Hon. James Oberstar at the Surface Transportation & High Speed Rail Summit 2012 – Washington, DC - InfrastructureUSA: Citizen Dialogue About Civil Infrastructure InfrastructureUSA: Citizen Dialogue About Civil Infrastructure

Hon. James Oberstar at the Surface Transportation & High Speed Rail Summit 2012 – Washington, DC

Posted by Steve Anderson on Tuesday, March 13th, 2012

This is the second in a series of posts

Steven CF Anderson, Managing Director of InfrastructureUSA was a participant at the US High Speed Rail Association’s 2012 summit, held from February 28th to March 1st in Washington, DC.

After addressing those attending the conference, the Honorable James Oberstar, former Chairman of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, spoke with Steve about high speed rail and American infrastructure.

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Hon. James Oberstar represented Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District. He was the longest serving member of Congress in Minnesota history. In the 34 years he has served in Congress, Jim had become known as the body’s leading expert on transportation policy. From 1989 through 1995, he chaired the Subcommittee on Aviation, passing important legislation that has led to better maintenance and safer aircraft. Later, as the ranking Democrat of the full Transportation Committee, he worked in a bipartisan manner to take the Highway Trust Fund off budget to ensure that gas taxes are used to fix roads and bridges and not to make the budget deficit look smaller. In January 2007, Jim was elected Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. He is also the first member of Congress to have served both as a committee’s administrator and its chairman. In January 2011, John Mica took over as the Chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.