national highway system which changed the way we travel in this country today we need to do the same thing with passenger rail to make the level of investment necessary to become even more says this book for the twenty first century that is why anthrax is extremely valuable to our country it takes cars all already congested our ways it reduces congestion in this and it's better for the environment in many areas of the country  have increased in the national last years and reach a record level of twenty five point eight million passengers this year and with the cost of gas potentially rise and for five dollars six dollars a gallon there will be even more routers lining up on fortunately for many years track i have been just given enough money to live alone navigating the necessary funds to make serious improvement in the system the high improve the safety and security of the system and its passengers and work us anthrax and will continue to play a critical role in evacuation and transporting citizens do a national emergency is unfortunately it is also a prime target for those who wish to harm us and we must with resources to make the system less vulnerable i'm looking forward to working with my colleagues in the house and the senate to pass this legislation the united states used to have a dollars a gallon a gallon we thought highway traffic was bad in the late ninety's but i don't think we really invision that the level of congestion that exists out there today on the roadways and the same can be said of the airlines  delays have increased significantly since one thousand nine hundred seven and there doesn't appear to be any relief in sight one way to address this congestion is by expanding our passenger rail system especially high speed rail car amtrak reauthorization bill direct transportation to solicit high speed rail proposals for the northeast corridor and other lines around the u s which i think is one of the highlights of the of bill a companion bill h r six zero zero four also known as ride twenty one which was introduced in the previous congress will provide twenty four billion in bond funding to begin construction of these high speed rail projects  but we cannot focus just on passenger rail amtrak trains as we all know operate our nation's freight tracks and these lines have become also increasingly congested over the past five years and that's why i also have co sponsored h twenty one sixteen the freight rail infrastructure capacity expansion act which will this legislation promotes investment in new rail combat city which will help not only shippers but rail passengers at the same time that a chair when i'm looking forward to  hearing this morning and again the excuse me when i have to have to depart for this other markup which i'm sure will be in and out as i said thank you very much i yield back thank you on a bipartisan fashion from the house for the first time and incorporated and that is i think again a historic proposal to to advance high speed rail will provide for the department of transportation to take proposals from the private sector to develop finance construct and operate a high speed rail  road initially from washington to new york we chose that because we track owns that entire quarter one hundred percent they own most of the tracks and right of way above new york to boston but not not all of it however we do not preclude other proposals from coming forward to d o t in corridors that make sense for high speed rail the only caveat we have on the washington new york's service is that it be door to door in two hours that would revolutionize transportation i believe in the northeast corridor people would be able to go to union station get to downtown new york in less than two hours the dramatic impact on congestion in that quarter just for aviation alone as you may know about well in excess seventy percent of the delays for our entire system begin in new york city airspace area and that northeast region and this gives people an alternative obviously this is going to be a very expensive proposition and it will be many billions of dollars but we think that we can have the federal government partner with the private sector for developing and separating out that traffic if they get a dramatic boost to commuter service in that quarter because separate and you'll be able to have better commuter service better utilize the quarter for freight service and then we also request that we look at the the development of that quarter i said it's time that we stop sitting on our assets and when you have  a quarter from washington to new york through one of the most densely populated urban areas and most valuable real estate and we're not fully utilizing that asset we are in fact sitting on our protections in the matter who runs the service labor will prevail and be a partner the history of amtrak as you know that some twenty seven twenty eight thousand employees when i came to the committee they're now down to mr c'mon all tell us what seventeen thousand but is it nineteen thousand in any event we think that we can reverse that and actually through increased development of these quarters dramatically increase employment opportunities for the future pretty exciting proposal pretty dramatic a service partnerships with states and other entities and developing with their partners passenger rail service where we need that service and where there's the desire well the last thursday i think there were rumblings and shakings on the foundation of fort rayburn as four members of congress reached across the aisle held hands agreed on the amtrak legislation before the committee this morning it was a transformational moment in the history of passenger rail service in into amtrak this will be the third transformational moment i think we'll look back in time and say this was a moment when when a new birth of energy and new opportunity for inner city passenger rail for america to take its place among first world countries in passenger rail service and for that i'm most appreciative for ms brown who who like harry truman actually took the amtrak ride advocating two three years for high speed passenger rail mr schuster who's been a continuous strong advocate for high speed intercity passenger rail service while there were differences of of approach i can truly say that this legislation incorporates the best of the ideas and both sides we all had to to make compromises and that's in the best interest of the legislative process i think we have an extraordinary opportunity to move forward with a solid a strong bill substantial funding instead of keeping amtrak on life support as it has here that will give vigorous life to amtrak and to invite opportunities from private sector public private partnerships state alliances of states to participate with with  each other with amtrak in combinations we haven't even thought of yet and the idea here is to initiate new energy new ideas and new investment opportunities from the private sector just close by saying  phase of their three hundred fifty billion dollars surface transportation vestment plan for the european union a cornerstone of that plan w port development as well as an extraordinary linkage by a canal of the atlantico should an english channel seven river the rhine the danube to the black se and exceed yes the price tag of fourteen plus billion dollars sounds big but that's what france invested in its t g v to get it launched and denmark is investing about half as much little denmark four million people investing that much in upgrading its high speed passenger rail service and and on with other countries i won't recites  this is a transformational moment yes we're going to have differences of view points from the various witnesses will hear today and but the cornerstone package we have here is a solid beginning on  now and i would like to relate myself what i have been saying it's good i appreciate it very much and i would just like to point out standing men and women the very professional people that have and it's going to have to be and we've got to we've got to get this back on track and not just blast one time not so many years ago i went from lisbon to brussels and i spent a few years i truly thank you for giving me the opportunity to briefly testified today i also want to form a committee that i will have to leave after this testimony to attend another hearing on financial services madam chairwoman as this country sole provider of regularly schedule interest passenger rail service tracks important to all americans is clear in the face of continually rising gas prices overloaded highways and congested airports many americans are being forced to make difficult financial decisions regarding their mode of travel has become an ever more viable transportation option at such a time and continues to be a practical option for many of those people searching new an economic travel alternative and track has many hurdles to overcome the biggest of which is her three point seventeen billion dollars worth of debt although amtrak has taken great steps in reducing this debt by almost six hundred million since two thousand and two it still has a long way to go as a result is extremely important that amtrak makes business decisions that maximizes her current resources while maintaining the highest quality of services and facilities madam chairwoman the maximisation of amtrak facilities is an issue that particularly hits home with constituents from the seventh congressional district of indiana as you know i had the beech grove amtrak maintenance facility located within my district which is the largest amtrak maintenance facility in the country i'm also proud to say that chairwoman brown came to this facility personally and i thank you again for that approximately five hundred fifty experienced employees at this facility perform a number of train maintenance from will work to painting a lot of these people have ten years of more experience on the job and really take pride in what they do but recently many of these employees at the facility have been notified that a lot of the work that they do we will be transferred to other facilities and that they will have to either move or lose their jobs and speaking with many of these employees i was told that in the past there have been repeated attempts to close and move this facility they also mention amtrak has continually increased the amount of work being outsourced and that this facility has been forced to downscale its entire workforce madam chairwoman i would be the first to understand if amtrak simply did not have enough work to keep this facility open everyone  understand that industry's change and therefore company's labor needs must be realized however this is not the case for this facility amtrak has a backlog of cars waiting to be fixed as you know freight companies have locomotives that need maintenance as well as insourcing this work that would give amtrak an amazing opportunity to grow her profits if amtrak could be incentivized to lessen its practice of outsourcing and begin to end source more work and find viable ways to do maintenance work for freight companies and track would raise revenue and the facility in the beech grove would drive the beech grove facility needs more work and it already has all  equipment necessary to fix amtrak cars and finally the facility is already up and running with a highly experienced and knowledgeable labor force for example last year the california department of labor asked the beech grove maintenance facility to rebuild two of its damaged superliner cars after receiving the completed work the california department of transportation then wrote a letter to mr coleman praising the professionalism and quality of their final product madam chairwoman we all want amtrak to do well and be profitable and i believe they need to incentivize the end source of their own maintenance work and having the opportunity to do maintenance work from real companies can greatly impact amtrak's profits and to ensure its financial solvency and give hardworking americans like those at the beach gold facility a fair chance to aid in the reinvestment of our nation's facility and thank you for taking the time to visit i did a tour with miss carson three four years ago i was really overwhelmed with what i saw  level of skill the ability to take these seriously damaged cars we look at them and say how they ever going to fix them and then you see the completed product is an exceptional tribute to their together with amtrak and we'll reason together in the words of the park thank you we celebrated amtrak's thirty seventh anniversary we opened our doors for business on may one thousand nine hundred seventy one as was referenced earlier and took over the vast majority of the nation's existing intercity rail passenger services from twenty class one carrier at the time this was widely viewed as a nice farewell gesture to passenger trains which were not expected to survive the decade today as you know we're seeing record numbers of americans choosing amtrak for its convenience its comfort and its environmentally friendly quality i think we can take a little justified pride in the work we've done over the years to make sure that the trains keep coming and it's a tribute to the many people who work for amtrak over the years and our frontline employees who deliver the product every day and for our part we appreciate the strong support we've enjoyed from the general public to the congress and this committee very pleased that your committee has decided to consider the question of reauthorization for amtrak a measure that  it cost almost four dollars per gallon today congestion as was well noted earlier is increasing and the highway infrastructure is showing signs of fatigue i think we all agree that a strong we need a strong national transportation policy that recognizes the role rail can play in our national life our transportation policy needs to evolve and i think it will evolve and this authorization must eventually become a part of an integrated national policy where rail will play its meaningful role to that end i think we need to work harder at using our existing resources in india and infrastructure to make better policy in the last ten years state governments have redefined rail service as a congestion mitigator an engine of development and an environmentally friendly way of providing for travel needs on existing networks and this is an example of a creative and successful use of existing resources and infrastructure we need to find transportation solutions that will build system connectivity allow consumers a range of relevant choices and develop the funding streams that will allow us to plan build and operate our services without the turmoil of the annual funding cycle i'm pleased that this bill recognises that need and incorporates both in spirit and intent measures that will allow us not just to pursue and extend successful policies but to begin a larger national debate about the future of transportation in america i'd like to touch on a few examples of services we think are successful amtrak just finished a year of record ridership and is on its way to another there are a number of great examples of the kind of growth we want to see but i'll confine myself to three that are geographically and demographically distinct but that together give us a sense of how we hope the system of the future w look first is our keystone care corridor or between harrisburg philadelphia and new york city together with the pennsylvania d o t we put one hundred forty five million dollars into much needed improvements this allowed us speeds up to one hundred ten miles an hour and we got more frequencies out of the same equipment we restored electrified service in two thousand and six and our ridership grew by twenty percent in two thousand and seven our growth was so strong that last month a us airways carrier providing service between harrisburg and laguardia canceled its service on that route because it couldn't compete with amtrak city center to city center access is a tremendous selling point and a natural enhancer of connectivity our partnership with california has also been a success we've built a network of three major passenger rail corridors eighty six percent of the stations in california have some kind of intermodal connectivity and the result has been a very strong system built on the range of choices we can offer travellers the pacific surfliner between san luis obispo los angeles and san diego is our second largest corridor operation after the northeast corridor and the capital corridor between san jose and sacramento was one of the ten fastest growing quarters on the system last year while our focus will be on quarter as my view is that there will always be a place for long distance trains they provide basic transportation to communities that lack transportation choices and they will continue to connect cour but i believe the real opportunity for growth lies in those corridors a few hundred miles long that you've shared rights of way to provide people a real transportation service we have some very real challenges in the next few years are going to be important if we're going to meet them in terms of our relations with the states our ability to park your new equipment so that we can grow our ridership and in finding a more reliable source of funding so that we can develop and execute programs without trying to keep things moving under a continuing resolution with that in my mind i'll comment on the bill i think the timing is right the national transportation crisis is upon us as many of you have commented on and congress and the nation will have to address it in the next couple of years i think the bill that has been introduced in the house is a strong statement of support not just for amtrak but for the cause of passenger rail service generally i think the committee recognizes certain basic realities and the bill is a ringing endorsement of the need for  the authorization of a federal state partnership program is the single most important aspect of the bill the eighty twenty matching program will do a lot to level the modal playing field and help states to pursue passenger rail projects the investment grants for congestion mitigation measures will also benefit many of our existing services the increases in the authorization of funding levels are going to be essential if we are to realize these visionary proposals we're seeing inflation in cost of fuel basic materials and health care expenses and these will directly translate into higher operating and capital costs as i mentioned in our fiscal year two thousand and grant request i do not believe amtrak will be able to comply with all of the provisions of the americans with disabilities act by the july twenty sixth two thousand and ten deadline ownership and responsibility questions complicate compliance since we don't all own all of that five hundred twenty seven stations we serve and in many cases we are not responsible for altering parts of the station that we do not own in addition the question of whether d o t will implement its proposed new rules regarding full length level boarding of trains from rail platforms is adding to the delay in achieving compliance i want to close by thanking you for taking up this matter while it is certainly vital for amtrak i think amtrak is vital for the country i look forward to working with you on a collaborative effort to develop our reauthorization which will i hope become the first step towards a comprehensive integrated and balanced national ground transportation policy thank you very much chairman oberstar chairwoman brown ranking member shoes there members of the committee my name is frank was a laci i'm secretary of the wisconsin department of transportation chair of the state for passenger rail coalition and i served on the national surface transportation policy and revenue study commission as a member of the commission i was able to share my perspective and goal for a new direction a national transportation policy one that includes a federal state funding partnership for inner city passenger rail similar to the partnerships that exist for highways transit and aviation the commission submitted its report to congress in two thousand and seven the report provides a new multi modal fifty year transportation vision for the united states with recommendations for passenger rail expansion based on an eighty twenty federal state cost share program the bills before you today are critically important h r six  three the passenger rail investment improvement act of two thousand and eight does much more than reauthorize amtrak it begins the process of investing in passenger rail a mobility option that our citizens are choosing in record numbers since two thousand and two and track has not had a dependable revenue stream the administration has shown a lack of leadership on rail finance rail finance starving amtrak each year in its budget bill yet people are flocking to trains reauthorizing amtrak will end the year to year cobbling together of finances of a major corporation the bill funds state investment in rail providing a stable funding for amtrak and policy provisions to assure remarked the irony is with gas prices what they are we should be expanding rail service we are going to be having a lot of conversations this summer about gas prices and it is a perfect time to start talking to buy we why we don't have better rail service h r six toll for the rail infrastructure development and expansion act for the twenty first century or right twenty one provides twelve billion dollars in federal tax credit bonds over ten years the equivalent of sixty forty federal state grants for infrastructure and equipment and high speed rail lines for fifty years our federal policy and funding approaches have led to this investment and passenger rail r six old three puts passenger rail on equal footing with other transportation modes its eighty twenty grant program for capital investment will help the states implement their passenger rail service plans despite the federal government's focus on targeted congestion relieve congestion grows expanding urban highway capacities extremely expensive and is often difficult to accomplish funding for passenger rail gives transportation officials another option for solving their transportation problems the expansion of inner city passenger rail can help address the nation global warming challenge intercity trains generate sixty percent fewer c o two emissions per passenger mile than cars and half the emissions of airplanes since one nine hundred ninety carbon dioxide or c o two emissions grew one point two percent annually in the us and the transportation sector contributed to one third of those emissions the projected population growth will only exacerbate this problem as secretary of the scots and d o t i know firsthand that the public wants more train wisconsin works in partnership with illinois to provide financial support to amtrak hiawatha service in the milwaukee to chicago corridor or wisconsin has committed over one hundred million dollars to improving our rail stations  service and has invested seven million in the milwaukee to madison corridor for future rail service the federal funding authorized by h r six o three over five years will fund amtrak partnership with states in regional corridors operations in the northeast corridor and long distance trains a new emphasis on federal state and track partnerships is reflected throughout the bill three billion is authorized over five years for amtrak operating grants eliminating the annual uncertainty of whether amtrak services will be cut h r six zero zero zero three recognizes the need for new equipment by providing capital funds to address you quickly shortages on amtrak routes including state supported corridors funding is also provided for compliance with the americans with disabilities act at our train stations most importantly from a state perspective the bill recognizes the need for a federal state capital program to expand and improve the current amtrak system the legislation authorizes two point five billion and eighty twenty federal state grants for infrastructure  any quitman and another one point seven five billion in eighty twenty grants to authorize high speed rail course the eighty twenty cost share will finally put federal investment in passenger rail on an equal footing with aviation highway and transit programs i respectfully asked the committee to continue its efforts provide a dedicated passenger rail capital program to fund the nation's inner city passenger rail needs thank you madam chair thank you for inviting me to appear before you on behalf of the nation's transportation union chairman over starr as always the leader in fact the conscience of this congress on transportation issues and to mr schuster and i know mr mica who is part of the hearing room for their leadership and for allowing us to participate in this discussion and debate leading to this hearing the debate over amtrak and the question of how to achieve a first class national passenger rail system is not occurring in a vacuum a collapsed bridge in minneapolis failed levees in new orleans a steam pipe explosion or under new york city and so many other examples  of disaster in our infrastructure and our transportation system i'll drive home the point that our nation's infrastructure is indeed collapsing our historic failure to invest in a national passenger rail system and this administration's refusal to lead on the subject is a product of that national failure amtrak has never been more vital to our nation nor more in need of a significant long term investment plan performance ridership and revenue are all rising employee productivity has increased dramatically and americans are riding passenger rail at record levels we need to change the way we look at and find amtrak forcing the carrier to limp from one financial crisis to the next with no long term finance plan is a recipe for assured failure for too long amtrak has been known for its deferred maintenance last expansion opportunities on met security needs outdated cars and equipment and an unfairly treated workforce that until recently went eight years without general wage increases americans can do better if congress and our government give amtrak and its employees the resources they need to deliver the world's best passenger rail service shut down budgets from this administration and wildly unrealistic privatization and contracting out initiatives should be scrapped in favor of a long term multi year authorization of amtrak that places the company on a glide path to financial stability and long term success i commend the committee led of course by mr over star ms brown and others for a true introducing the passenger rail investment act and of course right twenty one these bills provide the foundation to bring an end to the era of underfunding and neglect that has defined america's national amtrak network for too long zero three will provide over fourteen billion dollars during the next five years this commitment to amtrak is indeed historic it is recognition of the tyrian state of the nation's transportation system and infrastructure and it makes an important downpayment towards reversing four decades of neglect of amtrak at a time that americans want more and better transportation choices funding levels in this bill must be adequate to cover amtrak's obligations and new collective bargaining agreements recently agreed to by amtrak and its unions paying amtrak workers a fair and reasonable wage constitutes a basic cost of doing business akin to maintaining tracks or pain fuel costs we must also ensure that the back pay awarded to amtrak workers after they went eight years without a wage increase is funded at the earliest opportunity between now and spring of zero nine while we understand and appreciate that this bill makes a significant multi year commitment to amtrak and indeed this bill is historic we are concerned with provisions that appear to promote privatization of parts of the system there are still those who believe in fact that somehow turn a profit others believe private companies can offer better service by cherry picking the most attractive asked it's an amtrak system like the northeast corridor or the story of british rail privatization of course underscores the threat of that model and of course real privatisation has hardly been a success generally where it has been tried british passengers during that experiment were saddled with increase fares shoddy maintenance practices and dangerous cost cutting including excessive job productions this resulted in higher accident rates deteriorated service and coordination problems within a maze and indeed it was a maze of poorly managed providers a was created in one thousand nine hundred because congress recognise that private passenger rail was going bankrupt and disappearing across the country it would be a mistake to ignore this history and assume that today private operators will magically offer a better way to deliver the service we are specifically opposed to the provision requiring a request for proposals for a high speed route between d c and new york city obviously amtrak already operates several routes on this chord including its highly successful and growing a cell a service while the service and should be improved and expanded we do not understand how the public will benefit by allowing a private operator to take over one of the most successful routes and prized assets in amtrak's network it is unclear how and if the winning bidder will be held accountable for the promises made in the application those of us in labor would know that this of course wouldn't be the first time that a private company seeking to win a government contract over promised but then under delivered the applicants are required to achieve to our express service from c to new york what happens if the winning bidder in all likelihood a foreign corporation makes promises about achieving the two are objective but then predictably fall short and what if the northeast corridor express service requires certain stops to be curtailed or abandoned altogether and if the promises made by private interests are not met will america recreate the british rail is asked to right here in america and will congress and the administration face a multi billion dollar price tag as they did in great britain to unravel a failed privatisation experiment we think these questions deserve an answer and we understand this to be the intent of the bill weir's a committee to state explicitly in the legislation that the section five hundred two r f p process shall not move on to final implementation until congress has expressly authorized it through legislation it also must be sure that any provider of rail service is covered as a rail carrier for all apply couple rail and labor laws and that the jobs in the rights of workers are adequately protected the transformation of the nation's passenger rail system should not come at the expense of important statutory requirements and any worker protection such as for example retirement which is committee has championed throughout its history we have spelled out our testimony our support for very important reforms included in this bill and i won't go into those today including however the composition the makeup of amtrak's board and the i g reforms that you have placed in the bill i would just add the committee would consider that a board seat departure from the past after years of shutdown budgets it provides a capital an operational assistance so desperately needed to make amtrak a success but we asked the committee and the congress to embrace this new new blueprint but at the same time to reject any ill advised privatization measures that we think will undermine amtrak potentially undermine safety and harm amtrak employees again thank you for the opportunity to testify  cup as a labor union that represents the men and women who build and maintain the roads bridges buildings and overhead catenary system for ensuring our members are highly skilled and include heavy equipment operators welders carpenters plumbers  electricians repairman and a host of other crops we work night and day seven days a week performing dangerous work and all weather conditions we build and maintain a complex infrastructure so that amtrak can ensure that the three the position of general chairman of the pennsylvania federation my office is elected by the membership and i have been reelected every four years since one thousand nine hundred three one of my duties as general chairman of the pennsylvania federation is to chair the b w bargaining committee on amtrak and i have done this for the last twenty five years supports the core mission of amtrak providing safe reliable and environmentally friendly inner city passenger transportation despite amtrak uncertain beginning the men and women who work for amtrak the system together to the point that today ridership and revenue levels for amtrak are at its highest in history the rate of return for the investment in amtrak by the american taxpayer has been huge there is an enormous enough environmental benefit intercity rail service amtrak service significantly reduces congestion on the highways and in the airports on the northeast corridor our reliance on foreign oil because of passenger rail service and addition amtrak workers are among the most productive passenger rail workers in the world amtrak covers seventy percent of its operating needs at the fare box as opposed to a national average of forty seven percent for commuter railroads and  fifty eight percent for heavy transit systems story was achieved in the face of times hostility from the executive and legislative branches and what seemed like a revolving door of top amtrak management who with minor exception have fostered a labor relations climate on amtrak dedicated workforce like and on one of the noir despite the sometimes annual changes in amtrak management the workers at amtrak are the constant served america by going to work every day and producing one  finest inner city passenger railroads anywhere in the world in the early years worker safety on amtrak suffered as well many good men and women sacrificed their lives working for a on track to keep inner city rail passenger service available to the people in this country and union station in washington d c their names of seventy two men and women have been killed at work while on duty our union represents about ten percent of all amtrak workers however one more than one third of the names on that list were members of our union who had been cut short because they were hit by a train electrocuted on the high voltage wire or crushed by the machinery next time your hurrying to catch your train at union station please take a moment at this and reflect a little on the sacrifices been made in sweat and blood to ensure that amtrak is successful roading is hard and dangerous work and no one should ever underestimate the courage dedication and effort amtrak workers expend to ensure this country  rail passengers get to their destination safely and on time the b m w is delighted that h r six zero zero three contains a multi year reauthorization of appropriations for amtrak an infrastructure on northeast corridor includes tunnels from the nineteenth century a number of major movable bridges from the early twentieth century the renovation of these parts of the infrastructure requires a dedicated multi year sorts of authors authorized appropriations and then and are proposed by this committee where happy to see this committee step forward and a strong commitment to long term success stay on track and miss brown and mr over store for their tireless efforts and work support for amtrak nevertheless we're compelled to mention a note of caution support for a single national interest city rail passenger carrier in the form of amtrak should not be considered unquestioning support for amtrak management and expect to amtrak labor relations department support for the operating capital monies were jammed sufficient for its needs during the fiscal years two thousand and nine to two thousand and thirteen is conditioned on a commitment that amtrak will come to the bargaining table on january first two thousand and ten and begin to bargain a fair and equitable extension of our collective agreement in good faith they must abandon their style labor relations which seeks to starve the employees into submission the dedicated employees of amtrak must never again be subject to the type of labor relations policies that permit eight years to go by without a reasonable right labor relations must not be permitted to interpose a complaint that congressionally authorized appropriations are insufficient for them to bargain a fair an equitable agreement we respectfully ask this committee to require such an insurance from amtrak management and specifically as vice president of labor relations finally we must comment on a portion of h r six zero three the troubles  trojan horse for the demise of amtrak section five zero two of the proposed legislation that makes almost the first order of business to command that the secretary of transportation issue an r f p for the financing design construction and operation of an initial high speed rail system between washington and new york that a relatively innocuous phrases and b m w s opinion an opening to privatizing amtrak's operations on the northeast corridor as i said earlier congress has invested substantial s rehabilitating the northeast corridor and this proposed legislation will ensure that amtrak puts corridor in the state of good repair however older best and hard work performed by amtrak employees will be lost as the quarter is handed over to a private operator to cherry of new york's regional finals so station a private independent planning group i'm here today representing the business alliance for northeast from billet a coalition of over thirty chambers of commerce civic and business associations from boston to washington which have come together to advocate for bringing amtrak's northeast corridor back to state a good repair and improving the frequency speed and reliability of intercity and regional rail service in the northeast we met with some of you on april second when the business alliance came  the economic competitiveness and sustainability of the northeast which is currently threatened by congestion and jested aging infrastructure that limits their ability to ne mega region to attract jobs and compete in the global economy as business leaders we recognize that  expanded reliable funding for amtrak will provide the cities and read in the northeast with vital economic mobility environmental benefits we intend to work with our respective governors amtrak and leadership in washington to secure the funds necessary to preserve and improve this year a place of economic assets where also interest in expanding the role that inner city and regional rail can play in the northeast by replacing regional air trips providing alternatives to auto trips and focusing development around train stations tell the accommodate the additional nineteen million people and dissipated in the northeast mega region by two thousand and fifty and a corresponding growth in its economy we strongly support h r six thousand three the passenger rail investment from an act of two thousand and eight which would authorize increased funding benefits for amtrak and significant new funding for returning the northeast corridor to a state of good repair this bill would be the first authorization for amtrak since two thousand to as a multi year authorization would allow amtrak to develop multi year plans for a quarter investment in improve bringing the northeast corridor to a state of good repair is our top priority because of the vital role the quarter played in the northeast and the nation's economy the northeast mega region which includes the metropolitan regions of boston new york philadelphia baltimore washington and smaller cities in between produces a combined g d p of two point four trillion dollars about eighteen percent of the nation's g d p over seven hundred fifty thousand people ride some portion of the corridor each weekday on amtrak or the eight regional rail services that share the co corridors important daily commuters on the regional services and business travelers who choose amtrak to sell and regional service travel between boston new york and washington and the points in between and track have become increasingly attractive alternative regional air traffic as delays in  northeast airports have risen the passenger rail investment improvement act would allow amtrak to make the needed investments in the northeast corridor to improve the reliability safety and speed a regional and intercity service by undertaking long overdue projects such corridor infrastructure operations advisory commission made up of amtrak us d o t in the northeast states we believe it essential that the stakeholders work together to develop and implement a long term vision for the quarter that returns the infrastructure to a state of good repair increases capacity and reduces trip time we also support the s l a service study which authorizes five million to determine the infrastructure and equipment investment needed to achieve shorter trip times in the northern and southern ends according to the business alliance is also supportive of your ri transportation finally the northeast corridor potential to promote transit oriented economic development is a major interest the business alliance philadelphia's sirrah center class a office tower adjacent to philadelphia's thirtieth street station presents a prime example of how the development rivas nation of manhattan's far west side in closing i urge you and your colleagues for a multi year funding for amtrak that will allow it to meet the immediate and future challenges in the quarter these investments are crucial crucial to addressing the congested roadways and airspace and i'm agnostic as to the specifics to nevertheless emphasize the on time performance issues and preserving and perhaps restating amtrak's preference and i still think that's important as i testified in a previous hearing there's a lot we can do before before we get there there are things we have to take off the table with the railroads and core operations we've got to work on slow orders and then certainly capacity in capital becomes the issue but i certainly think that's still going to try to accomplish solving this problem on time service is critical what's going to happen with passenger rail we know that i'm kind of spoiled in the corridor that i have been between chicago and milwaukee and that our time percentage is ninety percent we work very well with the canadian pacific but i do believe that we have to work this out together expansion is going to be critical in doing this you know we're convinced that as as we expand passenger rail more and more people are going to be on these trains we know that we we see this coming but at the same time we also have to be aware of the fact that the freight companies they have a business that they're trying to run as well so we've we've got to work this out between the two of us and i think we can i think we i think this legislation that's in front of us here is going to go a long way in starting that thank you i don't have a specific position on the exact language you referred to but it's clear that over the years as amtrak has tried to provide the best service possible and has amtrak employees have been at the front lines of trying to accomplish that that many of the problems that amtrak encounters are not amtrak problems that they can solve on their own and so what happens is for those who are looking for opportunities  to criticize amtrak and therefore promote an agenda to dramatically alter the way we provide passenger rail service metrics like on time performance to make that point but the on time performance problems while amtrak certainly gets its fair share of the of the blame is not all amtrak problems we do have to solve those problems and they are solved by more than just amtrak they are solved by various parties that are involved in the process so i think that will move move the debate forward and give us a chance to as an opportunity i prefer to look on the positive side of that you look at the phenomenal work of california with the two billion they put in illinois wisconsin obviously you know new york we deal with highly competent groups and i think we see skills growing there and that's a positive trend we also have worked very hard and last two years to reconfigure ourselves to recognize the relationship with the states is our future so we have borne part of that in terms of being dysfunctional with having too many thank you thank you i guess some a little disappointing to hear that the word used twice cherrypicking and of course you pointed out the northeast corridor which is the crown how many more people we could have employed on a high speed rail system i realize we'd rail system so i think it's it's a proposal that we should we should embrace but also when you use the word you didn't mention that we we have specifically in there in this bill and this is something i work disappointing so i'd like to get your view on that and also the other thing we had in there was poor performances let's find five i think it's five worst performers and let's see if somebody else might be able to come in and  and employment increase on those lines so could you talk about those two parts of the proposal with mr with can mr dodd have negative things i think i guess i would disagree on one point which is i think it is cherry picking when you take the most prized asset on amtrak system and provide an opportunity for the private sector to take advantage of that asset to make a lot of money the nation is littered with decades of experience of  many promises that are unfulfilled by the private sector that likes to come in and take over or be a partner if you will running or maintaining or whatever the case may be public assets and so i do think it's an appropriate way to describe it i don't think in my comments or in my testimony i would question the motives of anyone on this committee that is behind this legislation in trying to improve passenger rail in this country what i think is a big mistake is to take the northeast corridor not allow amtrak as the entity that runs it and provide the service you're looking for instead of trying to find someone out there in the sector who can magically provide it i just don't agree with the premise but we have a lot of experience in what about reestablishing was having somebody else come in instead of not having that line anymore me which of us well that's that's a different proposition if you're suggesting that it would be the choice between a private operator and perhaps abandoning or not having service altogether or discussions that states are going to be involved with all the time i think one of the things i point out in the testimony is that in these state initiatives like we've seen in several states across the country it's important for us to make sure that the employees  employees interesting concerns are considered and also that we don't create an unlevel playing field where you have a hodgepodge of operators across the country that don't comply with the railroad statutes that apply to the industry today like for example retirement which you have been a strong supporter of throughout your career and that is happening right now as we speak as i sit here today there are plenty of operators around the country that are providing service that are not complying with the same railroad law  requirements that all rail carriers in this country do so i don't want to take up and filibuster as they do in the other house all the time but there are a lot of very complicated issues in this bill this bill presents a transformation of the rail industry but i do not think we have adequately addressed all the questions that this bill poses which is why we're going to continue to work with the committee to try to answer some of those questions and i would transformation but going back to the the golden days of passenger rail when private companies did operate and do it very well and i think the key is getting people to want to ride the rails were i don't believe that i believe amtrak ridership is twenty six million or thereabouts  the airlines they're approaching i think eight hundred million people well road is not going to go back to the days of i don't believe it's going to be eight hundred million people riding passenger rail but what we need to do is to get it up to thirty and thirty five million and if we put the service in place like we're talking about the northeast corridor some of these other places we will attract more people and i think at the end of the day that serves everybody people who need to travel and labor you're going to have more more people working and the conditions we have provisions in there that say they're going to be they're going to be protected under if we go forward with this so what we see with the proposition that you need to increase development and rail capacity across the country including the northeast corridor i would not agree with the proposition that the private industry did very well amtrak was borne out of the bankruptcy of private rail pass or of service in this country our mass transit program the one nine hundred sixty was born out of bankrupt bus and  transit providers in this country so we've been through one transformation for us to go back to a private model ignores forty years of history well but it doesn't ignore the at air travel as well as the automobile i mean that's a big reason why people got off the trains they got into their cars and now we're having just the opposite we want to occur and we're seeing in the northeast corridor or you want people to get out of their cars and people want to get out of their cars and out of the train so once again you know  and work this work and work these things out because i think this is a huge step in the right direction i have gone way over my time and we can finish this discussion then i'd like to talk to mr dodd in private down the road if we  going into the city and i just wanted to know what impact it's going to have on amtrak and now you've got to be able to work with new jersey transit and this is this is done well we work with new jersey transit every day and i think we work with them very well our biggest concern is the total capacity on a north south basis to new york and so i think a legitimate question to ask is is there going to be a tunnel that reaches into penn station and allows the total north northeast corridor capacity to expand or is it only something for new jersey going into into the city and i think that's something we continue to have fairly strong feelings about i would like to continue a dialogue on how we work with new jersey transit every day they get great service from us they're over ninety percent on time and we have good relationships i don't see any reason that would change because i mean new york city is certainly an angel promotes jobs for the whole region not just  least sell sale leaseback deals that were made most of the data is for leases on equipment and the debt service number that shown provides us an opportunity for on a cost benefit basis to be more effective if we buy down added no new dad we've reduced that we could continue running at a two hundred eighty five million debt service clip the only reason we show some expansion of that is that allows us actually to reduce some of the debt in the out years which you know is a fairly high rates and it makes sense to buy it down if straightforward answer to that it's sort of a deal by deal sort of question difficult i would say you do some outsourcing how is this going to be authorization bill is not going to impact that at all well we  keep doing the right things and trying to make the right decisions for the for the business i don't i don't see that that's necessarily going to change what we do we've got a great core of employees and again if you were to double amtrak ridership you probably  you we're going to get started i know the other members are coming back but i have questions reporter stephanie in the hall and asked me about the privatization in this bill is nothing in  you know one of the things that has been elected twenty five years if all else fails read the bill respond to that yeah absolutely i guess i'd frame it in the context if you just sort of gave me ten or twenty billion dollars and say what would you do one of the first things i would look at actually is going south rather than necessarily changing things in the north we obviously want to do all the state a good repair but we all know d c to richmond is one of the most congested corridors in all modes in the country would be a very natural place to really put capital in and then if you frankly imagine electrified system from down to atlanta north carolina has a wonderful rail program and i'm sure would embrace that i think of it and traunch of of d c to richmond richmond to charlotte charlotte to atlanta but i think that would be  competitively particularly with the sell a product that is sort of in the range of what you pay for a walk up ticket on the airlines as well and i think going to city center to city center you know makes a big difference we have an express service today that also gets center to center in two and a half hours with a stop in philadelphia so again the cost of the passengers sees on a salad are you know we kind of view that as airline equivalent we've got about sixty three percent market share i believe in the first quarter of the ariel sharon between new york and d c the regional product is certainly a little slower and is also priced accordingly tunnels and all the other tunnel issues and taking some of the sharper curvature out you know out of that right of way a difficult question to answer i don't think you know there hasn't been a detailed market share study done but we do as i say we do put an express service on where we're essentially learning more about that market fast enough to make a difference and the connection the northeast corridor really worked for them so it's just been convenience and there's also a tipping point as we've talked about before and frequency the same sort of thing we see on the high office when you get to a certain respond thank you mentioned for the state of wisconsin it's going to be critical because we're looking at expanding our service from milwaukee to madison we have the the state legislature with along with the governor is giving us about eighty five million dollars in binding authorities for our match so it's important that that we get the investment and that's what i keep calling all of us i call it investment it's not like we're  putting money someplace where we're not going to get something back for it we're we're going to get some real public good out of the dollars that we're investing here so that's why programs like that and this bill is so important because it's i believe quite frankly and we said this in the commission report when we talked about transportation in general there's still going to be highways madam chair i mean we know that and i mean being a d secretary i've got all kinds of work that we need to do but we need to provide these moral options to the american public american public wants this and i believe as we get into this integrated system across but if you use the midwest regional rail initiative as an example once we get into this and more and more people are writing these trains there is going to be more expansion so that's why i believe it's so important all i would add is is equipment as well as infrastructure i mean these dollars can buy equipment for the states and that's so critical in the past when amtrak had a lot of equipment in storage we could get quarter started up had little incremental cost as a want to use this equipment for more so we're basically out of equipment we have some opportunity we have some other called an fleet that we have slated to refurbish but we're talking about you know maybe you know ten or twelve more cars that issue and you know as much as people are migrating you know everybody wants to know what's the tipping point is going to get people out of their cars well i think we're seeing that that's happening but we're not ready amtrak's not ready i mean procure equipment going to take some time we need to we need to move quickly on this and i know it's difficult because we've got to go through we have a process that we have to go through but you know when the american public starts moving to this and they are and they're going to be they're going to be moving to this in greater numbers very very quickly they're going to they're going to ask the question why are we doing more of this and that's that's really the concern that the coalition has and that i have in our state is that that we need to somehow but looking at amtrak i think we touched on i and i testify about the importance of transit oriented development for all the all the right reasons and when we look at court or the ability to capitalize on that i think  there's a lot of very interesting items in here i know congressman schuster was talking earlier before the break about where the possibilities are for public private partnerships on that and certain areas you can see where real estate  capturing the value of the real estate to help with some of that funding from a state or local perspective by think sort of a new initiative when we look at the core of the funding for this bill for amtrak but would the concern is that those initiatives do not become a distraction from the importance of getting the core funding for amtrak as shareholders public or private as an entity that whoever owns that shares of amtrak you know it's kind of sense that you make being on time on budget that you invest in your assets regardless of what you're going to do with them down the line and i think not the breakout studies here but if you look i think from the business community amtrak as a as a partner the credibility that david gun and alex has continued about that money being why we spend and also working cooperate fully as alex touched on with new york as a working as a partner on a number of a number of areas amtrak and certainly from the business community point  really made a remarkable turnaround and it has been seen as a sustained turnaround under alex's leadership style by a congressman and i think there are a number number of opportunities that capitalize on court or in transit oriented development and being able to bring in the private sector where appropriate that you can be on time and i'm glad it went public in those in those cases thank tucson l a area pacific northwest chicago the macro chicago area dallas fort worth obviously the florida and the southeast and then the whole northeast it is major corridor between those regions that we have to concentrate on and it's and it's not too different a mix from what airlines see today i mean a lot of it is business travel i don't have the breakdown of my fingertips but we've got a pretty detailed breakdown of  what those are so i think we look more at the longer term demographics then there's also the question and this is always that debate and it's pragmatic decision making which is what's doable where where is there existing capacity where is there a rail where is there a willing partner what can you get done because you can have a remarkable need an opportunity but huge hurdles to get there while you can have something that's maybe number two on the list that's very doable so we always have to make choices would translate to speed real if that was available light have to stare at a rail map but i believe you end up being constrained with with where the rails run there you've got rails that run in london then major sort of rail corridor that's that's farther  will sustain amtrak multi year funding that road brotherhoods have asked for for year after year instead of the year to year hand to mouth just squeak amtrak over the top of a billion dollars we can keep it on life support for yet another year we have here the potential for really sustained investment in track and rolling stock and stations in  clearly expressed in the testimony this morning let me begin mr kamandi questions have been raised will there be enough capacity in the united states for production of rail passenger cars to meet the increased demand when we get this and i'm not saying if i'm saying when we get this funding in place i know that the currently production capacity for about one hundred thousand freight rail cars a year in the united states also passenger rail car production declined because we were investing in that in that mode this passed i think it would get everyone's attention and you would probably also have foreign entities looking for assembly sites here if we had a structure that that allowed that from a standing start right now no we don't have that much capacity but i'm fairly confident you talk about stimulative effect i think bill like this would certainly drive people to look at that it would take some time but in the transit sector we saw production of  transit vehicles bus and rail move offshore allied signal was about the only thing left in the in the mid one nine hundred eighty s but now that's been repatriated well you know as i'm really originally a think there are some of those folks some very advanced energy management approaches to crash test worthiness and i think we do need to look at some of the static requirements that have been put on this i think we all acknowledge that some of the difficulties with the salad resulted in the increase in mass in those structures let's just say that i think we need to look at that and i think there's some opportunity after all the more we can buy off the shelf or minimally modify the core structure the more cost effective it will be is there also the consequence of operating on freight rail projects that requires heavier passenger cars because of  potential for conflict with well that's that's that's the argument but then if you imagine then you hate to talk about these things but collisions between you know you know transits or commuters and inner city rail and suddenly you have a different equation if you want to not the other i think i would much rather put my money into collision avoidance and advanced technology on collision avoidance unnecessarily continue adding mass to  here testimony so refreshing so just so uplifting to see this advocacy and and to have your specific site on what the state of is i mean rephrase that we have a commissioner of transportation in minnesota we haven't had one a long time and i think we'll begin the process of professionalizing our commitment and so we form this passenger rail working and the working group we came up with with this plan in these five hundred mile corridors and it's an integrated system is what we're trying to do in these populated areas because of our feeling is that once we get this system running and we get it up and running quickly that it's going to expand throughout the whole country the map that was in the report was illustrative you know each state's going to be responsible for for their own course but in the past few weeks i've spent time i'm going to michigan next week but i've been in ohio twice and ohio is is really excited about this plan and they really want to they really want to implement this plan in these these populated corridors across the state of ohio it would be huge connecting the number of cities that they have that's why this legislation mr chair what is the significance of the five hundred miles is that consideration of competition with air service yes hub and spoke air service where if you consider routes of under three hundred miles five hundred miles or less absolutely absolutely that's really the reason experience as well and i think the court order that you've overseen here the hiawatha is eighty six miles and there we've seen a dramatic shift in its frequency and of course you know the northeast corridor here you look at the typical transit time new york to d c today is you know two hours and forty five minutes two hours and fifty minutes that that kind of gives you a sense of that i think also if you think in terms in my view of even one hundred one hundred ten miles an hour can do you're talking about five hundred miles in less than five hours and i think if you think of sort of your normal airport experience an hour at each end an hour in transit you're talking about plus some time you're talking about three or four plus hours not city center to city center so i think a four to five hour chunk of time this kind of a natural break which leads you to the four to five hundred miles as the outside mr mr chairman the corridor or from minneapolis hudson down the madison and down the milwaukee to chicago is totally congested you know that yes this rail program was dramatic to reduce that congestion dramatically for automobiles and it would also it would also compete very strongly with the regional airlines this quarter and but take would be critical to what we're talking about with this integrated system you also reference thomas college to and route to europe for studies on a scholarship i wanted one nine hundred fifty six and travel by train to the east coast this was obviously before the air service sure and it was the malaki four hundred four hundred miles and four hundred minutes that's six hours and forty minutes well that's four hundred miles and in europe takes about two hours or so correct especially in france and spain and i've been there you've been there we've seen it so if you can cut an hour and an hour plus out of that time you will clearly attract passengers trains are packed whether it's california or the carolinas i mean our court or and it's it's because of this setting this this system that we're talking about setting up the commission consider  depth or is there any other entity that is considered the type of service that is maybe a nonstop morning and evening service and then with more frequencies in the course of the day well i think i think that would be up to that would be up to the respective states that night know i've been talking to i've been talking to a amtrak for a couple of years now bill going hourly service because we're so successful should happen which i'm doing my best to make sure it doesn't happen we'll need amtrak because that hub in minneapolis will be so quickly devalued that we'll need  some some very troubling scenarios in your reference to british rail and concerns that you have with the privatization provisions in our pending bill  previous chairman mr schuster and i traveled to to the u k among other stops in december of two thousand had a meeting with members of the british parliament and the committee on transportation and the minister of transportation for and they had just the day before we arrived voted six hundred million pound bailout for british rail and it was going to the owners of the track and we asked why would you do that because if we don't bail them out they will walk away and there will be as this enormous mass we won't be able to resolve we have to keep them on life operate intercity passenger rail profitable what you reference section five zero two of our bill what specific recommendations do you have for adjustments to our language well first of all we stated i think pretty clearly that our our view is that it makes no sense to pursue an r f p on the northeast co or because we do believe it it's a bit of a path to having a debate up here to privatized amtrak or parts of it you've been the leader opposing air traffic control privatization for a number of similar but i understand different reasons in terms of the public policy debate you and i have seen for years the impact of privatization has had in the mass transit industry where you have these big promises that are never delivered upon and amalgamated transit union the largest mass transit in the country has seen many examples of under promising and then having to help bail out the system because it didn't quite work out the way it was intended i think the pure answer to question would be to remove the provision from the bill the other alternative would be to make it very clear in this legislation that this is really nothing more than studying the possibility of having an r p on the northeast corridor or elsewhere in the country and then making it very clear in the bill that congress is going to have to legislate a get i understand the chairwoman comment  earlier but i think it's important to make it very clear that once of the department transportation completes its work that the work is completed and that it's going to be the will of congress to decide what it does with the r p i understand that the intent of the bill however it doesn't exactly say that and we think it should i think it's important at this juncture we're going to move in a very different direction for amtrak that we give these privatization proposals an opportunity to be heard to be evaluated in the public sector purely private privatized proposition or public private proposal and evaluate them and give them an opportunity to show what they can offer to the public i think that's an essential part of the debate of the future of intercity passenger ra we want this to be a fully bipartisan initiative and i would hope in a sense nonpartisan and i think we need to have that element as part of the process as we go forward so i take washington representing transportation workers for almost eighteen years and there frankly isn't a member of the house presented is who has listened to the views of employees in this industry more than you have and i have every confidence that as we move forward this debate at the interest the right to jobs etc of the workers and amtrak and across the transportation history will be not only a concern of yours but that you will champion their interests as we go forward use your words we cannot imagine any practical way to separate the two hour service from the other inner city commuter and freight operations on the corridor in your view from from your experience as you said starting as a track man yourself and seventy seven you look old enough to started in seventy seven but at any rate you had your you had your feet on the ground and probably as a gandy dancer and so what specifically do you see as impediments in that mix of service that you cite in your last page your testimony  it's a heavily congested area the population centers are there major rivers major infrastructure problems so so any proposal would actually have to take into account running  indicated will result in war service less paying for the public dollar i think amtrak is demonstrated the best ability to operate inner city passenger rail trains on the quarter in terms of the ability to recover money from the fare box and the wise use of the taxpayers dollars and i think these types of schemes literally result in expenditure of federal funds threats to worker safety and worker employment security and working conditions and eventually the looting is that as said by the private privateer and dumping it back on the government to us start all over again and we would recommend that you drop this  number of infrastructure projects either public private or public private partnerships and i think in the transportation side where we look at say port privatisation overseas and you see ports here we look at aviation and what's been done sometimes you can slow something against the wall and see what happens and we've seen certain privatisations that are not particularly well structured not in the rail so i really thought there hadn't been much but and the consequences that can be can be pretty unfortunate  i think when you're talking about serious bidders and infrastructure the due diligence efforts that they have to put in financial environmental legal labor if you want to serious bitter they want to have very clear parameters of what they bidding on a lot of due diligence even geotechnical war and it gets very expensive and very costly and so i think do look at people who want to if you want to you know quality bidders are coming in i think you have to look at the experience what kind of due diligence would be and i would be for the northeast corridor and i think it's very hard to imagine that the plan that there would be that process would be so deep and cumbersome you know as i think i mentioned earlier be very concerned that that may lead people to defer you know the core investment in the in this in this valuable asset putting out a more a greenfield kind of a proposal or some other kind of  think chairman almost are you know a member with the aviation pre nine eleven i think there were five pilot projects for commercial airports and privatization and that was sort of to test the waters of course nine eleven changed that a new new york stuart airport was one of the first with a national express group at the time a credible bitter but of course and they decided to get out of the aviation business and concentrate on the bus business and that left a hole as a private sector participant there so there are a lot of those kind of issues that i think you know have to be very cautious and make sure in that a structure and that be able to take those contingencies into effect what effect would the cost or does the cost of capital have on the considerations that have to go into a privatization scheme as i'm not the financial girl in our in our shop but i would say certainly when you look at the cost of wind which is an interesting component that the business alliance support is for  be financially successful in say the northeast corridor i think you'd have to do a financial sensitivity analysis at what point do you add that additional cost private sector companies are in make money their time they can add certain efficiency but do you take the higher cost of capital and put that all into analysis of what kind of care they would have to charge to get back  without that an incremental cost or go above it and it's not that taxes that well those are the kinds of considerations that we anticipate the inspector general to make as directed by the legislation to evaluate the lowest performing routes of amtrak and make recommendations to the secretary about the best i have just want to say to my colleagues on the committee that i talked with the chairman rangle chair of the ways and means committee about the tax credit bond provision that we had done in previous legislation moved in ride twenty one and then and then considered by the then ways and means com bond provision of the magnitude we're talking but he said that his staff has has consulted with the c b i congressional budget office in o m b and they require offset of at least four billion dollars that is something that we are our two committees are going to have to work on and it's not likely something we can add as an integral part a largely public enterprise that needs to balance the economic interests of those investing the money and the public interest which includes the interests of riders the interests of the public around rail transportation facilities and the communities through which they travel i think the same debate we've had over maintaining the the inherently governmental functions of our air traffic control system maintain just allowing private insurers to choose where service will be provided which of course with maximize their investments and hopefully reach some sort of profitability i just think that we have to understand  history of this country since we began with the national heart of the interstate highway system it has always been largely a public system i understand the private sector has an important role to play in our transportation industry and i said that in my testimony including the work that contractors do in our highway industry and and the use of other private sector participants in aviation and elsewhere but but i believe as a general proposition providing national passenger train service to this country is basically a public service and to be kept in the public sector because of all the complications and all the other motives that get interjected into a debate about whether or not wall street or anyone else in the private sector should be involved in  financing these kinds of operations because as i said in my testimony it sounds real good when you bring a lot of money on put on the table but when the promises are not delivered when the system fails like we saw in great  britain oftentimes the taxpayer saddled with the with the with the bailout as mr oberstar said earlier as we saw in great britain so i just inject great caution into this committee's deliberations on on how you proceed with this legislation to increase the vestment across our entire transportation industry but i know from reading media accounts in great britain that politicians from all sides of the aisle were fumbling all over themselves trying to see who could be more against the great britain privatisation experiment and so i think it's fairly clear that that that experiment wasn't just an experiment was a debacle and i frankly am worried that we're going to repeat that in the united states if we proceed with this kind of  now well i would defer to mr dodd who actually was involved in that bargain but these agreements present a historic opportunity to move this company and its employees forward but that's only if the company is allowed to to me is given the investment the resources it needs to pay its obligation to employees we've i've been i've testified more than a dozen times up in this committee on amtrak and i've seen one time after another that every year the employees are unfortunate afterthought because we can't afford that went on for eight years we now have historic agreements now have hopefully a historic funding bill that will become law hopefully the appropriators will work with the authorizer fund the entire program and it is my sincere hope that amtrak will begin to as it goes forward to budget accordingly to deal with this employee i think we can characterize what amtrak workers could just say they were entitled to receive because they are patterned after the freight agreement which has patterned the amtrak agreements  but the problem with the freight agreement is you are making a dollar an hour in one of those agreements began to nine hundred ninety nine if you subtract inflation health care cost sharing an increase in prescription drugs and what not for the  current contracts provide you're still making a dollar an hour later even though your own productivity is substantially increase so those agreements are not a true reflection of the value that the workers produce although they are appropriations going forward this authorization if and when it becomes law will still require an appropriation in the next fiscal year and that pay day comes due in spring of zero nine and i'm hoping congress satisfies that obligation as quickly as possible so that we do not have the situation that come spring of zero nine is you know under those collective bargaining agreements the right to self help is restored for both the employees and management you want to respond to that so i don't have any disagreement with that we in fact at the end of this year anything we can find to apply toward that we will i mean if we right now basically our increased ridership and revenue we're generating for that is basically paying for fuel to the chairman's left i just wanted to thank him again and and commend him for putting these some of these provisions in here in the non service in the poor performing lines take it take a different look at it i think he points out the importance of of allowing it to play out allowing the mr korwin you brought up about talking about the financial what the funding levels things like that that's what the r f p i believe does it flush all that out companies are looking and they'll put you know put the numbers down real numbers that they're interested in making the investment or and getting involved so i think that's an important reason to have the r f p in there let us take a look at it and either say it makes sense or maybe it doesn't  but i think that's the importance of putting these these types of revisions in this in this bill and also i'd like to point out we have one hundred years of experience in passenger rail service which is a success and it was done by private companies up until the one nine hundred fifty s if i'm not mistaken or thereabouts that's when passenger rail started to lose money and so one hundred years experience versus twenty seven years experience of underfunding it and the government  trying to trying to trying to operate this from from the experience we have i think that it's at least worth taking a look at like the question to mr secretary on the high speed rail  i have to differentiate when a lot of times when when we talk in this country when we talk about high speed rail we kind of look over to europe and we see what's going on in spain and france and things like that two hundred and two hundred fifty miles an hour and i really don't think that's what we're talking about in this country i mean in this country at least the way i look at it i think we need to get out of the gate here and if we can get one hundred ten mile an hour service and move in these  think that's really where we need to goal that's why i'm always so very cautious when we start talking about high speed versus you know what we're doing now high speed rail my understanding what you're doing in europe is about thirty million a mile maybe even more i think the type of rail that we're talking about here improvement would be about a million so me and a half a mile and so that's the difference and that's why sometimes mr schuester i get i really get concerned when we talk about a high speed versus the integrated system that we're talking about i believe very strongly that's what we need to do first california's got a great plan for for really authentic high speed rail i think florida does as well but i think for now we need to focus on with the kinds of dollars that we're talking about is getting this integrated system across the country going and i agree with you and i t about high speed rail and i think that the keystone corridor transfer harrisburg to philadelphia i've used it in fact i don't drive to philadelphia i live in the western part of the state when i go to philadelphia i drive to harrisburg get on the train and take the train downtown because it's so much easier and i'm systems to start with because electrification can be so expensive you know we've talked about detroit to chicago i think st louis to chicago is also a wonderful example of a rail bed that set up really well where we could do that i also want to point out that if you look at the german population overall in all the all the passenger ridership and passenger rail only about twenty percent of that population is riding on high speed there's still a whole a whole  population who in their daily daily lives travel a conventional speeds and i would argue there's an awful lot obviously we can do there so and again we mentioned southbound from from d c i think our large opportunities where probably electrification would start making sense earlier on because of the connection with the northeast corridor and the population density so there's a lot of opportunity out there and we had a discussion today twenty percent increase o right i mean it's kind of a flywheel that has to start spinning you have to you have to lay the bed in a sense put the frequency out there but every time we've done that you see it in the in the california capitals as well you really see the ridership pickup  stations but we're always saying gosh you got to put into the equipment and rail and there's just none left over after that and that goes to staffing as well obviously we'd love to do that because that is often the face of amtrak what people see and they see an old station that's  d it doesn't look good so that would clearly be a place that would again really drive ridership and perception and madam chair inversely there are situations where you can have a station and you don't have a person there where you have people are able to purchase tickets to go to their destination and we put a station and mitchell field in milwaukee one of the i think there's only four cities that has a station at an airport it's exceeded our expectations we don't have a physical person that's there selling tickets we have a parking lot but we have machines and people people can purchase rather than driving into the city and then taking the train back they go there buy their ticket park their car buy their tickets and go to chicago or points solve and then come back so they will have a station there we have a station at mitchell international airport but we don't have a demand we have machines and people are able to park so they don't have to go into downtown milwaukee they can just get on the train and go to chicago or points out that's worked out very well i mean you make it convenient i think the point is when you make it convenient and it's on time people are going to write it i differ i think the key to making it here's an incremental hundred million dollars we've got all kinds of other needs that need to be met i also want to correct a couple of things those jobs are being moved to other locations so it's not really an outsource kind of question very similar to the process we've done with alvin and as well we also say those are difficult decisions they are great people and by the way we still do our major direct repair there it takes a lot of talent and creativity to do that kind of work so those are very difficult  decisions and we don't take them lightly i think we always have to keep the door open and if there's ideas to work but the dilemma we're in is that we're start for capital if there's an incremental capital that would not make the list of where we have the most crucial capital needs and you know the notion of getting involved in business kind of makes sense at a certain level but when you dig down into it there's so many different things you have to do that again we just have to pick our spots very i think this is a great opportunity for us to do something with amtrak i know the the former chairman who was my father told me that you know one of the great regrets he had was he was unable to do something with amtrak was unable to move legislation forward and i think most people know know he's a pretty effective chairman and he couldn't so we have an opportunity we have a bipartisan agreement it's going to take all of us you know we're not going to get all we want we've got and if we move this thing forward because i think it's critical that we do something now and the number that i look at is the population in united states that we took us sixty five years ago from two hundred million to three hundred million it's going to take a sturdy five years to go from three hundred to four hundred million and when you look at the population the density and the map it doesn't all move to arizona it's the population density in the northeast corridor and chicago and milwaukee and all these high speed quarters we have that population gets denser and you know this is an opportunity for us to look at everything and move forward and and also with the realistic outlook that there's people in politics that would like to just get rid of amtrak and we've got a president that i disagree with on right now and we may have another republican president and he may not agree with this but if we have broad support within the community within the congress we can move something forward and i think that as i said this is an opportunity to move forward and i might also add  maybe a republican majority some day down the road and i'm not one of those in my party that obviously i support amtrak i think it's and i do believe that transportation is part of the national agenda of the government it's in the constitution  and heck it's a republican tradition if you look back through history republicans have been leading on the fight to improve transportation so i just think this is a historic opportunity for us to to do something in and out of will be here thirty five years now we crossed the four hundred million threshold but i'd like to be able to say we have passenger rail serve in this country that's it's working well it's effective and there's great job opportunities are for people so thank you thank you thank you let me just say that we all want to  transportation i've been in the area transportation for twenty five years and i've been on this committee for sixteen years and i really think this is the opportunity to move forward not just this you know right but with the  inspire multiple more transportation and move of a country forward so i want to thank the witnesses for their testimony and the members for their questions again the members of this committee may have additional questions for the witness and we were a