James Oberstar: “I again want to express my great appreciation to Ms. Brown for years of advocacy for rail issues and for her championing…”

“I again want to express my great appreciation to Ms. Brown for years of advocacy for rail issues and for her championing of the rail safety matters, and to thank the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania, who has devoted a great deal of energy and time and effort to rail from his first day on the committee, asking the committee to hold a hearing in 2001 in his district on rail maintenance yard issues and continuation of rail service. It turned out to be a very enlightening hearing. He has remained engaged in the issues. As the gentleman said a moment ago, we did not just throw issues on the table; we rather sat around the table after the hearings and discussed in detail repeatedly subject matters, made concessions on each side, adjustments, understanding each other's concerns, and reached not the ideal of each side, but ideal in the best public interest. The result is, I believe, a bill that substantially advances the cause of rail safety. I must say in passing that it diminishes the substance of the bill to say that it is, as the previous speaker did, a gift to rail labor. This is a gift to all Americans, to all residents of communities that are home to railroads, to rail makeup yards through which the goods of America move, through which the coal and the grain and the containers move. It is safety for them. It is safety for the workers on the railroads.”