shakespeare, Chaucer, 

and Milton. He and my grandmother greatly 

influenced my mother, particularly instilling in her a great love and appreciation for 

words. 

My grandfather had grown up on a farm in 

upstate New York, and every summer, he 

would take his family back there so he could 

help with the farm work. Some of Mother’s 

fondest memories were of those idyllic summers—playing with her sisters, Judy and 

Dorothy, in the ice house on hot summer 

days, riding hay wagons, walking to get groceries at the local general store, and watching her grandmother milk cows on a onelegged stool! 

As a young girl, Mother loved to ride 

horses. In fact, her parents kept a horse at 

their house on Xenia Avenue! They called 

the horse Cheyenne. Once when Mother was 

about 11 years old, she rode Cheyenne all 

alone from Yellow Springs to Wilberforce, 

some 7 miles away, using only the directions 

and map that my grandfather drew for her. 

In the summer of 1940, one of my father’s 

best friends was Herbert Berger. That year, 

Herbert went away for the summer. He had 

asked Dad to ‘‘look out for’’ his girlfriend, 

who happened to be 15-year-old Jean Liddle. 

Well, Dad did. And, my parents were inseparable from then on. 

Dick DeWine and Jean Liddle married 3 

years later on September 2, 1943. Dad was 20, 

and Mother was 18. 

World War II, of course, was raging at this 

time. Dad went in as a replacement. He was 

a Private with K Company and saw combat 

in France, Germany, and Austria. Captain 

Bell was their leader. About five years ago, 

Dad sent an email about first seeing Captain 

Bell when he and his buddy, Ernie Dessecker, 

had arrived in Europe and were awaiting 

their company assignment. This is what my 

dad wrote: 

‘‘We were told that the next morning, we 

would be assigned to some infantry company. That night, we went into a bar and 

were bought some beer by some GI’s who 

knew we were—for want of a better word— 

very uptight. All they talked about was Captain Bell and his K Company. They told us 

that if we wanted to do a lot of fighting that 

would be the company to be assigned to. 

That was not really what [Ernie] and I had in 

mind! 

The next day, we were loaded on a truck 

and at each town, it would stop and some 

names were called to get off. When Dess and 

I were told to get off, the first thing we 

asked was, ‘What company is this?’ When 

told it was Company K, we both wished we 

could climb back on that truck and head for 

the rear echelon! Of course, in a very short 

time, we were so very proud to be part of 

Captain Bell’s Company K. . . .’’ 

Dad never forgot the men with whom he 

served, maintaining friendships for over six 

decades. He also never forgot the horrific 

things he saw when K Company was sent to 

the Dachau concentration camp shortly after 

it was liberated in April 1945. From the time 

I was just a kid, Dad told me stories about 

Dachau and how people in the nearby town 

would tell the soldiers that they hadn’t really known what the Nazis were doing. Dad 

could never quite comprehend that. 

On the day before the German surrender in 

Europe, Dad spent the night in a fox hole 

near Innsbruck, Austria. He heard rumors 

that the War was nearing an end. But still, 

Dad stayed awake all night in that fox hole, 

fearing that the enemy would attack. He remembered thinking that he saw German 

troops coming at him. When he compared 

notes with all his buddies later, they, too, 

had experienced the same thing. 

When the War did end that next day, they 

rode into Innsbruck, where people greeted 

him and the other soldiers with a shower of 

flowers. Meanwhile, Mother and Aunt Judy 

celebrated the German surrender by riding 

on a fire truck in an impromptu parade down 

the streets of Yellow Springs. Dad’s two 

younger siblings, my Aunt Mickey and Uncle 

Jerry, watched the parade with pride. 

Last week, I started reading my parents’ 

letters to each other when Dad was fighting 

in Europe. They are letters of great passion 

and love, written by two young kids, who 

were only married a year when the War separated them. They write of their plans and 

dreams and of the child they hoped to conceive as soon as Dad got home. Dad’s letter 

refers to that child as ‘‘Mike,’’ while Mother’s letter references Michael—a distinction 

they would each make throughout my life. 

Dad came home in April, in time for Reds 

Opening Day, and I was born on January 5th, 

that year. 

Dad taught me to fish, to hunt, and to love 

OSU football and Dayton Flyer basketball. 

But, his real passion was the Cincinnati 

Reds! 

When Dad was 16, he and one of his buddies 

camped out in line for 36 hours to get tickets 

for the 1939 World Series, when the Reds 

were playing the Yankees. They ended up in 

two different ticket lines, but had made a 

deal that whoever got up to the ticket 

counter before the tickets ran out would buy 

two. Dad was able to get two tickets, but 

then he couldn’t find his friend. It got close 

to game time, and Dad had to go inside the 

ballpark. 

When he was inside, though, he went up to 

the top deck at Crosley Field and searched 

again for his friend. He looked down below, 

outside the ballpark, and there was his 

buddy, walking away in tears, empty-handed. 

Dad reached into his pocket and pulled out 

the silver dollar that his father had given 

him and wrapped the other baseball ticket 

around it. Then, he threw it over the railing, 

hoping and praying that it would fall at the 

feet of his friend. 

Amazingly, it did—and they both watched 

that game together. 


wwoods2 on PRODPC68 with SENATE
S10830 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE December 9, 2008 

Mother taught me about different kinds of 

things. She passed on to me her love of books 

and taught me about the power of language 

and the written word. She also taught me 

how to debate and argue. 

You see, Mother loved words—and knew 

how to use them. When I was growing up, the 

conversations at our dinner table covered a 

whole range of topics—books and music and 

sports and movies and, of course, current affairs and politics. Both Mother and Dad were 

always interested in politics, but Mother 

took her positions to the public. 

In the early 1960s, after seeing several of 

her Letters to the Editor in the Yellow 

Springs News, then-editor Keith Howard persuaded Mother to write a weekly column articulating a conservative viewpoint—a position that was certainly not then—and certainly not now—especially popular here in 

Yellow Springs. She titled her column, ‘‘A 

View from the Right.’’ 

In an October 21, 1964, column, she articulated her strong support for Barry Goldwater 

and conservative philosophy. She opened the 

column with this line, ‘‘If I were to give one, 

and only one, reason for voting for Barry 

Goldwater, it would be because of his firm 

stand against the frightening growth of the 

federal government, its power-grabbing programs, and its insidious intrusion into virtually every phase of our lives.’’ And that 

was back in 1964. 

Mother was such a bright, articulate, wellread, knowledgeable woman, with the most 

sophisticated and clever wry wit. Her amazing, light-hearted rhyming poems always 

made you smile. Take this one, for instance, 

that ran in her column at Christmastime in 

the early 1960s. She titled it, ‘‘Love One and 

All—Right, Center and Left!’’: 

’Twas the week before Christmas, and all 

through the town, ev’ry creature was 

stirring—both uptown and down. 

The stores were all fancied with tinsel and 

things, and somewhere a highly-fi’d 

caroler sings. 

While I at my battered old typewriter sit, 

my brain in a quandary, my brow 

tightly knit. 

I can’t seem to think now on Cuba or Adlai, 

or the state of the world—either goodly 

or badly. 

I cudgel my brain for the newsworthy fellas, 

the Stevensons, Goldwaters, Khans, 

and Ben Bellas. 

Not a thought do they bring to my brain sore 

and lame, tho’ I whistled like crazy and 

called them by name: 

‘‘Now Hoffa, now Bobby, now Rocky and 

Barry, 

On Jack and McMillan and ‘Fidel-theHairy.’’’ 

To the top of my head to the top of the page 

The gears in my brain simply will not engage. 

It’s Christmas and I am opinion-bereft, and I 

love one and all—Right and Center and 

Left. 

So I’ll leave you with this thought (at least 

for tonight), Merry Christmas—that’s 

all—from ‘‘A View from the Right.’’ 

My mother was unique and extraordinary. 

She had many sides to her and many interests. In her youth, she was a vibrant, strikingly beautiful woman. She and Aunt Judy 

were varsity cheerleaders at Bryan High 

School. She rode horses, and early in their 

marriage, Dad and Mother fished and 

camped, often taking Uncle Jerry and Aunt 

Mickey with them, and also camped with 

Aunt Judy and Uncle Leo. Later, Dad and 

Mother would stay out on their old houseboat on the Ohio River. 

Mother loved music. I can remember her 

playing the accordion when I was a kid. 

Mother always had an LP record playing— 

Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford, 

the Kingston Trio. 

Mother could have been a professional 

writer. All of our kids got their ability to 

write from their grandmother (it skipped a 

generation). The kids didn’t inherit her 

abilities so much as they learned to write 

through Mother’s presence in their lives and 

by listening to her and how she chose her 

words in their conversations. She read prolifically herself, and loved to read books to 

our kids. 

My dad could talk to anyone, and that is 

because he had a genuine interest in people. 

He was naturally curious about them. It 

didn’t matter whom he was talking to, he 

wanted to know all about the person. How 

did you make a living? Where did you grow 

up? What about your family? Many times, I 

marveled that Dad knew more about my own 

friends than I did. That is because he asked 

them questions and talked to them and listened. 

As our son, John, wrote to his grandparents, 

You taught me how to treat people. Employees, the guy at the paint shop, whoever— 

regardless of their social status, you treat 

everyone the same. And it is a good way to 

treat people. 

And that is part of what made Dad such a 

brilliant negotiator, trader, and investor. 

Like his parents before him, he built DeWine 

Seeds and the Ohio Twine Company on close 

personal relationships—whether they were 

with local farmers, seed dealers, elevator operators, or international businessmen. Dad 

took the business his parents were so successful at and took it to a new level. These 

relationships, which he maintained until his 

death, allowed him to keenly understand the 

markets and to gather information to make 

trades and deals across the country and 

around the world in places as different as 

Uruguay, Poland, and Ireland. 

Dad was a real dealmaker. Our oldest son, 

Patrick, put it best, ‘‘It didn’t matter if he 

was buying a new lawnmower or selling seed 

in Europe, no one was better than Dick.’’ 

Dad was always an optimist. He told me 

that he just couldn’t wait to get up every 

morning. He loved life immensely. When my 

mother a few months ago expressed the hope 

that they would leave this Earth together, 

he looked at her and allowed as how he was 

not about to leave anytime soon. 

At the end of each day, he looked forward 

to the next and to working on the list of 

things on his legal pad that he wanted to accomplish. Dad never stopped working and 

never stopped looking ahead. In fact, in the 

last month of his life, after battling cancer 

for over 3 years, he still had his list. He went 

through his files and sent out old photos and 

newspaper clippings to friends. 

And, in those last days, Dad even bought a 

farm. 

Mother and Dad loved their home on their 

24 acres on Fairfield Pike. After they sold 

the seed business, my dad and mother would 

be found each day out in their office in the 

barn working. You would go out there, and 

there they would be—one at one desk and 

one at the other. 

They had purchased that property—which 

was part of Whitehall Farm—from Martha 

Rankin. Along with my grandfather, they rebuilt the dam that had been blown in 1912, 

and created a pond, which attracted countless ducks and Canada Geese. They spent 

years converting a pasture field into a mosaic of grape vines; berry thickets; vegetable 

and flower gardens; and fruit, nut, and stately trees, including sugar maples, spruce, red 

oak, hemlock and bald cypress. Dad grew 

many of the plants himself in the greenhouse 

he built with bricks from the old St. Brigid 

Church, which he, Mother, and some of the 

grandchildren gathered after the 1974 Xenia 

tornado. 

My parents were extraordinary grandparents. They gave our children the best gift 

of all—and that was the gift of their time. 

Mama and Dick, as all my kids called 

them, were always involved in their lives. 

They put each of their eight grandchildren 

to work as they were growing up, teaching 

them how to weed; paint fences; prune trees; 

pick apples, cherries, and raspberries; and 

mow grass. My parents were both phenomenal teachers who taught their grandchildren how to enjoy hard work and appreciate a job well done. 

All of our children have such fond memories of Mama and Dick, whether the kids 

were working in the greenhouse; fishing in 

the pond; or picking fruit and berries on hot 

summer days. They can still smell the fire 

burning outside when they would help Mama 

and Dick make bean soup and maple syrup 

from their own trees. 

Dick would tell the kids fantastic stories 

about the Giant Mouse, who would fly him 

around the pond, and the leprechauns living 

under the trees. And Dick and Mama both 

played countless games of checkers with the 

kids. 

And then, there were the muddy feet that 

Mother tried so hard to keep off her floor. As 

she wrote in a limerick for her grandchildren: 

To all grandkids great and small 

Muddy feet don’t walk in the hall 

Take off your shoes and make it snappy 

If Mama’s mad, nobody’s happy 

Our daughter, Alice, remembers ‘‘picking 

berries and selling them at the Farmers Market’’ and ‘‘Mama’s Crustless Sandwiches’’ 

(cut into fourths) and ‘‘Mama’s Fettuccini.’’ 

Our daughter, Anna, remembers painting 

Mama and Dick’s fence with her brother 

Mark and nephew Albert and ‘‘being covered 

head to toe in paint!’’ 

The kids also remember ‘‘all of the fires 

Dick made in the fireplace—so comforting 

and always done just right.’’ As our daughter, Jill, recalled, ‘‘We could sit for hours alternating between warming our backs and 

backing away for a few moments long 

enough to cool off enough, and then going 

back for more.’’ 

There were also all the conversations that 

took place in the back of their car when 

Mama and Dick would take the kids to and 

from lunch on their work breaks. As our son 

Mark described, 

‘‘The stories that I have heard there have 

always stuck close to me. They can be about 

my seven unique siblings, the way things 

used to be, or maybe even a lesson learned in 

grammar. The tales I hear, some are the 

same, and some are new. The old ones never 

lose their luster; because every time I hear 

them, they take on a new meaning. No radio 

could ever replace the great anecdotes I have 

listened to [in the back of that car].’’ 

One of our son Brian’s favorite memories 

was when we were visiting Mama and Dick in 

Florida once and, as Brian says, 

‘‘My sister, Jill, threw me in the pool with 

all my clothes on (she still denies it!). For 

some reason, I think Dick thought I deserved 

it. Then Mama had to take me shopping to 

get new shoes so we could go out and to eat.’’ 

Our daughter, Becky, was also very close 

to Mama and Dick. They visited her when 

she was studying in Britain. They met Becky 

and her friend, Kim, in Cornwall. That trip 

always had special meaning for my parents. 

When I woke up this morning, I realized 

that I won’t be able to go tell my mother and 

father about how our son Patrick was just 

elected Judge yesterday and how our daughter Alice passed the Bar Exam. . . . 


wwoods2 on PRODPC68 with SENATE
December 9, 2008 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S10831 

When I look back at my parents’ lives, 

they have left a very tangible legacy. It is 

visible in the land—the trees and the flowers 

and the plants that they grew on their 24 

acres and the improvements they made to 

their farmland. 

But their more important legacy is their 

grandchildren. That is the lesson of my parents’ lives: There is no substitute for the 

time spent with family and with people. 

They were an integral part of our children’s lives. They worked with our kids, 

talked with our kids, listened to our kids. It 

was a wonderful relationship and a wonderful 

gift that dramatically influenced each of 

them—in ways obvious and not so obvious— 

and will, in turn, influence each of their children. 

The last thing my father did before he died 

was have our son, John, order several bushels 

of flower bulbs. Up until the very end, Dad 

was planning for the future. He wanted the 

bulbs to be planted in his yard and in Aunt 

Judy’s yard and in our yard. His great-grandchildren helped plant those bulbs just a week 

before his death. 

And when those flowers bloom next spring, 

we will think of Mama and Dick. 

For over 65 years, my parents loved each 

other and took care of each other. They had 

fun and loved their life together. They were 

quite a team. Mother always considered herself ‘‘Dick’s straight man.’’ And she was. 

They made us laugh. They made us smile. 

I would like to conclude by reading from 

one of Mother’s letters to Dad, as she waited 

for his return to Yellow Springs from World 

War II. This one was numbered 407. She 

wrote: 

I can have patience, though, in this matter 

[of your return], specially since, if the news 

is good, and I think it will be, I know what 

the outcome of it all will be—it’ll be exactly 

what I’ve been, and of course, my darling, 

you, too, [have been] waiting for, for so 

damned long—the perfect set-up of Jeanie 

and Dick, together for ever and ever. 

Remember that, ‘‘As long as you both shall 

live?’’ 

That’s right, honey, that’s us 100%—and if 

nothing else, I’m sure of that. 

f 

NOMINATION OF NEIL BAROFSKY 

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I am 

pleased to have supported the nomination of Neil M. Barofsky to be the Special Inspector General for the Troubled 

Asset Relief Program, or TARP, at the 

Treasury Department. 

I have a great interest in the Special 

IG for the TARP. I raised the idea in 

the first place, the first weekend that 

we were examining the Treasury financial bailout proposal. 

As many will remember, the Treasury’s original proposal for the TARP 

was three pages long. It gave the Secretary of the Treasury unlimited power 

over $700 billion. And it provided no 

oversight by anyone. 

The House and Senate spent 2 weeks 

hammering out a better bill. That better bill included strong oversight, and 

it included the office of a Special IG for 

the financial rescue program, as I proposed that first weekend. 

The size and complexity of this effort 

is unprecedented in recent memory. It 

is essential to have a team that focuses 

exclusively on the TARP program as 

managed by the Treasury Department, 

and it is essential for that team to report to Congress on the status of this 

new program. 

My proposal for a Special IG was 

based on the Iraqi Reconstruction Special Inspector General. That was another massive oversight challenge. As 

the Congress debated what to include 

in the rescue package, 33 Senators 

signed a letter to the congressional 

leadership endorsing the idea of a Special IG to oversee the troubled asset 

program. 

During the negotiations, the Treasury Department resisted. But then the 

administration and Congress agreed 

that the Special IG should be part of 

the final legislation. Congress passed 

it, and the President signed it into law. 

The law gives the Special IG a $50 

million budget. He will have the duties 

and responsibilities of inspectors general under the Inspector General Act of 

1978. He will have the power to supervise and coordinate audits and investigations of TARP activities. He will 

have the power to appoint staff to 

carry out the activities of the office. 

And he may enter into contracts for 

audits and studies. We expect a report 

to the Finance Committee every 120 

days on the activities of the TARP, and 

the law also directs the Special IG to 

report to Congress if information he requests is refused. 

I support the nomination of Mr. Neil 

Barofsky. I congratulate him for his 

willingness to serve his country. It is 

going to be a demanding job. For some 

time, he is going to be playing catchup. 

I believe Mr. Barofsky’s experience as a 

prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New 

York will serve him well in his new 

role as the Special IG. 

The financial rescue program is 

huge—$700 billion. The number and variety of financial institutions receiving 

money from Treasury is extensive. 

Tracking the path of the bailout dollars through these institutions is going 

to be a difficult task. 

The harsh reality is that almost half 

the $700 billion is already out the door 

of the TARP. The new Special IG will 

be looking back at Treasury’s use of 

about $290 billion dollars in 45 days. 

Anyone who has seen a number of the 

congressional hearings this week, including our Senate Finance Committee 

on November 17, knows there are a lot 

of questions about how the TARP is operating. 

We know that the Treasury Department has named Neel Kashkari, Assistant Secretary for International Economics, to head the financial rescue 

program. 

Treasury has decided to send $125 billion to nine major banks, including 

Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase. Another $125 billion will be allocated for 

thousands of small and midsized banks. 

The American International Group, or 

AIG, will receive around $40 billion of 

TARP funds in return for issuing preferred shares to the Treasury Department. 

Secretary Paulson has also announced a policy regarding preferred 

shares and warrants for common stock. 

Standards for restrictions on executive 

compensation are being developed. 

Those include a clawback provision and 

a ban on golden parachutes during the 

period that Treasury holds equity 

issued through this program. 

Several senior posts have been filled. 

And the law firm Simpson Thacher & 

Bartlett has been selected as a legal 

adviser. 

Treasury has announced that the 

Bank of New York Mellon will serve as 

its custodian for the implementation of 

the Troubled Asset Relief Program, 

and PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst 

& Young have been hired to help with 

accounting and internal controls services. 

These decisions made by the Treasury Department are critically important to the financial rescue program. 

Yet the Treasury has made them all 

without any oversight by a Special IG. 

As for the use of the funds, the bottom line, frankly, is that the Secretary 

of Treasury told Congress and the 

American people that the Bush administration needed $700 billion to purchase troubled assets. Yet last month, 

the Treasury Secretary announced 

that, in fact, there were no plans to 

purchase troubled assets. To say that 

this was a surprise is an understatement. Congress needs to find out why 

the first plan was rejected and a new 

plan was developed. What is the theory 

behind the new plan for providing equity to these financial establishments? 

What exactly are the agreements with 

the financial institutions who have received TARP funds? And what conflict 

of interest standards were followed? 

Once the Special IG is in place, we can 

start to answer some of these questions. 

Half the money is gone. And it is way 

past the time when we should have had 

a Special Inspector General on the job 

overseeing the program. 

I am pleased that the Senate has confirmed Mr. Barofsky, and I look forward to helping him conduct aggressive 

oversight of the TARP program. 

f 

IDAHOANS SPEAK OUT ON HIGH 

ENERGY PRICES 

Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, in midJune, I asked Idahoans to share with 

me how high energy prices are affecting their lives, and they responded by 

the hundreds. The stories, numbering 

well over 1,200, are heartbreaking and 

touching. While energy prices have 

dropped in recent weeks, the concerns 

expressed remain very relevant. To respect the efforts of those who took the 

opportunity to share their thoughts, I 

am submitting every e-mail sent to me 

through an address set up specifically 

for this purpose to the CONGRESSIONAL

RECORD. This is not an issue that will 

be easily resolved, but it is one that deserves immediate and serious attention, and Idahoans deserve to be heard. 

Their stories not only detail their 

struggles to meet everyday expenses, 


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