James Oberstar: “there is an old saying, success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan. We bring to this House success with at…”

“there is an old saying, success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan. We bring to this House success with at least 435 parents, starting with the Speaker of the House, who is a strong advocate for the original bill that the gentleman from Alaska (Chairman Young) and I introduced, and nearly all of the members of our committee, for $375 billion, to respond to the Nation's transportation needs over the next 6 years. We did that in 2003 at a time when gasoline was selling for $1.34 a gallon. I appreciate the Speaker being an advocate for a robust investment, but I even more appreciate the gentleman from Alaska (Chairman Young) for advocating before his conference this level of investment that we did not pick out of the thin air, but that was recommended by the Department of Transportation as directed in TEA-21 to evaluate paving condition, bridge condition, safety needs, and congestion across the country; and they came back with their estimates, after consulting with all of the States and all of the transportation experts, what it should be, and we did what we thought should be. When the chairman broke his pick on that number after vigorous advocacy, we agreed to scale the bill back incrementally, further down the ladder to below $300 billion, and then down to $275 billion. We brought that bill to the House floor last year, and it passed; we went to conference with the Senate and they could come to no resolution, as we quaintly say in this body.…”