Today has been a somber day of steady rain as New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. News reports this past week cited how his passing was notable because he was the last sitting senator of the "greatest generation," that chamber's last veteran of World War II. His death came just months after Hawaii's Senator Daniel Inouye, a wounded veteran of that war, took his resting place among the nation's noted military and civilian leaders at Arlington.
It need be said that Senator Lautenberg's death on June 3, also is notable because it marked the passing of a champion of Federal policy to making communities healthier, the environment cleaner, and industry and travel safer and better. It was a personal agenda well suited to his home State of New Jersey but carried out with no less than the nation in mind.
In his 28 years as a senator he served on virtually every committee and subcommittee that touched on authorizing and funding transportation, civil works and environmental policy. For a period he chaired the Transportation Subcommittee on Appropriations while as a senior member of the Environment & Public Works Committee. In recent years he also chaired the Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine, Infrastructure, Safety and Security Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee. His approach to legislating was to cover all the bases, or at least as many as he could. He championed improving airports and the aviation system, expanding the use of transit and passenger rail, modernizing freight transportation, bringing American port infrastructure to world standards, and securing them all from the those who would do us harm.
He was appointed to the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism after the tragic downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and returned to the Senate, after a two-year hiatus, to help write and oversee anti-terrorism law after the downing of the World Trade Center towers. In those towers he had served on the Board of Commissioners for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey before being elected senator in 1982. That--and his building the Automatic Data Processing Corporation (ADP) from scratch--were parts of his resume about which he often enjoyed telling people if the occasion would allow.
Senator Frank Lautenberg put much effort into environmental issues. He devoted considerable time to the recovery of the old industrial wasteland through brownfields initiatives and Superfund legislation and to making the Toxic Substances Control Act more effective. He was protecting the coastline whether the recreation beaches or the nurturing marshlands. In his last year he walked the Jersey Shore in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, secured bi-partisan support for his toxic substances legislation and, from his wheel chair, cast his final vote in support of tighter gun legislation.
From start-to-finish Senator Frank Lautenberg was an advocate for his New Jersey and for improving the vitality of the United States by improving the quality of its people's lives and its means of commerce.
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