Congressman Jim Oberstar will introduce legislation Thursday to direct at least $250 million to the State of Minnesota to deal with the replacement of the I-35W bridge that collapsed yesterday. Follow this link for more information about today's mark up hearing.

After today's mark up the Oberstar will attempt to bring the bill to the House Floor for passage today. "I am hopeful we can get this to the Senate in time for them to pass it before the August recess begins," said Oberstar.

After today's mark up hearing the Congressman planned to hold a press conference in room 2253 of the Rayburn House office building.

Oberstar says this tragedy underscores the critical need to continue aggressively investing in our nation's transportation infrastructure.

There are 585,000 federal highway aid bridges in the United States. Up to 30 percent of them are structurally deficient to some degree. However, 70 percent of the nation's traffic travels over just 547 bridges across the country every day.