Rep. David Obey (D-WI), chair of the House Appropriations Committee, announced yesterday his plans to retire after nearly 42 years in Congress and 48 years in public service. (Washington Post coverage here. C-SPAN coverage of his retirement announcement here.)

As reported yesterday by the Coalition for International Education, Rep. Obey has been “a stalwart champion of international and foreign language education throughout his career,” especially for HEA-Title VI and Fulbright-Hays:

He will be long remembered for engineering the largest historical increase in funding for these programs right after 9-11 and the anthrax attacks (FY 02-03). Just in the last two decades, his steady hand at strengthening these programs enabled thousands of students to pursue deep study and research of languages, world areas, and global business critical to our nation's long-term security and world leadership.