James Oberstar: “Of course, we will debate it on its merits later. But it is not appropriate for the Congress to intercede in a…”

“Of course, we will debate it on its merits later. But it is not appropriate for the Congress to intercede in a jurisdictional matter where we have given authority to a local airport entity with full power, full authority, over the Dulles and National airports to then take back some of that power and say we will arrogate onto ourselves the authority to name this airport, not only to name it but to take off a good name that it already has and to replace another name. That is my principal objection. Never in the history of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure or its predecessor, named Public Works Committee, did we take a name of a building and replace it with another name. Washington National already has a name. It is good enough for the country. It has been good enough since 1940. It ought to be good enough for the next 50 years or the next millennium. We should not be in the business of renaming facilities. If this precedent is followed, then woe be to any other building that the Federal Government has funded or any other airport that has received Federal airport improvement funds anywhere in the Nation as this Congress is setting a precedent today that we can come in and take names off buildings and place other names on them. That is not appropriate.”