Norman Mineta: “In general the bill before us is an attempt to limit the intrusiveness of the Federal Government into the business of…”

“In general the bill before us is an attempt to limit the intrusiveness of the Federal Government into the business of State and local governments and private businesses. Many of us disagree with how the bill goes about meeting those objectives, but we do not disagree with the objectives themselves. In the area of transportation, economic regulation in particular, I have been among the most consistent advocates of the economic deregulation of transportation. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is very familiar with my efforts as a deregulator, because he has been an important part of those efforts, and so have many Members on his side of the aisle. In the past 15 years, we have largely deregulated the airlines, pipelines, trucking, and railroads. We have dramatically reduced the intrusiveness of government into the marketplace. And in every instance we have concluded that what we wanted to achieve was deregulation, not a substitute of State regulation for Federal regulation. Deregulation means get government out of the issue.”