The Public Record
Jim Oberstar is a former Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives, serving Minnesota's 8th congressional district from 1975 to 2011. He was known for his work on transportation and infrastructure issues, playing a key role in the development of the nation's transportation policies. Oberstar served as the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, where he advocated for improvements in highways, public transit, and aviation. His tenure was marked by a focus on enhancing safety and efficiency in transportation systems across the country.
all of us in this body together with our constituents are attempting to comprehend and give voice to yesterday's cowardly, merciless, and vicious act of terrorism against America and against humanity. Both anger and prayer welled up in all…
I strongly support H.R. 988, to name the U.S. Courthouse at 40 Centre Street in New York City in honor of former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. The naming of the federal courthouse after Justice Marshall is a fitting tribute to…
Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the relatively hostile remarks and misguided comments of our very otherwise thoughtful colleague from Texas, I today brought with me my 83-year-old railroad watch, 15 size Illinois, in memory of the railroad…
10 years ago my wife Jo succumbed to breast cancer after an 8-year struggle with that disease. Today in her memory I deliver the eulogy testimonial I offered in St. Bartholomew Church on this day. Marshall Lynam, well known to Hill…
Mitigation is the cornerstone of emergency management. Mitigation simply means efforts to lessen the impact of disasters on people and property. It keeps homes out of floodplains, designs bridges to withstand earthquakes, creates and…
an hour or so ago the U.S. Department of Justice announced that they will file suit to block the proposed merger of United Airlines and U.S. Airways. That announcement is the best news in U.S. aviation since deregulation. The decision by…
I introduced this bill on Valentine's Day earlier this year to protect our most cherished loved ones, our children. I was an advocate in ISTEA and again in TEA-21 for this legislation for its funding, which has provided $7.5 million in…
The Sabo-Ney amendment, bipartisan amendment, is in conformity with the February 6 ruling of the NAFTA arbitration panel on cross-border trucking services. The panel found that "inadequacies of the Mexican regulatory system provide an…
I supported this program as a pilot program in AIR-21 last year. In fact, Chairman Shuster and I worked together to fashion the language. I have long supported service to small communities and to initiatives of this kind. We all know that…
deprived of an opportunity to offer that amendment, we are reduced to this rather stringent approach. As the gentleman from Wisconsin said earlier, it is an issue that can be tapered in conference and resolved perhaps even to meet the…
I join Subcommittee Chairman LaTourette, Subcommittee Ranking Member Costello, and Chairman Young, in support of this resolution that authorizes use of the Capitol Grounds on Saturday, September 8, for activities associated with the…
H.R. 819 designates the federal building in Medina, Ohio, in honor of former Congressman Donald Pease from the 13th district of Ohio. This simple act honors a man whose life embodies the American ideals of hard work personal sacrifice, and…
Mr. Speaker, this is a very nostalgic moment for me. My late wife, Jo, and I started our family with adoption. We brought Ted into our family in April of 1968; and there followed Noelle and Annie and Monica, and now grandchildren…
the oncology nurse may well be as close as mere mortals come to angels on earth. These extraordinary health professionals must win the trust of their cancer patients while injecting toxics into the inflicted body. They must inspire hope of…
It is really with a full heart that I come to the floor with this legislation to name the Federal building for Jim Corman. Congressman Corman was my friend and in a way a mentor on decency and civility and dignity from the time I began my…
Mr. Speaker, from a transportation perspective, there are good reasons to oppose this bill, but the most significant is repeal of the 4.3 cent fuel tax for the railroads. That action goes against the spirit of the agreement worked out…
she may not serve on this committee, but she has been so persistent in pursuit of the issues that she and the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Fowler) have both coordinated on, that this is a better bill because of the gentlewoman's…
I just want to emphasize for our colleagues that in an era of rancor and divisiveness publicly in the body politic and between the parties and between the two bodies of Congress, this Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has…
Mr. Speaker, it has been widely reported that the issue or one of the issues certainly that delayed this bill from floor consideration was the applicability of the Davis-Bacon Act to the non-Federal contributions to Corps projects. It has…
Mr. Speaker, I, of course, have greatly sympathized with the concerns of the Mississippi Delta Region counties and the area's Members of Congress who are working on ways to address the economic distress this area has experienced far beyond…
I have bicycled over those levies and talked to the orchardmen on the other side, who can testify to the seepage under those levies, and that is a matter that we need to address and the Corps should be working on. And I concur in the …
Mr. Speaker, at the outset I want to express my great appreciation to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Shuster) for the cooperation that we have had and the close working relationship again on this legislation, as on all the other…
It is an extraordinary reaching across the political aisles and across the generations for the gentleman to not only sponsor this legislation but actually vigorously advocate for it and to ensure that it made its way through the committee…
the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure might also have a subtitle, the Committee on Commendation of Great Americans. There are few opportunities for us in this body to memorialize Americans who have made great contributions to…
This disaster mitigation legislation does represent the very best, however, of comity between the two parties in this House and the two sides of our committee. The benefit of this bill is that it establishes a predisaster mitigation…
Politicians like James Oberstar
