Bud Shuster, a Pennsylvania Republican who served for 28 years in Congress, where he became known as the “king of asphalt” for the billions of dollars in public works that he directed as chairman of the powerful House Transportation Committee, died April 19 at his farm in Everett, Pa. He was 91.
The cause was complications from a broken hip, said his son Robert Shuster.
Dr. Shuster — a former computer company executive who held a doctoral degree in business — was elected in 1972 to represent an economically struggling district centered on the Appalachian city of Altoona.
He quickly claimed a seat on the Public Works Committee, a predecessor to what is now the Transportation and Infrastructure panel. Dr. Shuster became chairman after the Republican takeover in the 1994 midterm elections and led the committee for six years. The Washington Post once described him as “arguably the last great committee-chairman power baron to walk the halls of Congress.”
Dr. Shuster survived a protracted ethics investigation, which ended in 2000 when the House ethics committee issued a letter of reproval — the panel’s least severe form of reprimand — for what it described as “serious official misconduct” involving his ties to a transportation lobbyist who had previously been his chief of staff.
Dr. Shuster, who characterized the committee action as “overkill for the charge of causing misguided public perceptions,” was unopposed in that year’s election and was returned by voters for a 15th term. He resigned a day after taking the oath of office, however, citing his wife’s health problems as well as his own.
Term limits had barred Dr. Shuster from staying on as Transportation Committee chairman, and he also remarked that “after being the quarterback of a Super Bowl championship team, I have no desire to play back-up.”
He had long been a formidable presence in Congress, at times pushing his transportation initiatives even past members of his own party — including Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) during his tenure as House speaker.
Gingrich had rallied Republicans to victory in 1994 in part on a pledge to usher in an era of fiscal restraint. But Dr. Shuster insisted that such restraint must not apply to American roads and infrastructure.
In an interview with the New York Times, he recalled once telling the speaker: “Newt, America’s crumbling!”
In 1998, Dr. Shuster pushed through Congress a record-setting $218 billion transportation bill providing for highway construction, bridge development, the improvement of mass transit systems, highway safety programs and other infrastructure projects. The law required that Congress spend future revenue from the gasoline tax on transportation initiatives, rather than using those funds for other purposes or to balance the budget.
Critics of Dr. Shuster derided the often extravagant distribution of federal transportation dollars under his leadership as pork-barrel spending. He rejected the characterization, describing transportation as a concern that “affects virtually every American” and “the ultimate quality-of-life issue.”
In his district and in Pennsylvania, Dr. Shuster helped provide for prolific transportation projects, among them public works that became the Bud Shuster Highway, the Bud Shuster Byway and an airport jokingly called the Bud Shuster Flyway. U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) once groused about the federal largesse earmarked by Dr. Shuster for what Moynihan called “the state of Altoona.”
“Other parts of the country can attack me for working hard to bring investments into central Pennsylvania. I wear every scar as a badge of honor,” Dr. Shuster told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1998. “I have not been at all reluctant to invest in the infrastructure needed to boost the economy in central Pennsylvania, and not just my district.”
The House ethics committee investigation of Dr. Shuster stemmed from his ties to Ann M. Eppard, who had served in his office as a top aide for 22 years before she left in 1994 to become a lobbyist.
The committee found that, in her lobbying capacity, Eppard had brokered meetings between her clients and the congressman, although federal law prohibited her from lobbying her former boss for a year after she left his office.
“Representative Shuster was aware that Ms. Eppard was a registered lobbyist with clients in the transportation industry and knew that she could use her influence over his congressional schedule to benefit her business interests,” the panel found.
The committee also faulted Dr. Shuster for accepting a vacation to Puerto Rico for his family paid for by Eppard’s clients.
After the ethics panel announced its findings, Dr. Shuster said on the House floor that he acknowledged the “appearance of impropriety” and accepted the committee action “to stop the hemorrhaging of legal fees and to put this behind us.”
Eppard had earlier pleaded guilty in federal court to a misdemeanor charge of accepting improper compensation during her employment in Dr. Shuster’s congressional office from a lobbyist on the Boston construction project known as the Big Dig.
After Dr. Shuster stepped down, he was succeeded in office by his son Bill Shuster, a Republican, who also chaired the Transportation Committee before declining to seek reelection in 2018.
Elmer Greinert Shuster — he legally changed his name to E.G. Bud Shuster — was born in Glassport, Pa., a coal-mining town south of Pittsburgh, on Jan. 23, 1932. He was an only child. His father worked for a railroad, and his mother was a homemaker who was active in local Republican politics.
Dr. Shuster’s grandfather ran a barbershop frequented by their local congressman. As a boy, Bud was once dispatched to return a shaving mug to the congressman. He watched in awe as constituents queued up to call on his office for help — an experience, Dr. Shuster told The Post, that motivated his entry years later into politics.
Dr. Shuster studied statistics at the University of Pittsburgh, where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1954. After service as an Army intelligence officer, he received a master of business administration degree from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh in 1960 and then a PhD in business administration from American University in 1969.
Dr. Shuster worked in the early computer industry, becoming a vice president at RCA. He joined Datel and oversaw the sale of the company before exploring other business opportunities and then deciding to run for Congress.
Redistricting after the 1970 Census had created an open seat, and Dr. Shuster defeated a state senator in the GOP primary before winning the solidly Republican district in the general election.
He became president of the Republican freshman class. In addition to his tenure on Transportation, he served as a senior member of the Intelligence Committee.
Dr. Shuster’s most memorable electoral challenge came in 1984, when he defeated Democratic challenger Nancy Kulp, an actress who had played Jane Hathaway on the television show “The Beverly Hillbillies.”
Dr. Shuster recruited Buddy Ebsen, who had appeared on the show as Jed Clampett, to appear in an radio spot. The actor declared in the ad that he had told his former castmate, “Hey Nancy, I love you dearly but you’re too liberal for me. I’ve got to go with Bud Shuster.”
Dr. Shuster’s wife of 61 years, the former Patricia Rommel, died in 2016.
Survivors include his wife of four years, Darlene Johnston of McConnellsburg, Pa.; five children from his first marriage, Margaret Statler of Huntingdon, Pa., William Shuster of Washington, Deborah Shuster King of Arlington, Va., Robert Shuster of Camp Hill, Pa., and Virginia Dixon of Altoona, Pa.; 12 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
Dr. Shuster’s central role in nearly every transportation bill considered during his congressional tenure was illustrated in 1982, when he served as Republican manager of a highway bill despite having recently broken his neck in a car accident.
He was ferried to the Capitol on a mattress in the back of a van, the Times reported, and then used a wheelchair before stepping out of it to appear on the House floor.
“We are talking about highway safety here,” he declared. “I might add that I conducted a one-man demonstration project a month or so ago to see whether or not seat belts worked. I can report that they do.”
The measure passed.
