William Tauzin: “I do want to seriously thank the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) for the extraordinary degree of cooperation between…”

“I do want to seriously thank the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) for the extraordinary degree of cooperation between his committee and his staff and the staff of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, as well as the staffs of the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), representing the minority of our two committees for the extraordinary work that has been done on this bill. This is not just a multi-year bill, this is a multi-Congress bill. This has been a work in progress for years through several Congresses, and we have reached the point today where we now have concurrence not only between our two committees but in a bipartisan fashion we can bring pipeline safety to the floor for a vote, and most importantly we can bring it to the floor for a vote with the support of the Office of Pipeline Safety, with the pipeline industry itself, with the support of the environmental community and the support of organized labor.”