News From ASET - June 4, 2004

House Names Conferees

The formal parliamentary process for moving forward with the Highway Bill Conference is played out on the House floor on June 3rd. The House formally disagreed with the Senate Bill and agreed to go to Conference. Congressman Oberstar had his obligatory motion to instruct conferees and debated for one hour. The motion was fairly innocuous and passed overwhelmingly (377-30).

The speaker then named Conferees. They are Chairman Don Young, Tom Petri, Sherwood Boehlert, Howard Coble, John Duncan, John Mica, Peter Hoekstra, Vernon Ehlers, Spencer Bachus, Steve LaTourette, Gary Miller, Denny Rehberg, Michael Beauprez, Tom Delay, Jim Oberstar, Nick Rahall, William Lipinski, Peter DeFazio, Jerry Costello, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Jerrold Nadler, Robert Menendez, Corrine Brown, Bob Filner, and Eddie Bernice Johnson.

You can view the entire Conferees list in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format, both House and Senate, by clicking here.

The good news coming out of the list is that Congressman Denny Rehberg (R-MT) was named as a Conferee. Rehberg has been ASET's lead Member of Congress on this issue for the past several months and will be able to push our issue during conference. ASET has met with Congressman Rehberg and his staff recently and was assured that the 97,000-pound issue would be a top priority for his office during the reauthorization process.

ASET will work with our entire membership to target key Conferees and lobby for their support of our legislation during their deliberations.