[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 17171-17173]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1600
                   JAMES L. OBERSTAR MEMORIAL HIGHWAY

  Mr. PETRI. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill 
(H.R. 4926) to designate the ``James L. Oberstar Memorial Highway'' and 
the ``James L. Oberstar National Scenic Byway'' in the State of 
Minnesota, as amended.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 4926

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. DESIGNATION.

       The segment of Interstate Route 35 between milepost 133 at 
     Forest Lake, Minnesota, and milepost 259 at Duluth, 
     Minnesota, shall be known and designated as the ``James L. 
     Oberstar Memorial Highway''.

     SEC. 2. REFERENCES.

       Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper, 
     or other record of the United States to the segment of 
     Interstate Route 35 referred to in section 1 shall be deemed 
     to be a reference to the ``James L. Oberstar Memorial 
     Highway''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Petri) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Nolan) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin.


                             General Leave

  Mr. PETRI. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and 
include extraneous material on the bill before us, H.R. 4926.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Wisconsin?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. PETRI. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4926. This bill designates the 
segment of Interstate Route 35 between mile post 133 at Forest Lake, 
Minnesota, and mile post 259 at Duluth, Minnesota, as the James L. 
Oberstar Memorial Highway.
  This is a small but well-deserved and fitting tribute to a former 
colleague, a leader for many years, first on the staff of the 
Transportation Committee in the House of Representatives, where he was 
an aide, and then later succeeded his predecessor in the House of 
Representatives, the Honorable John Blatnik, who represented the Iron 
Range for many years, and I think who also has a bridge and some other 
important locations named after him, and then of course who served on 
the Transportation Committee as an active member, chairman of many of 
its subcommittees and, ultimately, chairman of the full committee for 
many, many years.
  I got to know Jim Oberstar personally, and we were competitors on a 
lot of issues, but we were also very much friends. He was a person with 
strong family values and a great sense of obligation to the working 
people of the Iron Range in northern Minnesota.
  His father had worked on the mines, one of many who came over from 
what is now Yugoslavia to work in northern Minnesota, creating enormous 
wealth for our country, helping to build the steel industry, and arm 
our Nation and also build the railroads, materials and all the rest, 
and who shared in that, but only modestly, compared with many, many 
others.
  He was a very interesting man with many, many sterling qualities, a 
natural linguist. I have been at meetings with Jim Oberstar where the 
French Ambassador would say, ``Now, where did you learn French? You 
must have lived in France.'' ``It was at the University of Minnesota,'' 
that is where he learned French.
  He also became a very good speaker of the dialect that people speak 
down in Haiti. He knew three or four other languages. He had a natural 
facility for languages.
  Jim also had a great interest in transportation policy and in 
history, and I think, as someone said at his memorial service, he felt 
everyone that he talked with shared the great love he had for all the 
details and history and facts of different situations, but he was 
wrong, but if you were interested, it was fascinating to spend time 
with Jim Oberstar.
  He loved the outdoors. He fought to make sure that the lakes and 
rivers of northern Minnesota and the Boundary Waters and so on were, to 
the extent possible, properly managed for the environment, but also 
available for the working people of that area for their recreation and 
all the rest, rather than just a few.
  He was an example for many of us who served in this House of 
dedication and putting country and his citizens before self, and he 
liked to have fun. I had many opportunities to share his love for the 
outdoors on bicycle trips and other occasions. He was kind enough to 
come to my district on a number of occasions to help encourage support 
for different facilities in our area.
  He was always a real gentleman, so far as I was concerned in dealing 
with him, and an example of people who serve in this House from varying 
backgrounds who have definite and strong feelings, but also who try to 
make sure that, at the end of the day, they work with people with whom 
they disagree in order to accomplish something good for our country, 
and so Jim is sorely missed.
  This is a small but fitting memorial for him, and I am sure that he 
and his wife, Jean, appreciate the fact that the Congress is taking 
this action today.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking the gentleman from 
Wisconsin for his kind words on behalf of not just the Oberstar family, 
but all the citizens of Minnesota--very kind, very appropriate, and 
greatly appreciated.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield, to begin with, to the gentleman from Minnesota, 
Representative Collin Peterson, a senior member of the Minnesota 
congressional delegation and our distinguished colleague.
  Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this 
legislation and also want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for his 
kind words on behalf of the family and the people of the State.
  Jim Oberstar passed away this year, as we all know, and we lost a 
great advocate for transportation and infrastructure. He and I served 
together for many years in this Congress, and we worked closely 
together as representatives of rural districts in Minnesota. One thing 
that I really admired about Congressman Oberstar, he wasn't afraid to 
take tough positions and do what he thought was right.
  As chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, he 
supported an increase in the gas tax, so that we could ensure long-term 
sustainable funding for our Nation's transportation needs. That is one 
thing he and I both agreed on, and I know he met strong resistance for 
expressing those views.
  Beyond his work on the committee, Congressman Oberstar was passionate

[[Page 17172]]

about his district and the people he represented. He was a tireless 
advocate, and he made sure that the Eighth District had a voice through 
his leadership and in the caucus.
  Mr. Speaker, the legacy of Jim Oberstar will live on in Minnesota and 
across the country for decades to come, and I know that he would be 
proud to have this highway and national scenic byway in Minnesota named 
in his memory, and as has been indicated, we will all miss his 
tremendous expertise and advocacy for transportation in this country.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this 
legislation.
  Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. PETRI. Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of stories we could tell 
about the Jim Oberstar, and I think it is probably not fully 
appropriate to do that at this time but just to say that he was a self-
made person, he had great intellectual abilities, and he used them well 
on behalf of his constituents, his State, and our country.
  He had an ability, I think, to work very well with people with whom 
he would disagree on some issues. He was a man of faith and believed 
that, at the end of the day, we are all sinners, we couldn't expect 
perfection. There is going to be a certain disagreement there, but, at 
the other hand, there are some redeeming qualities in us human beings 
too, and let's look for those and work with others.
  Mr. Speaker, I, again, thank my colleagues for bringing this 
legislation forward. I have no further requests for time, and I reserve 
the balance of my time.
  Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield to the gentlewoman from 
the District of Columbia, Eleanor Holmes Norton.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding, and I 
thank my good friend, Mr. Petri, whom I deeply regret seeing leave the 
Congress, as well, because he has contributed so very much to this 
Congress, particularly in the field of which we speak today.
  Of very few Members can it be said that they grew up in the Congress. 
One could almost say that about Jim Oberstar who came here as a 
legislative assistant to the Public Works Committee, then ultimately 
became its chief of staff, and then decided that he could do the whole 
thing and become a Member of Congress from the Eighth District of 
Minnesota.
  By the time Jim came to the Congress, he had such an early start that 
he already knew probably all anyone would expect any Member to know. 
This early start led to what can only be called breathtaking knowledge 
and, ultimately, achievements in the transportation and infrastructure 
field.
  He became not only my mentor but, literally, the personal mentor of 
every Member on each side of the aisle and, ultimately, a mentor to any 
Member of Congress who wanted to know anything about the Nation's 
transportation and infrastructure.
  At the bottom, Mr. Speaker, transportation and infrastructure is a 
very technical and specialized field. It takes hard work and brilliance 
to become a master of the roads, bridges, infrastructure, and bike and 
running trails of this country, let alone the complexities of 
intermodalism. It was a marvel to see Jim go at intermodalism. I had 
the opportunity to see him offer visionary leadership on intermodalism 
here with Union Station in Washington, D.C., and around the country.
  Mr. Speaker, Jim came to subcommittee hearings almost all the time 
and participated in these hearings with the same depth as the chair of 
the subcommittee. He never let his encyclopedic knowledge wither.
  Mr. Speaker, I have been on the committee ever since I came to 
Congress in 1991. I can say without any compunction that, if you were 
around Jim, no matter where you sat in the committee room, you could 
not avoid his kindness, his warmth, and his depth. Sometimes Jim may 
have told you more than you wanted to know about transportation and 
infrastructure, but at the end of the day, you were glad that you 
listened because you heard him speak, sometimes playfully, in French--
he always understood you had better keep using what you once had--but 
always offering the benefits of his knowledge, and using his great 
intellectual and personal gifts to bring us all in to the field he had 
mastered. No wonder Minnesota elected him to serve so long that he 
became the longest serving Member from the State.
  As we struggle still for a highway bill, I hope we will not forget 
this great Member who began as an ironworker, worked himself through 
college as an ironworker, organized unions, and never forgot the roots 
from which he came, and yet came to this Congress and made himself a 
friend of anyone who would listen.
  I am pleased to be associated with this bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join 
me in honoring former Congressman James Louis ``Jim'' Oberstar, my 
friend and mentor, and mentor to thousands. Jim represented the 8th 
district of Minnesota for 18 terms, from 1975 until 2011, but his 
breathtaking knowledge and achievements on transportation and 
infrastructure made him the nation's mentor on these issues.
  Born in Chisholm, Minnesota in 1934, Jim was the son of an iron miner 
and shirt factory worker. He learned at an early age the power of 
organizing workers to fight for fair wages and safe workplaces, and 
never forgot his roots in the working class and in the organizations 
they asked to represent them at the bargaining table. Jim worked in the 
Minnesota mines to fund his college education, graduating from the 
College at St. Thomas in St. Paul with degrees in French and political 
science.
  In 1963, Jim started his career on the Capitol Hill. He worked as 
legislative assistant and chief of staff for former Congressman John 
Blatnik, who represented Minnesota's 8th district at the time. He also 
served as chief of staff of the House Committee on Transportation and 
Public Works for many years. In 1974, Jim was elected to the House, 
where he was fully prepared to use his already well-developed knowledge 
of transportation and infrastructure as a member on the House Committee 
on Transportation and Public Works.
  Jim contributed to the work of building and rebuilding the nation's 
transportation systems--its road and bridge networks, and, as a cyclist 
himself, its bike and running trails. Jim's encyclopedic knowledge of 
the field led him to master the complexities associated with 
intermodalism, the transportation wave of the future. His work, for 
example, to make the District of Columbia's Union Station truly 
intermodal, still in progress, will always be emblematic of his 
visionary leadership.
  From the moment I joined the Transportation and Infrastructure 
Committee, in 1991, I learned from Jim Oberstar and felt his warmth, 
kindness and depth. Jim not only led us, he nurtured us. Whether 
smiling as he playfully spoke French or offering the benefits of his 
commonsense knowledge, Jim's intellectual and personal gifts left us 
admiring him as a person and in awe of his knowledge and understanding 
of the field as a professional. Jim's outstanding work in the Congress 
led the people of Minnesota to make him the longest serving House 
member from their state, and Jim served the nation with special 
distinction at the same time.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask the House to join me in honoring Jim Oberstar for 
his many accomplishments for the 8th district of Minnesota and for his 
devotion to our nation's transportation and infrastructure.
  Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  It is truly a great honor for me to present to the House this bill to 
name the stretch of Interstate Highway I-35 from Forest Lake, 
Minnesota, to Duluth, Minnesota, on behalf of the late former chairman 
of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, James Oberstar.
  I do so in the spirit of bipartisanship that Jim epitomized on behalf 
of the entire Minnesota delegation, all of whom have sponsored this 
legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I will never forget the moment in January 2013 when Jim 
entered this Chamber for the first time as a former Member of the 
Congress. He walked quietly through the side door here, and one by one, 
his colleagues here in this Chamber, Democrats and Republicans alike, 
noticed him and began to spontaneously applaud Jim Oberstar in 
welcoming him back to the Congress.
  I, quite frankly, have never seen anything quite like it, and this 
gesture of appreciation for the way Jim Oberstar

[[Page 17173]]

brought us together through his bipartisan leadership and example was 
one of the more heartwarming and important experiences that I have seen 
take place here in this Chamber.

                              {time}  1615

  Jim was an idea guy. As Tom mentioned, it didn't matter to him if an 
idea came from a Republican or a Democrat. The only thing that mattered 
to him was whether or not it was a good idea. If you had an idea, Jim 
wanted to hear it, and he was ready to work with you to make it happen 
if he thought it was a good idea.
  And that was particularly true with respect to the building and 
rebuilding and expanding our interstate highway system that he had 
worked on, as it was pointed out here, as a staff member to that 
committee earlier in his life for the sole purpose of connecting every 
corner of this great Nation together from border to border and from sea 
to sea.
  Through recessions, through budget deficits, through gas shortages 
and challenges of every kind, Jim Oberstar never wavered in his support 
for the interstate highway system because he understood how vital it is 
to our ability to create good jobs, to literally drive our economy 
forward and create the atmosphere for successful business and job 
creation.
  With that in mind, Mr. Speaker, I ask our colleagues to honor Jim 
Oberstar by naming the stretch of I-35 that serves as the gateway to 
the district he so ably represented for 36 years and designate it as 
the James L. Oberstar Memorial Highway.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. PETRI. Mr. Speaker, I encourage all Members to support this bill.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in 
support of H.R. 4926 and to honor the life of a truly remarkable man 
that we lost this year, Jim Oberstar. This legislation would designate 
the ``James L. Oberstar Memorial Highway'' and the ``James L. Oberstar 
National Scenic Byway'' in the State of Minnesota, but more 
importantly, it would honor the legacy of one of our most beloved 
former colleagues.
  Jim grew up appreciating the value of hard work and he innately 
understood the importance of cultivating strong relationships and 
tirelessly fighting for what was right.
  He left the House of Representatives and the nation quite frankly, in 
a better place than when he found it. He was the consummate public 
servant and has an incredible lasting legacy.
  In the 18 terms he served in Congress, he had a remarkable impact on 
the transportation industry in America and upon all of his colleagues. 
He was uniquely aware of the value of jobs, the economy, and the 
interconnectedness of goods and people throughout the country.
  In a profession not always known for brevity of remarks, his 
speeches, as we can all attest, were amongst the most lengthy. However, 
when delivering remarks, he spoke passionately and with great 
intellect, never failing to effectively convey his point to a wide 
variety of audiences.
  More importantly, he understood the value of bipartisanship in 
Washington and never let politics get in the way of good policy.
  While we mourn the loss of our dear friend, we celebrate his life and 
service to this nation. I urge my colleagues to support this 
resolution.
  Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 
4926, to designate a segment of Interstate Route 35 in the State of 
Minnesota as the ``James L. Oberstar Memorial Highway.'' This 
legislation would designate the segment of Interstate Route 35 between 
milepost 133 at Forest Lake, Minnesota, and milepost 259 at Duluth, 
Minnesota, as the ``James L. Oberstar Memorial Highway.''
  Renaming these highways is a good way to memorialize Congressman 
Oberstar's contributions to Minnesota and our country. Born to an 
underground miner from Chisholm, Minnesota, Jim Oberstar served as a 
representative for the state of Minnesota for 36 years, totaling 18 
terms from 1975 to 2011. He is the longest-serving congressman in 
Minnesota history.
  During his over thirty years of service to our state, Jim always put 
Minnesotans first. He was a public servant above all else. He had a 
gifted mind and an uncanny memory that helped him master a number of 
languages, including Haitian Creole. Jim's passion for helping people 
get from one place to another safely was contagious and his vision for 
Minnesota's future lives on as the projects he fought for as chairman 
of the Transportation Committee remain in Minnesota today.
  After the Interstate 35 Bridge collapsed in Minnesota, Jim authored 
legislation which authorized $255 million without delay to begin the 
recovery and rebuilding process. His effective leadership was essential 
in that time of crisis. In addition to helping rebuild the I-35 Bridge, 
Jim was responsible for the Gitchi-Gami trail along Lake Superior's 
North Shore, the lakewalk in Duluth, and the 120-mile long Paul Bunyan 
bike trail.
  Jim Oberstar embodied the Minnesotan values of public service, 
selflessness and compassion. His spirit, ideas and energy are deeply 
missed. For these reasons, I support this legislation.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, Jim Oberstar was a true gentleman of the 
House who ably represented Minnesota's 8th District for 36 years. He 
was a fixture of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Jim 
started as staff in the 1960s, became a Member in the 1970s, then 
served as Chairman of the Committee from 2007 to 2011. I was blessed to 
work, and sometimes ride, alongside Jim for many years. Given his many 
years of work to improve transportation in Minnesota and across the 
country, it is fitting that a portion of Interstate Highway 35 be 
renamed in his honor.
  As a tireless advocate on transportation issues, Jim earned well-
deserved admiration in many circles, including in my home state of 
Oregon. He accompanied me on tours to advocate for increased 
infrastructure investment. Jim truly understood the importance of 
investment as a way to create American jobs, improve safety, and build 
roads, bridges and transit systems to accommodate a 21st Century 
economy. His passion and leadership are evident in projects across the 
country.
  Jim was also an avid cyclist, and I am grateful I had the opportunity 
to show him my state in 2007 during the Cycle Oregon event. He was one 
tough athlete, easily outpacing cyclists half his age. Jim was a 
champion of the road in more ways than one.
  Like many people in Washington, DC, Minnesota and beyond, I feel 
fortunate to consider Jim not only a colleague, but a friend and a 
mentor. I only wish he had lived long enough to share all of his 
knowledge with the rest of us.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri) that the House suspend the rules 
and pass the bill, H.R. 4926, as amended.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
  The title of the bill was amended so as to read: ``A bill to 
designate a segment of Interstate Route 35 in the State of Minnesota as 
the `James L. Oberstar Memorial Highway'.''.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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