Bud Shuster: “I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I rise in support of the motion to instruct. Passing a transportation bill is…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I rise in support of the motion to instruct. Passing a transportation bill is about jobs. It's about keeping America competitive in the world. So I, for one, am urging a ``yes'' vote on this motion to instruct. I believe it is critical to America that we pass a transportation bill. I would like to correct a few facts that my good friend from Oregon just put forward. The gentleman to my recollection has been on the Ways and Means Committee for the past couple of years, 4 years I believe it has been, so I don't know how privy he was to what we did in the House Transportation Committee to try to be inclusive to our Democratic colleagues, to work with them. We worked with them as openly, if not more openly, than Chairman Oberstar when he chaired the committee. We did have a full committee hearing on it. In fact, we had 18 hours of debate. And as I recall, when Chairman Oberstar chaired the committee, we had zero hours of debate in the full committee because a bill from the Democratic-controlled House didn't even make it to the full committee. So we worked hard and we talked with our colleagues. Unfortunately, being bipartisan is not just one party saying that they can't work with another party. It takes two of us to tango. We did in the last bill. I wasn't happy with much of Chairman Oberstar's bill, but to move a bill forward, we said okay, we're with you, we'll move the bill.…”