James Oberstar: “I am somewhat bemused by the quaint reconstruction of history to which we have been treated by the chairman of the…”

“I am somewhat bemused by the quaint reconstruction of history to which we have been treated by the chairman of the subcommittee, reconstruction of what took place in the House-Senate conference that met for 1 day July 24 and has not met since. The gentleman also said there was only one issue, only one amendment offered. It was a conceptual amendment that I offered to a concept to which we had been treated but for which we did not have paper. And so since we did not have, and contrast every conference I have previously participated in over 24 years, I offered an amendment in concept, and we had a cursory discussion of the subject matter which was to reinstate the Senate language, and that was voted down. The reason there was only one subject discussed was that is all that we were given time to discuss. There are at least four major issues. One, the air traffic control privatization which has been said time and again in this Chamber and the House voted clearly to prohibit the privatization of the air traffic control system; the other body did the same.”