James Oberstar: “Madam Chairman, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure brings to the House today an historic bill to address…”

“Madam Chairman, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure brings to the House today an historic bill to address the needs of aviation today and into the future. At a time when we are seeing aviation recover from the devastating aftereffects of September 11, the flood of bankruptcies that occurred in the years subsequent to that tragic assault on America, and the retiring of aircraft, laying off of tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of airline workers and workers in related fields, we are now seeing aviation return to and exceed all-time previously registered highs. Last year, over a billion people traveled by air worldwide, and 750 million of that travel was in the U.S. air space. We are seeing increasing delays. Only 72 percent of flights arrived on time in this last year. That indicates congestion in the air space and congestion on the ground and congestion in our air traffic control system. We bring to the House, we bring to the country, historic funding levels of $68 billion over the next 4 years.”