James Oberstar

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. I am opposed to the bill, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I offer my colleagues an opportunity to designate an appropriate memorial to President Ronald Reagan without a single dissenting vote. As was indicated by the previous vote, there is not complete bipartisan support. There are many on the other side of the aisle who voted crossing their fingers with a little check in their throat. This is not the right way to go about designating an appropriate memorial to the memory of Ronald Reagan. The motion to recommit that I have offered has precedent. The precedent for the motion I offer is that offered by no less than the Senate Minority Leader in 1990, almost 8 years to the week, Senator Dole, who offered a joint resolution to urge the Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority to use its existing authority to change the name of Washington-Dulles International Airport to Eisenhower International Airport. Note, Senator Dole rose to urge the Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority to use its authority to change the name of Washington-Dulles to Eisenhower International. He was in the Senate when the legislation was introduced and enacted to create the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority to rebuild both Dulles and Washington National. His great wife was the Secretary of Transportation at the time. Senator Dole understood fully the importance of the transfer of authority from the Federal Government to the Airports Authority created by that legislation. He did not presume to rush in and rename National Airport on the sole fiat and power of the United States Congress but rather, as I propose here modestly, to urge the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority to use its authority to change the name of this airport. I propose to name the terminal, which does not now bear a name. I am opposed to renaming, I am opposed to taking a good name, anyone's good name, off a building and renaming it. But I do not oppose naming that which does not now bear a name or a title. There is no name. There is no title for the new terminal. That is the greatest contribution of the legislation submitted to the Congress by President Reagan, building of the new terminal and reconstructing Dulles Airport. I think it is entirely appropriate that we should name the terminal for Ronald Reagan. It does not now bear a name. We will not be doing a disservice to anyone. We will not be creating a precedent for this Congress to come in and name any other airport in the country simply because we have given that airport Federal grant funds from the airport improvement program and thereby arrogate to ourselves the power to rename any airport in America. That is not right. Naming the terminal would be appropriate. I think that would be a fitting memorial; and if there are other memorials that my colleagues on the Republican side propose to offer and to construct in the name of President Reagan, I will support those. But do not take a good name. My colleagues would not want their good name taken off any structure, any building, or off their own door. Do not take Washington National's good name off that airport. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, because there is only a second left, this is not a killer amendment. We will support and advocate the Airports Authority to name the terminal.

Mr. OBERSTAR. On other issues, indeed, that do not take over local control of airport naming.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, it is loyalty of the greatest and deepest felt sort.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I do so to simply explain that I think in opposing the proposed but not offered amendment of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Davis), it would be appropriate to keep faith with the bill that emerged from committee, since the chairman in committee had offered a substitute for the introduced bill, which substitute struck the name ``Washington'' from the proposed name of the airport to call it Ronald Reagan National Airport instead of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. If that was the original purpose of the committee in reporting this bill, we ought to keep faith with it on the floor and let it go its merry way further.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I have enormous respect and deep affection for my good friend from Illinois, the Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary. We have agreed on so many issues over the years. I just want to make it clear that this is not raw and petty politics. We are not trivializing Ronald Reagan's name or his legacy when we oppose the action proposed. There was no such suggestion when the Democrats wholeheartedly supported the naming, without a murmur of dissent, of the Ronald Reagan International Trade building in Washington, D.C. That was quite a monument, quite a monument for the President. When it is just a stone's throw from the White House, when it is in the heart of what is known as Federal Triangle, that is quite a monument. People from all nations will come there to discuss trade issues. Significant Federal Government agencies will be housed there. Remembering his legacy as workers and constituents from around the country come into that building. It is quite appropriate. The issue is not do we honor Ronald Reagan, but do we take a good name off this airport and replace it with another albeit good name, I do not think that is appropriate.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Closed as to time.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, it is a great puzzlement to me why the Committee on Rules chose to have, in a sense, an open rule on amendments and a closed rule on the time in which to consider the amendments and the votes thereon. I indicated yesterday to the Committee on Rules that I did not expect more than three amendments to be offered but that we did expect to have some time for debate. I did not expect that we would be constrained given the very light schedule that there is today. But I did expect that we would have an opportunity to discuss at some length, not ad nauseam; and I did indicate that I had worked diligently to deflect a number of amendments that I thought would be dilatory and to reserve those amendments to only those that were necessary. Unfortunately, we are operating under a very restrictive rule; and we will limit the number of amendments. But I hope that, within the time, we will also have adequate discussion of the issue at hand.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I did not say ``closed.'' I said, ``restrictive.''

Mr. OBERSTAR. I greatly appreciate that. That is a very grand gesture, and I appreciate that very much. I will return just briefly, if I have additional time, to summarize my concern about the bill at hand. Of course, we will debate it on its merits later. But it is not appropriate for the Congress to intercede in a jurisdictional matter where we have given authority to a local airport entity with full power, full authority, over the Dulles and National airports to then take back some of that power and say we will arrogate onto ourselves the authority to name this airport, not only to name it but to take off a good name that it already has and to replace another name. That is my principal objection. Never in the history of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure or its predecessor, named Public Works Committee, did we take a name of a building and replace it with another name. Washington National already has a name. It is good enough for the country. It has been good enough since 1940. It ought to be good enough for the next 50 years or the next millennium. We should not be in the business of renaming facilities. If this precedent is followed, then woe be to any other building that the Federal Government has funded or any other airport that has received Federal airport improvement funds anywhere in the Nation as this Congress is setting a precedent today that we can come in and take names off buildings and place other names on them. That is not appropriate. If this building were rising fresh out of the ground, if there had not been a Washington National Airport, I would have no objection to naming it for whomever the Majority chose to name it. But I certainly object to taking the name Washington National off that airport and replacing it with another name.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OBERSTAR. I would just like to ask the gentleman if, during his years as chairman of the Public Buildings and Grounds Subcommittee, in his years as Ranking Minority Member on that subcommittee, if he presided over a bill naming in which we took the name off a building and put another name on? Did we ever rename a building?

Mr. OBERSTAR. Would the gentleman be happy to have the U.S. Congress do that?

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. It is clear that the fix is in, the tablet has been handed down from atop Mount Gingrich. Republicans are determined to erect a political billboard at the entrance to the Nation's capital in honor of their hero Ronald Reagan. I have no objection to naming something for Ronald Reagan. In fact, I supported the naming of the billion-dollar international trade center in downtown Washington in honor of Ronald Reagan, just a stone's throw from the White House. I sympathize with his family and the condition that he finds himself in with Alzheimer's. My dearest aunt suffered from and succumbed to Alzheimer's. I know the pain that they are experiencing. But that does not justify doing something we have never done in the history of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure or its predecessor, the Public Works Committee, and that is take a name off a building and put another name on. If this structure had no name, there would be no objection on this side. But you are taking a good name, the good name of Washington National Airport, and taking that off and substituting for it another name. That is not right. You are going to leave the word ``national'' in. I correct myself. But the title itself is defaced. That is not right. You are interfering, interceding in the affairs of the airport authority itself. That is not right. When Congress created the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority in 1986, the law said this airport should be treated like any other airport in the country. The transfer law leased the airport to the MWAA for 50 years and gave it complete discretion and full power, those words in the lease, to run the airport. This takes away complete discretion and full power. It is wrong. It should not be done.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton).

Mr. OBERSTAR. They were not done by the United States Congress.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown).

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. OBERSTAR. I made that exception. But the others were not done by the United States Congress. The gentleman from Illinois would embrace, then, given this scenario he just presented, would embrace an act of Congress to rename O'Hare Airport? Would the gentleman embrace that idea?