James Oberstar: “I cannot yield. I thank the Speaker. That is the point; there was no such meeting. That, I find extraordinary. In the 40…”

“I cannot yield. I thank the Speaker. That is the point; there was no such meeting. That, I find extraordinary. In the 40 years that I have served on the Committee on Public Works, now the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, I started on that committee as a clerk on the Subcommittee on Rivers and Harbors in January of 1963, I followed every one of our conferences. I have served on conferences for 24 years. Never have we failed to have meetings, except in a very few instances when a bill was conferenced without formal meeting of conferees, for which I reference the Aviation Noise Act of 1990, in which case the Senate, the other body, failed to call a meeting of conferees, but we did meet. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Clinger, was the ranking Republican on the subcommittee I chaired at that time, and I included him in every meeting. We did not have that courtesy extended to us. The rules of the House clearly were violated, to say the worst; avoided, to say the best.”