James Oberstar

I have sent a message to the airlines and to Boeing now.

In the air, there is no curb.

They are not working hard enough.

I am committed to maintaining a safe and healthy workplace for all American workers, including those in the hazardous material industry.

I am very familiar with the risk in the air. I have spent 25 years working on it.

We are here to find the answers. I do not want the how-to's and the whatevers.

Shouldn't ground handlers have particular training and guidance and direction and management in the handling of such cargo?

Safety is the essential element of transportation, and it has been the constant vigilance of this Committee over all of its years that I have served here, and that is a long time.

I am thinking of two incidents.

Weakening the authority of OSHA would result in real life-or-death consequences for American workers in such a high-risk industry.

The Teamsters strongly support the language in H.R. 915, authored by Chairman Jim Oberstar.

my intention is to make these funds mandatory of the States in the next Transportation and Infrastructure reauthorization bill

Now, Mr. Schaeffer and Dr. Volz, what about the effect on groundwater?

Everyone has a right to be represented.

So if you have an acidic environment that is conducive to absorbing these oxy-anionic materials and making them available, then, to uptake in plant, then you have a higher likelihood of toxic effect on humans, at the top of the food chain…

For me, the issue is not whether the material is toxic or hazardous, but that it is behind a retaining structure, a levee or a dam; and the issue of hazard, I think, can be very simply answered.

there is the risk of seepage. We have those problems all along the Mississippi River from just south of St. Paul all the way to New Orleans;

A 60-foot high wall of water is hazardous to anything in its path. Whether it is toxic or not is of secondary significance.

Well, this Committee, many years ago and then more recently, enacted dam safety legislation requiring inspection of dams of all size, configuration, height, and use;

So, on the one hand, as you have described, the air pollution controls on power plants removed toxic substances from the air and now put it in sludge that is on the ground.

It seems to me that EPA should have Clean Water Act pollutant discharge regulatory authority for--and to treat any discharge from such facilities that are, or have, point sources.

I think it would be beneficial to get the Corps back into this picture, however good your private contractor may well be.

I will request that.

The integrity of these facilities needs to be revisited.

I have been associated with FEMA, its oversight, its structure, its operation for probably 30 years.