James Oberstar

I have never been supportive of toll roads. Current law allows toll credits only when that toll road has been built without Federal aid. This amendment would extend an already, in my view, unacceptable principle further. It would extend to…

I compliment the gentleman on raising a very important issue. I also want to point out to the House that this is a complex aspect of transportation law involving Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement issues. It involves a very…

we have reviewed the gentlewoman's amendment, we have been discussing it for quite some time in committee. This will make it possible to put that information that is already required to be reported on the Internet, and we have agreed on…

I leave one statistic with my colleagues. In 1987 the cost of logistics, moving people and goods, consumed 16 percent of our gross domestic product of this country. Last year logistics consumed just under 10 percent of our gross domestic…

In a time when the image of the U.S. Congress to the rest of America is one of divisiveness and partisanship, this committee may well have set a model for how a legislative body ought to work, an interplay of ideas coming at the same…

Medicare is the most successful health initiative in American history--improving the quality of life for America's senior citizens, extending their longevity, and relieving their anxiety about affording the health care they need. For the…

the issue of pilotage rates on the Great Lakes is one of the most vexing matters that I have had to deal with going back to my service with my predecessor as the administrative assistant when we had so many problems with the Great Lakes…

But I just want to say to what a difference a week makes and how refreshing it is to be on the floor under an open rule where issues that are of concern to Members can be resolved in open fashion and that we can conduct the work of this…

Mr. Chairman, the exchange that we have just had between the Michigan delegation, or its voice, and the Wisconsin delegation and the previous amendment offered by the gentleman from Illinois, point up a problem that we have to face and to…

Madam Chairman, the subject at hand here is a matter that the gentleman from Connecticut and I did indeed discuss in the course of the markup on the Coast Guard authorization bill. I raised two questions. One was with respect to the…

Yesterday, the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation conducted a hearing on the Staten Island ferry accident in which 10 passengers were killed. Even at this date, the captain and the pilot of the ferry claim to be too…

The gentleman's language limits to 1999. So it cannot go back as far as the gentleman is suggesting. I regret that this matter could not have been resolved at the committee level. It is an issue raised out of deep conviction by the…

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…

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…

This President early in his term issued an executive order finding that air traffic control is not inherently a governmental function, which opens up the potential for basically a contracting out of the air traffic control system of the…

Mr. Speaker, safety is not just one issue. Safety is a multiplicity of overlying redundancies. Safety depends on the interaction of the human and the technological. What I object to in this proceeding is the lack of process, a lack of…

I have got my seat belt in place, tray table is up, waiting for a real conference. The points the gentleman from Florida raised are the kinds of issues that we should be discussing in the conference. We did not have that kind of discussion…

I rise in support of H.R. 2535, as amended by the manager's amendment, a bill to reauthorize the Economic Development Administration (EDA). In 1965, I was present when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Works and Economic…

the most solemn and weighty power conferred by our Constitution upon the Congress is the power to declare war and the power of the purse. Last year, Congress abdicated its constitutional responsibility by approving a deeply-flawed…

this is a landmark day for those who, for more than 30 years, have worked to reduce the number of abortions performed in America. With today's vote on the Conference Report to accompany S. 3, The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, we are…

I just want to point out, in support of the committee position, that during the House-Senate conference on the port security bill last year, we were attempting to negotiate a fee proposition that would provide funding for the needs of…

I appreciate the issue the gentlewoman has raised. It is identical to the issue the gentleman from Oregon addressed in the well just moments ago. Although the bill allows States to transfer funds among programs during this 5-month period…

If there had been a simple regulation in place in December 1988, Pan Am 103 likely never would have happened, and that is passenger bag match, an issue that later, the Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism appointed by President…

I rise in support of the Petri-Olver amendment. We are here today to discuss one of the cornerstones of ISTEA and TEA-21 of our current transportation program, a cornerstone that our current Secretary of Transportation not only supports…

I rise to acknowledge the extraordinary accomplishment of Lance Armstrong in winning five consecutive Tours de France. I have with me the principal newspaper in Paris that follows athletic events, Le Journal de Paris, whose headline says…