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DEVELOPING TRUE HIGH SPEED RAIL 

IN THE NORTHEAST CORRIDOR— 

STOP SITTING ON OUR FEDERAL ASSETS 

(112–1) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JANUARY 27, 2011 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

Available online at: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

TOM REED, New York 

ANDY HARRIS, Maryland 

ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, Arkansas 

JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington 

FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

CHIP CRAVAACK, Minnesota 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

RICHARD L. HANNA, New York 

STEPHEN LEE FINCHER, Tennessee 

JEFFREY M. LANDRY, Louisiana 

STEVE SOUTHERLAND II, Florida 

JEFF DENHAM, California 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

LAURA RICHARDSON, California 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

(II) 

(III) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... iv 

TESTIMONY 

Bloomberg, Hon. Michael, Mayor, city of New York ............................................. 8 

Hart, Thomas, Vice President, Governmental Affairs, U.S. High Speed Rail 

Association ............................................................................................................ 8 

Rendell, Hon. Ed, Co-Chair, Building America’s Future ...................................... 8 

Scardelletti, Robert, International President, Transportation Communications 

International Union ............................................................................................. 8 

Todorovich, Petra, Director, America 2050, representing the Business Alliance 

for Northeast Mobility ......................................................................................... 8 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., of New York ................................................................ 56 

Mica, Hon. John L., of Florida ................................................................................ 58 

Nadler, Hon. Jerrold, of New York ........................................................................ 65 

Shuster, Hon. Bill, of Pennsylvania ....................................................................... 69 

Slaughter, Hon. Louise M., of New York ............................................................... 70 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Bloomberg, Hon. Michael ........................................................................................ 73 

Hart, Thomas ........................................................................................................... 76 

Rendell, Hon. Ed ...................................................................................................... 81 

Scardelletti, Robert .................................................................................................. 90 

Todorovich, Petra ..................................................................................................... 95 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

University of Pennsylvania School of Design, Department of City and Regional Planning, executive summary of report entitled, ‘‘Making High-Speed 

Rail Work in the Northeast Megaregion’’ ........................................................... 10 

ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD 

Fitch Ratings, report entitled, ‘‘High Speed Rail Projects: Large, Varied and 

Complex’’ ............................................................................................................... 100 

Northeast Corridor Infrastructure and Operations Advisory Commission, report ........................................................................................................................ 119 

Virgin Rail Group, Tony Collins, CEO, written testimony .................................. 128 

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(1) 

DEVELOPING TRUE HIGH SPEED RAIL IN THE 

NORTHEAST CORRIDOR—STOP SITTING ON 

OUR FEDERAL ASSETS 

Thursday, January 27, 2011 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, 

WASHINGTON, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:10 a.m., at Grand 

Central Station, Northeast Balcony, New York, New York, Hon. 

John L. Mica [chairman of the committee] presiding. 

Mr. MICA. I call to order the Committee on Transportation and 

Infrastructure of the United States House of Representatives. Welcome, everyone, to this field hearing. This is the first field hearing 

for our committee; and we are pleased to be in Grand Central Station in New York City. 

The order of business today will be: First, we will have opening 

statements by the principal leaders of the committee: Myself, chairman of the full committee; Mr. Shuster is chairman of the Rail 

Subcommittee. Then we will hear from the Democrat leader and 

the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Rahall, the gentleman from West Virginia. 

We will hear from Ms. Brown, who is the Democrat leader and 

ranking member of the Rail Subcommittee. 

We are going to start with a little different order. We will allow 

each of those individual members to give opening statements. After 

those opening statements, we’re going to begin hearing from our 

witnesses. Mayor Bloomberg is a bit delayed. We will hopefully 

keep the program on schedule and we will hear from him as he arrives. 

When we have heard from the Mayor and Governor Rendell, we 

will allow other members who are with us today for opening statements or questions, however they would like to utilize their time. 

We have been joined by several other members of the New York 

delegation. This is one of the largest gatherings, I think, historically, of the House Transportation Infrastructure in New York 

City. And we are pleased to be here and discuss a very important 

topic. 

The title of today’s hearing is ‘‘Developing True High Speed Rail 

in the Northeast Corridor.’’ And that’s also part of a report that we 

released entitled ‘‘Stop Sitting on our Federal Assets.’’ Last fall we 

produced that report. 

And certainly, the Northeast Corridor is one of the most valuable 

Federal assets that the American people have an interest in; and 

2 

that’s our interest in being here. And as I said, we’ll start with my 

opening comments here. 

This hearing, in fact, is being held as a follow-up to the Transportation and Congressional report. You see the title here, ‘‘Sitting 

on our Assets.’’ The Federal Government has misused the taxpayers’ own assets. One of the most valuable and potentially productive Federal assets in the United States is, in fact, the Northeast Corridor. This 437 mile stretch of incredibly valuable real estate covers the distance between Washington, our Nation’s capital, 

and Boston, Massachusetts. 

Halfway up the corridor, here in New York City, we are right 

now in America’s business and financial and the world center of 

those activities. This is also our Nation’s most congested and 

densely populated area; yet New York City is not served by true 

high speed rail, and true high speed rail may not be realized here 

for more than three decades to come. 

Unfortunately, this is a valuable national transportation asset 

and the development of true high speed passenger rail on the 

Northeast Corridor has been largely ignored. President Obama last 

year said there is no reason why Europe and China should have 

the fastest trains when we can build them right here in America. 

High speed trains move in Europe at an average speed of 186 

miles per hour. Amtrak’s Acela chugs along an average between 

D.C. and New York at 83 miles an hour. On Amtrak yesterday, on 

my ride up here, they travelled at the lightning speed, an average 

speed of 65 miles an hour between New York and Boston. By comparison to Europe and Asia, the Acela is moving at a snail’s pace. 

America’s current plan is to bring true high speed rail to the 

Northeast Corridor—and actually, I misstated that—to bring what 

they call high speed rail to the Northeast Corridor. Amtrak’s plan 

would require $117 billion and would not be completed until 2040. 

This is their plan. 

This low speed schedule of bringing true high speed rail service 

to the Northeast Corridor or any level of high speed rail to the 

Northeast Corridor, would never allow President Obama to meet 

the goal he has stated before the Nation just two nights ago in the 

State of the Union address; that within 25 years, our goal is to 

have 80 percent of Americans access to high speed rail. 

Now, Mr. Shuster told me that the Northeast Corridor accounts 

for 20 percent of the population of the United States. So maybe 

that plan does not include the Northeast Corridor, that’s the 20 

percent that’s been left out; just do the math. 

My hope that this timetable can be dramatically improved. Let 

me say, we’re going to do everything possible to work with the administration, everyone on both sides of the aisle, to improve that 

schedule. 

Entering into public-private partnerships to assist in the financing of high speed rail development on the Corridor, I believe can 

get the project done much faster and dramatically bring down 

costs. We can also bring down the amount of money that the taxpayer would have to put into the project; that is, with some private 

sector investment funding. 

Unfortunately, one of our Nation’s most valuable assets, including some of the most prime real estate in the world, has been left 

3 

behind. Instead of providing visionary transportation to link America’s crowded corridor, we continue to support an antiquated and 

unproductive corridor that struggles to meet the needs of its many 

users. 

Finally, why should Members of Congress, from more than a 

dozen states here today, care about the Northeast Corridor? 

Let me state some of the reasons. 

First, the Northeast Corridor is a tremendously, incredibly valuable Federal asset. 

Second, we’re the stewards and the trustees of these assets. I believe we have an obligation to all Federal taxpayers and the citizens of these great cities. 

Third, this is our Nation’s most congested corridor, on the land 

and also in the air. 

Fourth, 70 percent of our chronically delayed air flights in the 

country, chronically delayed in the country, 70 percent—get this— 

start right here in the New York air space. 

So there are benefits to the entire country by us being here today 

and actions to move this project forward. 

Fifth, Amtrak, I can tell you—this is my 19th year of following 

Amtrak—will never be capable of developing the Corridor to its 

true high speed potential. The task is too complex and too large 

scale, and can only be addressed with the help of private sector expertise, those who have done this before, those who can do it in the 

future. And also, they will never get the funding for it with the 

plan they have currently proposed. 

Sixth, bringing true high speed rail to the Northeast Corridor 

will benefit the entire Nation. 

So those are some of the reasons that I think we have got to 

move ahead. 

The large turnout today by members of the Transportation and 

Infrastructure Committee, and New York area members, is a testament of the high level of interest and commitment to new and innovative transportation solutions. 

I want to thank everyone for attending today, and particularly 

thank our witnesses in advance. I look forward to your testimony. 

I particularly want to thank Governor Rendell. He is here and he 

is going to speak in a few minutes. He took Amtrak and took public 

transit, I think two subway lines to get here today. That’s remarkable, and we appreciate not only getting here today, but his continual leadership on this issue. 

We will have Mayor Bloomberg in just a few minutes, and we appreciate both of their long term support. 

Mr. MICA. Due to the schedule, the demands, I again will proceed 

with hearing first from our ranking members. And I will turn to 

my good colleague, new partner in this endeavor, the gentleman 

from West Virginia, and welcome again his input for this important 

topic, Mr. Rahall. 

Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. I appreciate the opportunity to be here in New York City as the committee 

begins its hearings on Amtrak and high speed rail in the Northeast 

Corridor. 

In the 2008 Congress, we charted a new course for passenger rail 

in the U.S., an enactment of bipartisan legislation, the Passenger 

4 

Rail Improvement Act. That law created two new national programs for the development of high speed intercity passenger rail. 

It also reauthorized Amtrak, which currently holds 69 percent of 

the air rail market shared between Washington, D.C. and New 

York. 

After years of battling starvation budgets for Amtrak, Congressional efforts to eliminate certain routes, the Bush administration’s 

budget proposal to destroy Amtrak in bankruptcy; we’re all proud 

to report that for the first time in decades, the 2008 act set forth 

a new path for investing in one of America’s greatest assets, Amtrak. 

In addition, that law created a process for the U.S. DOT to issue 

a request for proposals through the private sector, to finance, construct and operate high speed rail service in the ten dedicated corridors in the Northeast Corridor. 

Accordingly, DOT, eight private sector proposals were submitted 

and then forwarded to the Volpe National Transportation System, 

DOT Research Center, for review. The Volpe Center then recommended five proposals for DOT consideration. 

The French National Railway submitted four proposals for development of high speed rail in Florida, the Midwest, California and 

Texas. And the California High Speed Rail Authority submitted the 

fifth proposal. 

I would note that no private sector proposals were submitted for 

the Northeast Corridor. In the year after the 2008 act, Congress 

provided the most significant investment in passenger rail since 

the creation of Amtrak in the 70s. 

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided $8 billion for the development of high speed inner city passenger 

rail; and $1.3 billion for Amtrak capital improvements. In addition, 

2 and a half billion dollars for passenger rail for fiscal year 2010. 

These grants for the first time in the history of Amtrak have enabled the national passenger railroad to release the brakes, to pull 

the throttle out of survival mode and turn its full attention to future service and equipment improvements to meet growing demands, including the development of high speed rail in the Northeast Corridor, a plan that Amtrak unveiled last September. 

While I’m pleased with continuing efforts to invest in and improve the Northeast Corridor, one thing I believe that this Congress needs to remain focused on is developing a national program. 

After all, it was a national vision that led to creation of the world’s 

most advanced highway and aviation networks, helping to spur unprecedented economic growth to foster new communities, connect 

cities, towns and regions, and create millions of jobs. 

The Federal Government, the states and local communities and 

the private sector have all worked together to recognize that national vision. But it did not happen overnight. It took 60 years and 

$1.8 trillion to get where we are today. 

That same national vision was established by Congress in 2008 

and reiterated by President Obama in his vision for high speed rail, 

combined with those same partnerships, is what is needed today to 

develop a truly national rail system in the United States. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the time. I look forward to hearing 

from today’s witnesses. 

5 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

I yield to the chair of the Rail Subcommittee, the gentleman from 

Pennsylvania, Mr. Shuster. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing 

today in this historic building. My colleague leaned over and said 

he doesn’t think a building like this could be built again. It’s a 

beautiful structure, and it’s great to be here. It’s great to have this 

hearing on true high speed rail in the Northeast Corridor. 

I would also like to welcome Governor Rendell and Mayor 

Bloomberg for their efforts on building infrastructure; and of 

course, the Governor for the success he’s had in Pennsylvania with 

some of your projects over the years. 

It is an exciting time to be a member of the Transportation Committee. There’s a lot of progress to be made in this country. I believe we in the Committee are going to be able to tackle and address many of those, especially the need for high speed rail in this 

corridor. 

I believe it’s important to the future to have high speed rail as 

a better way to move large numbers of people on passenger rail. 

My home state of Pennsylvania, and I think the governor will 

touch upon the Keystone Corridor. I’m not going to go into the details; he will hopefully touch upon that. 

He made the investment in Amtrak and improved the Keystone 

Corridor from Harrisburg to Philadelphia. I’m a poster child, somebody that 20 years ago said, ‘‘I’ll never get out of my car again to 

go on the rails, I want to use my car with flexibility.’’ Today, I don’t 

travel to Philadelphia from Washington. I take the train from Harrisburg because of the convenience of it, the reliability of it. It’s a 

great success story, when it comes to passenger rail in United 

States. 

Unfortunately, the United States is far behind the curve. Our 

friends in Europe and Japan have decades on us working on high 

speed rail. The Japanese have a train that travels over 300 miles 

an hour. And the Chinese are spending $300 billion dollars to build 

8,000 miles of high speed rail. They say they’re going to complete 

that in the year 2020. 

Our competition in the world is doing it. We need to keep up 

with the competition. For a hundred years, the United States was 

the unquestionable leader when it came to passenger rail trains. 

Unfortunately, the rail delivery industry, the passenger rail industry, highways and aviation caused its demise. 

But the times are changing. We want to get back on the rails. 

Look at the population of the United States. Just in 2006, we 

crossed the 300 million person threshold in America. By 2039 

there’ll be 400 million American citizens. 

We need to figure out ways to move that population, especially 

in urban areas. Look at the map. Not everybody lives in the Northeast Corridor, Florida and Arizona. But the Northeast Corridor 

continues to be the most densely populated area of the United 

States. And again, we need to figure out a way to move people effectively and efficiently, and I believe high speed rail is the way to 

do that. 

Unfortunately, the President had stimulus money and a vision, 

but he took that stimulus money and he spread it too thinly across 

6 

the Nation, instead of focusing on the Northeast Corridor. In his 

State of the Union address on Wednesday night, he talked about 

building high speed rail in America, having access for 80 percent 

of the population. 

I don’t believe that’s realistic. I believe if he were truly committed to high speed rail he would start here in the Northeast Corridor, for many of the reasons the Chairman said. Twenty percent 

of the population lives here. The existing line is here, and we need 

to upgrade it. I believe we will be able to have high speed rail, 

which will spread throughout this country over time. 

This corridor is critical, the investment is critical, and we need 

to attract the private sector to this effort. I believe, Mr. Chairman, 

we need to have the private sector involved to produce a high speed 

rail corridor that can be built in a relatively short period of time. 

Again, I want to thank the Chairman and thank our witnesses 

for being here today. I look forward to hearing your testimony. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

I am pleased to yield to the former chair of the Rail Committee, 

and current ranking member, my colleague from the state of Florida, a great advocate of transportation, Ms. Brown. 

Ms. BROWN. I want to thank Mr. Mica and Mr. Rahall for holding this first hearing of the 112th Congress, on the issue I think 

is so important for this country. I also want to thank my colleagues. We have 14 members here from all over the country. We 

have people from the New York delegation joining us and people 

from the New Jersey delegation joining us. It is a lot of excitement 

about the rails. 

And I also, looking at the audience, want to thank some of our 

stakeholders. Labor is here. They are very interested in what’s 

happening. Business people from all over the country are here. So 

there is a lot of interest in what is going on with rail. 

Also, Amtrak is in the room. And I personally asked they be at 

the table, because I thought it very important that they who run 

the Northeast Corridor be involved in giving us information as to 

what works, what does not, and what kind of investment needs to 

be made in the system. 

We invested a lot of money in the highway system, $1.3 trillion 

in our Nation’s highway system; and $484 billion dollars in aviation. And since 1970, when Congress created Amtrak, we have invested just $67 billion in passenger rail. 

I got to tell you, I love this new bipartisan working together. But 

keep in mind, for eight years under the Bush administration, every 

budget that arrived to Congress was zeroed out for Amtrak. I want 

to thank President Barack Obama for the first time making a 

major investment in high speed rail, for the first $8 billion. 

I know that’s a beginning. Keep in mind, China is putting $300 

billion, and that’s our competition. We need to work together to 

augment the system. But we also need to work with our partners 

and stakeholders as we develop a system. It is not the Federal Government telling the state and local governments what to do. 

I think there are a lot of stakeholders involved, and as we develop how we’re going to develop the Northeast Corridor in the 

United States, it is going to be as, like military people say, one 

team, one fight, working together. 

7 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. 

I’m looking forward to hearing from the presenters. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Ms. Brown. 

We are pleased to go ahead and begin the hearing with our witnesses. We have four of the five witnesses who will be before us 

here. We’ll go ahead and proceed in that order. 

I’ll just say that we in fact gave Amtrak—it took us three hours 

to get here last night, and they had more time than anyone will 

have with all of the Members of Congress to brief us on the train. 

We were captive to their system. And I thought we had a great discussion, which went on for some time. 

Let me tell you, first order of the day, this is going to be a fairly 

brief hearing. I like brief hearings; it is scripted, as you know. But 

we do have an opportunity for some discussion here. 

When we conclude this hearing, we will have an open forum upstairs—the MTA’s board room, as many people as want to participate, will follow this with a discussion. And there will be an open 

discussion. Some people sitting here have good questions and good 

ideas. I welcome you to participate. It will be open, it will have to 

be orderly and limit some of your time. But I will be operating the 

committee in a different fashion, so that hopefully we can get productive input and exchange. 

Amtrak will also be available at that session too, and others who 

we couldn’t get in this panel. 

Then, our final business of the day, since we have many new 

members, 19 of the Members of the Committee on Transportation 

and Infrastructure who did not serve in Congress before; and we’re 

going to take them down to show them the mega-New York project. 

And we’ll also be briefed by Mayor Bloomberg and some transportation staff on the projects that New York City has going. 

These projects are important, not only to New York City and this 

region, but the Nation. And we need to have the information about 

these. 

And finally, we’re going to move forward in the Northeast Corridor. The sleet and the snow, the slush, whatever, if we can get 

here today, we are going to make this work and give a new meaning to ‘‘The Great White Way.’’ 

With that, I yield—— 

VOICE. I have a statement from Carolyn Maloney to be included 

in the record. 

Mr. MICA. Carolyn Maloney, without objection, so ordered. 

She asked me to express her strong support for development of 

the Northeast Corridor. She is a champion of it. She has another 

commitment and could not break away, otherwise she would be 

here. I view her as a true valuable partner, along with the others 

that are here today. 

With that, let me introduce our first witness. This gentleman has 

left the most important position in Pennsylvania government. He 

has been a tireless advocate of improving the Nation’s infrastructure. He is on the other side of the aisle, but that doesn’t mean 

squat to me. I view him as, again, one of the strongest voices in 

America for moving our infrastructure forward, getting people 

working again, getting us on the right track to moving the economy 

and people around this country and our Nation. 

8 

I am pleased to welcome for the Transportation Committee; I recognize at this time Governor Ed Rendell. 

Welcome, sir. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. ED RENDELL, CO-CHAIR, BUILDING 

AMERICA’S FUTURE; THOMAS HART, VICE PRESIDENT, GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, U.S. HIGH SPEED RAIL ASSOCIATION; 

PETRA TODOROVICH, DIRECTOR, AMERICA 2050, REPRESENTING THE BUSINESS ALLIANCE FOR NORTHEAST MOBILITY; ROBERT SCARDELLETTI, INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT, TRANSPORTATION COMMUNICATIONS INTERNATIONAL UNION; AND HON. MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, 

MAYOR, CITY OF NEW YORK 

Mr. RENDELL. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Chairman Mica, Ranking Member Rahall, and Members of the Committee. Thank you very much for coming here and having these 

hearings. 

I’m going to start off by saying I agree with everything Mayor 

Bloomberg said, because I read his statement. He is not here, but 

remember I agree with everything he said. 

I also want to recognize, of course, Chairman Shuster from Pennsylvania, and Congressman Meehan, a friend of mine from the 

Philadelphia area. 

Congressman Meehan, it’s nice to see you here. 

The Committee, and your statements have recognized it, the four 

members who spoke, that passenger rail has been seriously underfunded for decades and decades in the United States. We recognize 

what is going on in other parts of the world. 

Not only in the way high speed rail operates, as Congresswoman 

Brown said, but the difference in funding in China, our biggest economic competitor, is making, compared to what we are making. So 

I’m not going to go over those. 

Let me say, President Obama, as Congressman Rahall said, deserves credit as the first American president to put significant dollars into passenger rail; over 10 and a half billion dollars distributed in the last 18 months. 

It was a great start, and the President and Secretary LaHood deserve praise for going down that road. But I think we need to get 

real. The way we are doing high speed rail right now in America 

will amount to nothing. It will amount to nothing for two reasons. 

One, it’s too diffuse. You cannot do high speed rail politically. In 

the first allocation, the Federal Government gave $7.9 billion to 36 

states. In the second, $2.5 billion to 23 states, but for 54 separate 

projects. 

It won’t work. It’s not enough money to make a dent in any 

project. And first of all, he has to convince the American people 

that high speed rail is viable, it makes sense, and it can be cost 

effective. 

The answer to the question Chairman Mica posed, why start in 

the Northeast? Because we’ve got to make sure there’s one at least 

in California, in Florida, or in the Northeast Corridor. We know 

these systems work, they’re viable, it’s sustainable, many people 

will ride them. 

9 

If we don’t do that, we won’t get the American people to give support for high speed rail funding at all. So first, it’s too diffuse. Let’s 

concentrate on one or two or three projects. The Northeast Corridor 

is number one. America 2050 just released a report in which it 

ranked the top ten potential corridors for high speed rail: New 

York to Washington, number one; New York to Boston, number 

two. 

If we were a business, we would look no further. That’s where 

we would put our money. When it comes to high speed rail, we 

have got to become more like a business. 

So, second reason: It’s too slow. We’re spending money to go from 

80 to 110 miles an hour. The Chairman said it was slow speed rail, 

snail speed rail. I have described it as mid speed rail. 

By the way, I’m here in my capacity as the co-chair of Building 

America’s Future. I’m also here in the capacity as a former governor who invested a lot of state resources in passenger rail. 

It’s too slow. We’re going to compete with all of those countries. 

Do you know they’re testing high speed rail systems in Shanghai 

that go 360 miles an hour? In France, 357 miles an hour? And 

we’re talking about spending billions of dollars to get to 110 miles 

an hour. It makes no sense. We’ve got to get real. 

And I think there are two road maps for getting real. Road map number one is the Amtrak plan; $117 billion over 30 years to cut 

the cost of the speed from Washington to New York from 162 minutes to 96. You get Washington and New York down to 96 minutes, 

you will end the air shuttles, and you will improve dramatically the 

air traffic delays in the corridor with the Nation’s busiest airports. 

New York City to Boston from 215 minutes to 84 minutes; an 

hour and 24 minutes. The speed on Amtrak realized is 220 miles 

per hour. 

It’s not just Amtrak. The University of Pennsylvania School of 

Design, one of the very best in country, did a student project. These 

students, four of them are here today. They developed a plan that 

I’d like to submit to the committee on making high speed rail work 

in the New York mega-region. It’s a plan that would cost $98 billion and take 30 years. 

Why so long? 

The only way that high speed rail really works is with dedicated 

tracks. It can’t share tracks with freight rail, it can’t share tracks 

with commuter rail, because it would never achieve the speeds necessary. You have to build dedicated tracks, and that means right 

of way. If China can spend $300 billion in ten years, I believe we 

can spend $100 billion in a lot less than 30 years. 

That’s a task that I think the Congress should address itself to. 

Mr. MICA. Mr. Shuster moves that that report be made part of 

the record. With unanimous consent, without objection, Governor, 

we’ll get that in right now. 

[The executive summary of the report follows; the full report can 

be found online at http://studio.design.upenn.edu/hsr/node/81.] 

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Mr. RENDELL. I arranged to brief the Vice President on this report, as well. So, cost. Amtrak needs $17 billion in track costs, right? In 

human terms; Congresswoman Brown made the point that China 

is spending $300 billion to lay 16,000 miles of high speed rail connecting all of their major cities. 

We should not fly airplanes on any flight less than 500 miles. It 

should be high speed rail. That’s the way it’s done in Europe, that’s 

the way it’s done in Japan, that’s the way it’s done in China. It is 

almost embarrassing what we are doing in the United States. 

Now, what are the benefits of spending a lot of money, investing 

a lot of money? The Penn study, Mr. Chairman, the Penn study 

shows that the overall benefits for spending $98 billion dollars will 

outstrip the cost by $70 billion. If you take the Department of 

Transportation’s study, it shows that for every billion dollars in infrastructure we produce 25,000 jobs. This effort would create two 

and a half million jobs by itself. 

These are well paying jobs that can’t be outsourced. And where 

would the materials come from to build out this high speed rail? 

From American factories, from American steel plants and concrete 

plants, asphalt plants and lumber plants, a number of plants. 

We would be buttressing American manufacturing, we would 

make the construction industry take off, we would create jobs. 

Would it help the environment? You bet it would. Congressman 

Mica, over and over again, given the statistics, we would be stronger by having a high speed rail system that absolutely works. 

Air traffic, it would change the face of air traffic in America. The 

build-out of high speed rail, of course, would demonstrate to the 

country that it can work. The estimates are that a high speed rail 

system traveling 220 miles an hour from Boston to Washington 

would make almost a billion dollars a year in profit. So we can do 

it with government dollars, we can do it with private dollars, we 

can do it with a combination of dollars. 

We should build this dedicated train line and we should have 

competition on the line. Competition. Amtrak will run it? Fine. It 

should open to private competition, as well. We know what happens when there is competition. It’s best for the riding public. 

Lastly, the field of dreams: If you build it, they will come. Absolutely, no doubt, Congressman Shuster—the Keystone Corridor 

line. In Pennsylvania, Amtrak and the state both invested 72 and 

a half million dollars, $145 million for the rail line. 

The trip used to take two hours from Philadelphia to Harrisburg. 

When it took two hours we had 890,000 riders a year. Within two 

years, once we speeded up and got to 110 miles an hour, now we 

have—from a ridership of 890,000 to 1.1 million, a 22 percent increase by just shaving a half hour off of the time. 

I think it was Congressman Shuster or Rahall who said that Amtrak now has 69 percent of the air and rail traffic from New York 

to Washington; 69 percent now. Ten years ago it had 37 percent. 

The Acela changed airport travel from 37 percent of the air rail 

traffic to 69 percent. Boston to New York used to be 20 percent by 

rail, now it is almost half, 49 percent by rail. 

If you build it, they will come. We need to get serious. We cannot 

do this by politics. The original grants given out to Pennsylvania, 

27 

we had a number of applications, and we were awarded $27 million. And no governor is ever ungrateful about receiving—no governor ungrateful, proved me wrong. 

Generally, no one is ungrateful for the award of money. But that $27 million didn’t make a dent in Pennsylvania. Most of the money 

handed out didn’t go to major projects. It was money wasted. It 

was done to say we gave Pennsylvania some money, Senator 

Spector, it can’t be all that bad, et cetera. 

We can’t do this politically. It is too important. Infrastructure in 

this country generally can’t be done politically. High speed rail cannot be done politically. Find the routes that make the most sense, 

the routes that will produce big ridership, routes that are sustainable economically and that can demonstrate to the American people 

that it can work; and the American people will not only ride it, 

they will support it. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Governor. 

I will go ahead and recognize the next witness out of order, 

Mayor Bloomberg. And then we’ll have everybody available for the 

members to either make opening comments or ask questions. 

So I’d like to welcome Mr. Thomas Hart, the Vice President for 

Government Affairs for the U.S. High Speed Rail Association. 

Mr. Hart, you’re recognized. 

Mr. HART. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding 

this hearing. 

On behalf of the United States High Speed Rail Association, its 

president, Andy Kunz, who’s here today, and 250 members, I extend greetings to the prestigious bipartisan Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. I also want to recognize ranking member 

Rahall, Subcommittee Chair Shuster, and ranking member Brown. 

I am here representing the U.S. High Speed Rail Association as 

its Vice President for Government Affairs General Counsel. The 

U.S. High Speed Rail Association is a not-for-profit group with a 

vision for advancing a state of the art, nationwide, true high speed 

rail dedicated track, to be completed in phases around the country. 

The U.S. High Speed Rail Association is pleased to share its 

thoughts on high speed rail development in the Northeast Corridor. 

In fact, this past November, we hosted an international conference 

featuring Secretary Ray LaHood, Karen Ray and othersl. Over 400 

attendees in New York that focused on the Northeast Corridor. 

This was a priority of the association and a priority of mine, personally. 

Today, we are delighted to express our common interest and vision with the Chairman. We believe the rapid creation of a true 

high speed system in the region, funded in part by the private sector through innovative public-private partnerships, is in the Nation’s interest. 

We are encouraged by Amtrak’s recent hiring of Al Engel, a seasoned veteran of the high speed rail industry. And we’re also encouraged by the recent focus of the high speed rail industry and 

this corridor by the Federal Rail Administration. They both have 

to step up their efforts, Mr. Chairman. 

We agree with you that we do not have 30 years to develop high 

speed rail in the Northeast Corridor. With the price of oil rising 

again towards $100 a barrel, it is of the utmost importance that 

28 

we develop the new rail systems to offer new transportation systems not dependent on oil. 

Ironically, increased oil prices translate into increased rail ridership, which in turn improves the business case for high speed rail. 

We already saw this happen in the summer of 2008, when oil hit 

$147 a barrel, and ridership on America’s rail system rose to record 

levels. 

So we have a sense of urgency today. We’ve all heard of the advantages of the Northeast Corridor. It is a demographic region for 

high speed rail development, and it will spark investment by the 

private sector. 

However, it’s not without challenges that the Northeast Corridor 

has an opportunity for high speed rail. The states along the proposed routes, as Governor Rendell knows all too well, have a combined deficit of over $45 billion. They are currently dealing with 

widespread deteriorating infrastructure. 

Also, any major regional investment will require political bipartisanship, and that’s what I like about this committee and the leadership on both sides; they do work together. We must encourage 

the governors to do the same thing among the seven states in the 

Northeast Corridor. 

One of the most troubling aspects of the Northeast Corridor is 

that, unfortunately, it is not shovel ready. That’s because of the absence of a comprehensive environmental impact study, lagging regional planning, and finally, token investments in the high speed 

rail corridor, as Governor Rendell just spoke, over the past few 

years and decades. 

Nevertheless, these challenges can be overcome by consensus 

building and efforts of the government and private sector. 

Amtrak is not offering a true high speed system now. High speed 

trains regularly operate at speeds of 185 to 250 miles per hour. Although Acela is the best that Amtrak offers, it falls short of the potential of a true high speed rail line to deliver service to consumers 

and profit to its operators. 

While we strongly support high speed rail in the Northeast Corridor, we also support high speed rail in the corridors of California, 

Chicago and Florida. They are dependent, however, upon private 

sector investments. 

We were also delighted to see President Obama announce continued Federal investment in high speed rail. That announcement 

came just two days ago in the State of the Union. But more capital 

is needed. We must spark private investment in this industry. 

For example, the British government just recently auctioned off 

a 30-year lease. After building the HS1 system linking London to 

the Euro Tunnel, they leased it to private industry and recaptured 

$3.4 billion. It was sold to a consortium of two Canadian pension 

funds. 

This concession returned 40 percent of the original construction 

cost. That’s a model that we must look at in developing our own 

public-private partnerships in this area. 

The key to success for public-private partnerships is lowering 

risk and maximizing rate of return. The incentives can be created 

through Federal legislation. In the next few weeks, the United 

States High Speed Rail Association will propose the Private InvestVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:30 Jul 27, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULLCO~1\1-27-1~1\65480.TXT JEAN
29 

ment in Infrastructure Act of 2011, looking at the best practices 

throughout the country and throughout the world, to create specialized benefits such as guaranteed loans, tax credits, deferred payments and other concessions to increase investments in operations 

and construction in the Nation’s rail lines. 

We have one opportunity right in front of us now, to create a public-private partnership to fill the $300 million gap for high 

speed rail funding in the state of Florida. The private-public partnership team that developed that model will be successful in bringing high speed rail, not only to Florida, but throughout the Nation. 

We believe in this association that market forces will make the 

business case for high speed rail and fill the $300 million gap needed in Florida to bring high speed rail to that state. 

In closing, Mr. Chairman, we advise the committee and 

attendees at this hearing to continue this discussion at our upcoming High Speed Rail Summit in Washington, D.C., February 8th, 

9th and 10th on Capitol Hill. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your time and leadership; and the 

High Speed Rail Association is looking forward to working with you 

in the future and other Members of this Committee. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony and participation. 

I notice that the Mayor has arrived. I’ll give him a minute to get 

his thoughts ready. We’ll go ahead and hear from Petra Todorovich. 

She is the director of America 2050, and she’s representing the 

Business Alliance for Northeast Mobility. 

Welcome, and you are recognized. 

Ms. TODOROVICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good 

morning, Ranking Member Rahall and Members of the Committee. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the future of high speed rail in the Northeast Corridor. 

I’m speaking on behalf of the Business Alliance for Northeast 

Mobility, which is a coalition of over 30 leading business and civic 

groups from Boston to Washington, D.C. We came together in 2006 

to support appropriations for Amtrak in the Northeast Corridor, because of its indispensable role in the Northeast mega-region’s economy. 

I am here to inform the committee of the Business Alliance’s 

strong support for bringing the Northeast Corridor, first to a state 

of good repair, and to explore dedicated, world class high speed rail 

service on the corridor; in order to create jobs and boost the economy in the Northeast mega-region and the Nation as a whole. 

The Northeast Corridor moves approximately three quarters of a 

million people each day to their jobs or to major downtown business hubs of the corridor. These movements are critical to the 

Northeast’s $2.6 trillion economy, 20 percent of the U.S. GDP. 

Imagine if today, 750,000 additional passengers were suddenly 

added to Interstate 95 and the Northeast’s major airports, already 

the most congested in the Nation. Our transportation networks 

would come to a standstill, as they regularly do already, because 

of their inadequate capacity and failure to meet existing demand. 

High speed rail is a way to expand capacity and economic growth 

in the Northeast mega-region without further dependence on foreign oil. 

30 

In 2008, the Business Alliance strongly supported the passage of 

PRIIA, the Passenger Rail Investment Improvement Act, which 

provided a dependable rail authorization for Amtrak and created 

the High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program, for which highspeed rail funding was appropriated in the Stimulus Bill and the 

Fiscal Year 2010 budget. Unfortunately, we’ve only begun chip away at our $8.7 billion 

backlog in deferred maintenance that has accumulated on the Corridor, due to inadequate Federal funding. 

As a coalition, our top priority has been to secure funding to 

bring the Corridor to a state of good repair, which we see as a Federal responsibility stemming from the Federal Government’s creation of Amtrak and the critical role this Corridor plays in the 

economies of the 12 Northeast states and the Nation as a whole. 

While the immediate and urgent challenge is to maintain the 

Corridor’s existing infrastructure, we are also looking ahead to the 

improvements needed to accommodate the growth of the Northeast 

economy. Specifically, we support building two new dedicated high 

speed rail tracks along the length of the Corridor, to significantly 

reduce trip times and substantially increase capacity, convenience 

and reliability, while dramatically enhancing the global competitiveness of the Northeast. 

The recent Amtrak and Penn Design studies that Governor 

Rendell mentioned have demonstrated the feasibility of building 

world class high speed rail here, slashing trip times to less than 

two hours from New York to Boston, and New York to Washington, 

while providing up to twelve high speed rail trains per hour, compared to the one or two trains we currently have per hour on the 

Corridor today. The cost, as you have heard, are estimated at $5 billion a year for 30 years, or about $117 billion. And upon completion, the Amtrak plan estimates generating a $900 million annual operating 

surplus, with revenues from fares, food and other services, outweighing total operation and maintenance costs. 

It also envisions an interoperable system, which new high speed 

rail lines interconnect at key points with existing Northeast Corridor operations, facilitating a comprehensive service plan. 

Such a plan will enable all communities in the mega-region to 

have access to the new service and benefit from this public and private investment. 

The Northeast Corridor has the population density, concentration 

of employment, connections to rail transit networks, and proven demand between city pairs to justify this investment. 

For example, the recent America 2050 study documented that in 

the five largest metro regions in the Northeast Corridor alone, almost 19 million people work within 25 miles of a major train station. More than 34 million people live within 25 miles of a major 

train station. And more than one-third of the inhabitants of the 

major metro areas in the Northeast Corridor are within walking 

distance of a rail transit station which connects to inner city rail 

stations on the Northeast Corridor. 

These figures of population and employment density around rail 

in the Northeast dwarf every other mega-region in the Nation. Further, as these high speed rail lines are built, they reinforce private 

31 

investment around the employment hubs and train stations, insuring that population and job growth can occur in a way that reduces 

our dependency on foreign oil. 

But it is critical that we get started in building these plans while 

we still have the momentum of a new national commitment to high 

speed rail in America. Unfortunately, the mainline Northeast Corridor was largely excluded from major capital grants awarded in 

the first two rounds of high speed rail grants in 2010, because we 

lacked an up-to-date environmental impact statement for the corridor. 

A year later, the EIS has not yet begun. 

In December, the Business Alliance sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, asking for his leadership to expedite 

the corridor-wide EIS process, and we met recently with his staff 

to discuss the details. 

We are anxiously awaiting the start of the EIS process, which 

should consider all of the major proposals for providing high speed 

rail service in the Northeast Corridor, including the recent Northeast Corridor Master Plan that was completed by 12 states with 

Amtrak, the Penn Design Plan, the Amtrak plan. 

Once scoped, we ask for the help of the committee in looking at 

the ways the Northeast Corridor EIS process can be tiered and 

shortened so we do not waste another two or more years waiting 

for its completion to start construction. 

Finally, we do believe that the private sector has an important 

role to play beyond the traditional engineering and construction 

contracts placed by public agencies in delivering large capital 

projects, such as the East Side Access project before you today. 

We would like to meet with you, Mr. Chair, and the Committee 

members, to discuss specific proposals for public private partnerships in the Northeast Corridor. 

However, the necessary precursor to private investment and implementation is agreement on the vision. And for this, we ask for 

your leadership. We ask for your support of a bold vision for the 

Northeast Corridor. And we ask for you to work with the Northeast 

states and Amtrak and the business community to agree on a practical strategy for accommodating the 21st century transportation 

needs of the Northeast and national economy. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony. 

We will wait on the Mayor a second here. 

And I want to hear from labor first, and we’ve got a representative of the people who are doing all the work on these projects, Mr. 

Scardelletti. We want to welcome and recognize the International 

President of the Transportation Communications International 

Union. 

Welcome sir, and you are recognized. 

Mr. SCARDELLETTI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very 

much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Rahall and members of the 

Committee. 

Before I make my remarks, I want to take a moment to bring 

you greetings and from, and frankly acknowledge the thousands of 

dependable rail workers on the Long Island Railroad, Metro North, 

New Jersey Transit, Amtrak. They’re all on the job today, up and 

32 

down the Northeast Corridor, to provide safe, reliable transportation to our country’s people; many of whom work right here in 

this building, this terminal, and many of whom work a couple of 

blocks down the street at Penn Station. 

My name is Robert Scardelletti, and I’m the International President of the Transportation Communications Union. Our union represents over 50,000 members, most of whom work together with 

another 120,000 railroad workers, who represent eleven other rail 

unions, which are identified in my written testimony. 

We work in both freight and passenger rail, as well as on commuter lines throughout the United States. TCU is the largest union 

on Amtrak, representing six separate crafts and classes under the 

Railway Labor Act. 

TCU has been a long supporter of high speed rail in the Northeast Corridor and throughout the United States. Amtrak is by law 

the Nation’s rail carrier, and the only current provider of high 

speed rail through Acela Service Express. 

Amtrak and a dedicated work force will celebrate 40 years of 

service in May, after being established by Congress to provide a national rail passenger service to the citizens of our country; because, 

frankly, the private companies could not. 

Over ten years ago, Amtrak launched Acela Express, the Nation’s 

first and most advanced high speed rail service. It has now become 

extremely popular in the region, sold out almost every train. 

Actually, Amtrak transports more passengers in the Northeast 

Corridor than all the airlines combined within this area. Most importantly, Amtrak has a dedicated and experienced work force: 

Ticket agents, baggage handlers, carmen, on-board service crew, 

supervisors, machinists, electricians, train dispatchers, signalmen, 

maintenance of way workers, sheet-metal workers, firemen and oilers, engineers and conductors. 

Those workers are critical to operating the current and future 

high speed rail service. You cannot oppose funding and then criticize that Amtrak does not provide a good service. If our country is 

committed to providing a world class high speed rail system in the 

Northeast Corridor, than it needs to treat Amtrak as an asset and 

provide Amtrak with a dedicated, long term funding source. 

The government should expand on Amtrak’s success and embrace 

their vision for a more ambitious high speed train that will travel 

the Northeast Corridor up to speeds of 220 miles an hour, significantly cutting trip time. 

Amtrak’s plans would be a major step forward in building the 

Northeast Corridor for the future; and yes, the plan requires a 

major commitment by our government. 

This new high speed rail system will create thousands of new 

jobs. These are jobs, under the rail laws of the United States, that 

will be good paying jobs with benefits, the kind of middle class jobs 

the country needs. In other words, the kind of middle class jobs to 

sustain and fulfill the American dream. 

Congress must reject privatization of the Northeast Corridor. We 

know from experience that passenger rail is better left to the public 

sector. This is because of the unique safety and security concerns 

associated with high speed rail. 

33 

To achieve quality high speed rail service, significant ongoing investments must be made in rolling stock, signal equipment, stations, tracks and employee training. 

It is unfortunate that Amtrak could not be part of this hearing 

today to brief the Committee on its plan for the future of the 

Northeast Corridor and the NextGen High Speed Rail service. 

While this service can and should be expanded, we do not understand how the public will benefit by allowing a private operator to 

take over one of Amtrak’s most successful routes. 

In conclusion, the framework of successful expansion of high 

speed rail in the Northeast Corridor for the coming decades is already in place. Amtrak in this proposal is treated as a national 

asset to be used to its fullest potential. 

And one more comment. A lot of comparison was made to Communist China. They won’t need an immediate environmental study. 

In fact, they don’t need anything. It’s a dictatorship. If they want 

to put a train line through your house, your house is coming down, 

like they did when they built the Three Rivers Gorge electrical 

plant. Tens of thousands of citizens, whatever they call them in 

China, were evacuated, whether they wanted to or not. 

So I don’t believe that it’s proper for our government to compare 

ourselves to a Communist regime. 

That’s all I have. Thank you. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony. 

Now, we have in our midst probably one of the great political 

leaders in the country, and I have had the opportunity to work 

with the Mayor of New York and Governor Rendell, both of them, 

along with Governor Schwarzenegger from California, who led a 

national effort to bring high speed rail to the country. 

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the leadership of Mayor 

Bloomberg. We would not have the provisions in the PRIIA, the 

Passenger Rail Investment Act, it would not have been signed into 

law in the last administration without his help, I can tell you that. 

And I salute him today. The last time when we came together we 

had to delay our meeting. He had an emergency. This Mayor takes 

care of his city. The city is first. 

I remember that day, Mayor, you had a collapse of a crane, people were killed, I think, and injured. And we delayed our meeting. 

Then we spent quality time. And a lot of politicians give you a lot 

of hot air, and they pat you on the back. 

And within, literally, a few hours’ time after we finished our discussion, he was supportive of the effort. I was in the minority. I 

couldn’t have done squat without this guy. And he helped us to 

move that Federal legislation forward. 

We have not passed a passenger rail reauthorization in eleven 

years; and it wouldn’t have been done without Mayor Bloomberg. 

Now, here I am, Mayor. I hope this isn’t an omen, but today 

you’ve had another serious natural challenge. But you’ve met it. I 

got up this morning and looked out of my hotel room and then you 

see again, members who haven’t been here, the splendor of one of 

the great cities in the world, and this financial center. And I’m so 

frustrated that it’s not connected by true high speed rail. 

34 

Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Rendell has said he agrees with everything you said; and you haven’t said it, but I wanted to let you 

know. 

Again, I can’t thank you enough for your leadership, for your 

being with us today. I know you have a limited amount of time, so 

we’re going to recognize you with as much time as you need. And 

thank you for being here today. We look forward to hearing the 

other witnesses also. 

Welcome, and you are certainly recognized. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for those 

kind words. They were not deserved. My recollection is that the 

last time you were here we had Florida weather for you. Your wife 

was here helping our economy, and Governor Rendell as well, what 

he’d rather do when he’s here, spend money so he can generate 

sales tax revenue. That’s the way we pay our people. 

And I just want to say thank you to and to Ranking Member Rahall for inviting me, and Subcommittee Chair Shuster; and Jerry 

Nadler, my Congressman. 

I apologize for being late, but I’ve been up since 4:30 this morning implementing the mayor’s program to prevent a drought this 

summer. People call it snow, but we have to look on the bright 

side. 

Anyway, it’s appropriate that you’re holding this hearing in 

Grand Central. Like the Erie Canal or the Transcontinental Railroad and the Interstate Highway System, it is a monument to our 

Nation’s tradition of dreaming big and investing in our future. Together, the transportation networks opened up new markets and 

made us the global economic superpower that we are. 

But that was a long time ago. And today, our Nation invests just 

over 2 percent of our GNP in infrastructure; while Europe invests 

at least twice that rate, and China almost three times that rate. 

In 2007, I visited Shanghai and I landed at the airport and got 

on what they call a Maglev train, a magnetic levitation train that 

travels at—I think it was running at a slow speed, because at night 

it was going only 250 miles an hour. I had a full cup of coffee and 

I watched the clock when I started, took the trip and landed. It 

didn’t vibrate once. It was really quite amazing. 

Other countries are trying to do the same thing, create other 

modes of transportation that are much more efficient, much more 

rapid and answer the needs of a global world. And Asia, Europe 

and the Middle East, they’re building bullet trains and we’re just 

sitting here. What is America waiting for? 

I don’t want to spend money we don’t have. I’m sympathetic to 

the cost of debt. I’m sympathetic to encumbering our descendants 

with the cost of building things. But this is not wasted money. Infrastructure is one of those things that gives us a future. 

And I would venture to say no one here remembers whether Central Park was built on time and on budget; whether the Erie Canal 

or Transcontinental Railroad, any of these things that transformed 

this country and transformed the world, were on time and on budget. 

The bottom line is, there are certain infrastructure things that 

you just have to do. I couldn’t be happier to be partners with Governor Rendell and Governor Schwarzenegger in trying to urge this 

35 

country to make those kinds of investments. They are our future. 

And if we want to leave our children something, we want them to 

be able to look back and say ‘‘You are the parents who had the 

courage and the foresight to dream big and to go ahead and do 

things,’’ where maybe there at the time we have to raise some 

money, somebody else is there at the time we finally cut the ribbon; 

but at least we’ve done the right thing. 

We have a bipartisan coalition Ed and Arnold put together, 

called Building America’s Future. It’s been working to build a consensus around this country, and your committee’s strong interest 

in high speed rail is something that I’m glad to hear. The consensus is emerging around the Nation that it should be built here 

in the Northeast. 

As you know, the Northeast is the Nation’s largest economy. The 

region is home to the Nation’s major centers of business, government, finance, medicine, entrepreneurship and education. And it is 

where you have multiple cities very close together, where rail does 

make some sense. 

Other parts of our country, the cities are far apart and there are 

other alternatives. We have 162 Fortune 500 companies who make 

their headquarters here in the Northeast; and 7 of the world’s top 

20 research universities. They have to be able get around, and they 

have to be able to attract the best and brightest from around the 

world if we’re going to have a future. 

Most of our population is in dense cities, close enough to each 

other to travel by trains, much more convenient than flying. And 

Europe is a good example. They do not have short flights. They 

have come to rely on trains that are reliable and affordable because 

they’ve had the courage to make the investments. 

At the same time, because all of this activity, the Northeast is 

approaching, you should know, a transportation crisis. Our airports 

are among the most clogged, our highways are among the most 

congested, and our train corridor is among the most heavily used 

in the country. 

And all of that is just going to get worse as the regional population is expected to grow by 40 percent by the year 2050. That 

doesn’t just affect New York, it affects the whole country. As Chairman Mica noted, the New York clogged airports are responsible for 

flight delays around the country and around the world. 

If you want to reduce those delays and engineer growth driving 

the American economy, you need to unclog the fuel lines. And I 

think one of the best ways is with high speed rail. High speed rail 

adds the equivalent of about 1900 lane miles of interstate, except 

of course this would be interstate with a speed limit something like 

220 miles an hour, which really make an enormous difference. 

High speed rail in the Northeast would be a boon for our region 

and country in other ways, as well. It would generate tourism and 

travel, raise property values, cut pollution and our dependence on 

foreign oil; and by reducing congestion on our highways and our 

airports and on our commuter trains, it will increase economic activity. We estimate that high speed rail would generate more than 

$7 billion of economic activity and create 100,000 new jobs by the 

year 2040. 

36 

Because the businesses and industries are brought closer together, they inevitably see greater profits, creativity and greater 

productivity. 

President Obama and Congress have taken the first good first step by allocating $10 billion for high speed rail. And I was encouraged the other night when the President affirmed his commitment 

in his State of the Union speech, setting a goal for 80 percent of 

Americans to have access to high speed rail within 25 years. 

That is certainly a laudable goal. But we all know that the 

money isn’t there for that yet. So we ought to start with what 

makes sense economically right now. I think at the moment it’s fair 

to say we’re not doing that. Funding for high speed rail projects 

has been divided across 36 states, spreading our money so thinly 

we run the risk of achieving nothing at all. 

In fact, the current Federal plan allotted just over 1 percent of 

all high speed rail spending for the Northeast, and that simply 

doesn’t make any sense; especially because the Acela at the moment is the only profitable line run by Amtrak; and the Northeast 

is the only corridor that has demonstrated a high demand for high 

speed, at all. 

What we need is a new approach to spend the Transportation 

Department’s money, one that is not dictated by politics, but based 

on economics. You might not get all the high speed trains you 

want, but we will get the high speed trains we need. 

I understand the politics. Everybody in this country has got to 

pull together. Everybody contributes and everybody wants to get 

the benefits. But in some cases the benefits are going to be in one 

part of the country and then they’ll spill over into others. In other 

kinds of endeavors, like the Interstate Highway System and building airports, every city can share in that. 

But high speed rail only fits certain parts of the country, but it 

is something that’s good for all of us. 

Before I close, let me just mention one final idea that we should explore, to see the feasibility. High speed rail could cost over $100 

billion and take a generation to build. While government should 

take the lead, we should make sure that we have the structure and 

rules in place that don’t discourage private investment. 

I listened to my friend down on the left and there is the argument for public transportation, and there is the argument for private transportation. I take public transportation to work every day. 

The subway works fine, it’s a public system. I’ve always thought 

that it is very well run. Jay Walder came up with me. He’s the guy 

who runs the MTA. 

But there are also places in this country where we’ve had experience with the private sector. And just don’t have the luxury of ruling out anything. Competition is good. I think the best thing for 

government is to have the private sector compete with government. 

That’s what holds our feet to the fire, that’s what makes us more 

efficient and more accountable. 

And this country really does need to make smart investments in 

the 21st century, but we don’t have all the money, we don’t have 

enough money. So we do have to reach out to the private sector, 

as well. High speed rail in the Northeast Corridor, I think, is one 

of the smartest investments we can make. 

37 

And it really is the the future. So thank you very much. For 

those of you who don’t live in New York City and perhaps it’s one 

of the first times you’ve visited, welcome. I represent 8.4 million 

people who want to say thank you to all of you for everything you 

do. We always go to Congress to ask for things. We seldom go to 

Congress to say thank you, but we have a lot to be thankful for 

from Congress. And Jerry, thank you in particular for all you do 

to represent us. 

Thank you. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for your leadership. 

What we’ll do is, change the order a bit. We have a couple of our 

senior members with all our junior members here. 

I will recognize Mr. Nadler. He’s up for either comment or question. Mr. Nadler, thank you for having us here in New York. 

He’s a senior member. I worked with him on the Transportation 

Infrastructure Committee. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you very much. Let me ask for consent to 

include my statement for the record. 

Mr. MICA. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you. 

Obviously, we need high speed rail. Obviously, what Governor 

Rendell said and some others, about not diffusing efforts to get visible results, it makes sense. Also, to build a constituency where the 

American people see that they’re getting something for their money 

and see real results. Then you can start getting someplace else, too. 

Also, obviously, we are in a situation where there’s a lot of austerity people talking are talking about. I don’t agree with some of 

it, but some of it is obvious. And the Republican’s committee suggested zeroing out Amtrak again, doing no high speed rail. I hope 

the Republicans as a whole don’t go along with that; who knows. 

It’s a situation that makes it daunting to get these funds. 

And I have a couple of questions. First of all—I forgot who commented on this—why can’t we start some of the projects that will 

be good, either if we develop the separate high speed rail or if we 

don’t? 

In other words, projects that are necessary, cost money to bring 

the corridor up to good repair and to improve the existing corridor; 

but will also be necessary as precursors to a new high speed rail 

system. Why do we have to wait for an EIS on that? We should 

be able to go ahead with that rapidly. 

And my second question is: Yes, we clearly want the private sector involvement to the maximum extent we can get it. But, as we 

saw, no private company submitted any kind of bid for the Northeast Corridor high speed rail. We put up the bid. 

The question really is, how can we get the private sector to cooperate with the public sector, because neither is going to do it 

alone? 

Mr. MICA. Ms. Todorovich. 

Ms. TODOROVICH. Thank you, Chairman. 

Yes, Congressman, I can address the first question. We do believe the Northeast states may proceed in completing projects on 

the corridor that are already covered by existing Northeast Corridor EIS, completed, I understand, in 1978 or ’79. 

38 

Between that EIS and other EIS’s in the corridor, there are 

projects such as signaling systems and overhead catenary replacement that can get started right away. And what needs to happen 

is, those projects need to be identified. Someone needs to do that 

work. 

There was recently created the Northeast Corridor Infrastructure 

and Operation Advisory Commission, which was created by PRIIA, 

and which includes a representative of each of the Northeast 

states, Amtrak and the FRA. 

That commission could be the commission to do this work. 

They’ve only had two meetings yet. The next meeting is March, I 

believe. And they haven’t really gone through that process yet. But 

we would encourage them to get started right away, working with 

the FRA. We think the FRA would provide leadership on this. 

Mr. MICA. They will be at our discussion, which will proceed 

after this hearing. 

I might, as a general member, yield briefly. On the no private 

sector proposals coming in—and I share this with the ranking 

member. Having drafted those provisions in law, I followed it very 

closely. 

I can tell you, everything was done to discourage and dissuade, 

and actually make certain the private sector did not offer a proposal. 

If I have to, I will subpoena people in and we will reveal what 

took place. I don’t want to have to do that, but I’m telling you it’s 

not going to happen again, and we will have a private public partnership considered and the opportunity to compete. 

And for the labor brothers and sisters that are listening, they can 

take it from me as the chair of this Committee, that we will protect 

their position. And whatever construct is brought forth, they will 

be protected. 

But if you leave things the way they are going—when I came on 

the Committee we had 29,000 Amtrak workers, and we now have 

19,000. If that is the future people want to look to—and not have 

high speed rail, true high speed rail, to see increasing employment 

and opportunities for these workers, and make certain they get the 

benefits and salaries and see the future they deserve. 

Sorry, Mr. Nadler, I took some of your time. Your time is not expired. 

One more question from other members. 

Mr. RENDELL. Number one, we will not come up with the money 

for a project like this without private sector involvement. What I’d 

say to my labor friends is, I’m a good Democrat and give labor support all the time. That’s a fact of life. 

Chairman Mica is right. The number of jobs will grow, two and 

a half million new jobs if we do this corridor project correctly. A 

lot of those jobs, the vast majority, will be union. 

Secondly, private sector’s rate of return. On small stuff you can’t 

get the rate of return. In Pennsylvania, we had plenty of offers including a top bid was * * * billion dollars; because there was a 

predictable rate of return. High speed rail is different than a turnpike or a highway. But the projections and the studies have shown 

across—the Acela is profitable. 

39 

This, over the long run, could be extremely profitable. I think the 

Mayor said almost a billion dollars a year in profit, operating profit. We can get plenty of private sector interest in that. 

Mr. MICA. We want to go through the panel and try to get everybody in the discussion. We have another senior member, the gentleman from Tennessee. I’m going to yield to him and also yield the 

chair to him for a couple of minutes. And then we need to go next 

to our members. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank all 

the witnesses for very helpful testimony. I have one question. It 

has, really, two parts; both relate to cost. 

First of all, we heard today about the fact that it would cost $117 

billion, specifically, to build this over a 30 year period. Realizing 

it’s very, very difficult; in fact, it may be impossible to really estimate what the cost will be 20 or 30 years from now. 

And most transportation projects, the Big Dig in Boston is a 

prime example, cost way more than what we originally estimate. 

What can be done to see that these costs don’t far, far exceed what 

the estimates are at this moment in time? 

Secondly, I think Mr. Nadler started to touch on it. The newest 

Fenway Airport is a few years old. It took 14 years for completion. 

It only took 99 construction days, and the delays were almost entirely because of environmental laws, rules and regulations. 

What can we do? We are taking two to three times as long on 

all types of transportation projects because of the environmental 

rules and regulations. Mr. Scardelletti touched on it. He said dictators do it faster. Even nations with dictatorships do it much, 

much faster. 

Mr. RENDELL. Let me answer the first. Pennsylvania is number 

one in Congressional ratings for a state spending stimulus highway 

and bridge money. The reason we did is, I knew the stimulus was 

coming, I got the contractors in and got the bureaucrats in. 

And I said to the contractors, ‘‘We’re putting out an RFP for this 

work. You’re not going to get 120 days to respond. You guys want 

work, you’ll get 30 days to respond.’’ 

‘‘Bureaucrats, you are not getting 90 days to review it. You’ll get 

45 days to review it.’’ 

Guess what? They did it. They did it. We build in such incredible 

time gaps developing EIS, it’s just untenable. It’s not necessary. 

One of the things that you must do in any infrastructure project, 

high speed rail, anything else: Do legislation not to eradicate EIS, 

but to make them more timely. You can do that. 

I always say if someone walked into a law firm and said, ‘‘I need 

an opinion on this complex matter by Tuesday,’’ and it’s Thursday 

afternoon; the head of the law firm says, ‘‘Our law firm’s got the 

highest reputation. You’ll never get that in four days.’’ 

If that person pulled out a check for $2 million, my guess is that 

everyone in that law firm would be working 24 hours a day for the 

next four days. 

There’s no excuse for the time it takes. We are not a dictatorship, 

we’re not abusing people’s rights. If you examine the EIS process, 

walk the EIS to its end, it will drive you crazy. 

40 

The time it takes to do things can be done in a much shorter 

timeline. To rebuild the bridge in Minnesota, do you know how long 

it took? Anybody on the Committee? 

VOICE. 437 days. 

Mr. RENDELL. A brand new bridge in Pennsylvania takes a minimum of two, two and a quarter years. If we want to, we can do 

it. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. The Empire State Building was built in one 

year. I think it was actually one day short of a year. In New York 

City we have an environmental agenda that I think is probably 

more aggressive than anyplace else in America that I know. We 

really care about the air we breathe and the water we drink and 

the future we’re going to leave our kids. 

And yet, with all of that, we’ve done an awful lot of projects. 

Every one of our 1400 bridges is up to standard. We’re building a 

new water tunnel, we’re building two new subways. You can get it 

done. 

But let me address the first part of your question as to why these 

projects are so over budget. 

I’m old enough—I grew up in Boston. I remember, not the Big 

Dig—I remember when the Southeast Expressway was first put 

through and they ripped down the North End and everybody 

moved out from Medford, where I lived. The project went through 

a whole cycle of a road being built and then being torn down and 

buried. 

I think the real answer to your question is that people are afraid 

of big projects, they’re afraid to actually give a real quote for what’s 

likely to happen with mission creep as you add new things. And 

in the real world nobody is going to stand up and say, ‘‘OK, let’s 

do it.’’ 

So the only way, in a tactical sense, to make progress is to start 

out with a quote that we all sort of know is very low and unrealistic in time and in money; but that at least they get it going. 

And we can later on yell and scream and ‘‘should have’’ and 

‘‘would have’’ and ‘‘could have’’; but at least we have the project 

done. That is true with big software projects, that’s true with big 

construction projects. We’re just not politically willing to be realistic and—wink, wink, it works. 

Mr. DUNCAN. We need more penalties. 

Mr. MICA. We’re not going to speak to that, because I want to 

get through the members. I’ve got a number of upstaters. I was 

born in Binghamton, a salmon that swims upstream back to New 

York. 

We have Mr. Hanna, a new number from upstate New York. Let 

us recognize him for a question or comment. 

Mr. HANNA. I defer to my friend Tom. 

Mr. MICA. We’ve got another New Yorker. I’m proud to have 

more New Yorkers. Let’s go to Mr. Reed. And Mr. Reed is the Vice 

Chair of the Rail Committee; and he is from the Rochester area. 

Mr. REED. Corning. 

I’m a fellow Mayor, and I share a lot of his concerns. It’s much 

different in the city of Corning. 

41 

The question I have is, I’m in a public private partnership, and 

I think Mr. Hart touched on it a little. He referenced the British 

sale recently. 

I’ve always tried to look down over the horizon. And under those 

sessions, under those sales, was the discussion or the agreement 

ironed out, about who is going to take care of the maintenance and 

replacement after we build this? 

Say we build this in the next 30 years. Who is going to take— 

across the public and private partnership, P3—who takes responsibility for maintaining and improving that down the road in Britain, 

and do they incorporate that in their agreements? 

Mr. HART. Yes. On point with Congressman Nadler and Duncan: 

You can build that into the concession, into the agreement; and 

they are doing that in Florida now. Passing through the risks factors in construction, passing through the operation and maintenance obligations to the private firms, to help bring the contracts 

to certainty. That’s how you keep it on time, on budget. 

Because the private sector is good at limiting their risk. Once 

they have a contract and an obligation, they’ll see to it that the operation is done on time. 

What is particularly impressive about the systems in Europe and 

some in Asia, if you are operating a train, a high speed rail system, 

and you’re five minutes late in arrival, they will refund your money 

100 percent. 

Can you imagine that type of obligation being readily being accepted by the private sector American transportation system? They 

will do that if they have the opportunity to manage and operate the 

system from inception, and they understand the rules of the game 

at the beginning. 

So yes, sir, that’s a good idea to reduce risk and increase certainty by bringing in the private operators. 

Mr. RENDELL. We were not going to sell the Acela, we were going 

to lease it; which meant we controlled how fast the tolls would go 

up, we governed part of the contract. We controlled and oversaw 

the schedule of maintenance. 

Now if you sell it, you’re counting on the private sector to maintain it by itself. And you might say, the private sector will not 

maintain it, it’s all about maximizing profits. 

No; because if they want people to ride the train, as opposed to 

driving, that system’s got to be well maintained and function to arrive on time. The profit motive is built in. But if you’re really worried about maintenance, you lease these projects, and the government has control over them going forward. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

Let me yield next to Mr. Meehan from Pennsylvania, a new 

member of the Committee. And you can give an opening statement 

or ask a question. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Chairman Mica, for the opportunity to 

be part of this very important moment. And I appreciate that Governor Rendell took the time to come and took two different subways to get here. I’m noting how life changes when the state police 

aren’t here. The governor’s been a great proponent of transportation in Pennsylvania. 

42 

We asked this question a couple different ways, Governor. But I 

worked on the one thing that, really, I think addresses the major 

concern all of us are going to have as we look at funding long term 

commitments to transportation. 

I’m aware right now that lot of the way that we fund transportation now is through taxes, which frankly is going down. We lost 

$35 billion dollars, which is a good thing, I guess, since we’re not 

consuming as much oil. 

But what have you learned from the work you did when you 

tried to look at a way to make the turnpike operable? That would 

give a sense of being close as you can guarantee those nay sayers, 

that the private sector will step in and give you a sense of confidence in the financial commitment that allows you to match that 

with the government commitment? 

Mr. RENDELL. Three things. 

One, the government will lease and not sell. 

Two, we were prepared to do what Congressman Mica said with 

the unions, we were prepared to guarantee rates of employment in 

the contract lease, the contract with the private operators. 

And three, we’re going to control the rate of return by agreeing 

to follow a schedule. And if you do sell—I’m not saying necessarily 

you should—you’ve got sudden competition. 

If you are a private operator of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, you 

want to maintain that very, very well, because as you know, Congressman, there’s I–80, just above the turnpike, and it is free. So 

you better maintain it well or people will drive on to alternate 

routes. That’s number one, and I think it’s very, very important. 

Two, in terms of how we finance, the private sector has to be 

part of it. I sound like a broken record, over and over again. You 

all realize that * * * The only political subdivision in this country 

that doesn’t have a capital budget? Mayor Bloomberg would not 

have done the incredible things with New York City infrastructure 

without a capital budget. 

For the first time, Pennsylvania is decreasing the number of 

structurally deficient bridges, 1600 bridges at the same time, because of the money invested in our capital budget and because of 

the stimulus. 

The Federal Government is the only political subdivision without 

a capital budget. It pays for paper clips with a 40 day life span the 

same way it helps to build bridges with a 40 year life span. No 

business would do that, no other government would do that. 

I know that the OMB and CBO want a capital budget. I think 

Congress should take control away from the bean counters and do 

what everybody else does; get a capital budget. The American Society of Civil Engineers says we need $2.2 trillion just to keep the 

American infrastructure in fair condition. That’s not even talking 

about high speed rail. If you did have a capital budget, $2 trillion, $3 trillion, it would 

be doable. We would figure that we’re going to need so many jobs, 

we’d revitalize American manufacturing. I can’t understand why 

nobody pays any attention to the capital budget. 

Mr. MICA. The Mayor has asked to respond. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. There’s a difference between government and 

private development. The private side has some capital, there’s adVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:30 Jul 27, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULLCO~1\1-27-1~1\65480.TXT JEAN
43 

ditional sources of capital. There is expertise, from my experience, 

in both the private sector and the government, and you can get expertise in either one. 

So what are the real differences? There’s two things. Being able 

to adjust the size of the work force to the need, and being able to 

charge whatever the market will bear. If you don’t want to have 

those two things—it’s a perfectly reasonable position—then the taxpayer is going to have to subsidize it. 

And the taxpayers have got to decide, do they want to guarantee 

jobs and do they want guaranteed below market rates for what you 

charge straphangers and people who go through toll booths, or people who get water by the gallon? Or do they want to let the markets do that? But you can’t have it both ways. Those are four reasons, four differences between the private sector and the public sector, for financing any of this stuff. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

I recognize now the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Gibbs. He is the 

new chair of the Water Resources Subcommittee. Our Committee 

welcomes you. You’re recognized for an opening statement or question. 

Mr. GIBBS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s a pleasure to be here 

for what’s going on in this corridor. It’s interesting to realize this 

corridor was part of the congestion, and I agree. That’s the reason 

why I’m here from Ohio. 

I guess I wanted to try to expound on it a little bit. I think 

Mayor Bloomberg kind of hit on it the most. I was in the Ohio Senate last year and served on the Transportation Committee. And I 

was really concerned about the proposal that came to Ohio as part 

of that $8 billion from the Feds, and $400 million from Ohio, to 

build quote, what they think is high speed rail. 

It turned out it wasn’t going to be high speed rail in Ohio. It was 

39 miles average speed. 

And the second lesson to be learned is, it was going to be on the 

freight system. 

The question was, who is going to have priority, freight or passenger? I think everybody here pretty much said—I know the governor did—it has to be a separate system. I agree with that. 

I think we have to keep in mind the situation the Federal Government has gotten themselves into now, budgets and economic 

deficits and debt. And I think that to move forward, there’s going 

to have to be a public private partnership. I don’t think we can expect the taxpayer to do everything. I think Mayor Bloomberg hit 

on that a little bit. We have to work on that. 

So I think that one lesson I learned in Ohio, we also have to 

have connectivity. You can’t build a high speed rail system from 

Point A to Point B and don’t have place for people to go off the high 

rail system. That’s what you’ve got here, Washington, D.C. to New 

York, you’ve got a place to go. I think that’s great. We didn’t have 

that. 

I want to say, too, we have to make sure there’s a proposal out 

there that makes economic sense. The private sector has to buy in 

and be part of that partnership. And when you move forward 

across the country, you diffuse, dilute the funds, as mentioned. In 

44 

Ohio we’re glad we have a new governor who’s returned that 

money, not * * * To cost more money to begin with. 

So you lose credibility when you advocate for high rail, press for 

a project that doesn’t make any economic or common sense. So I’m 

glad to hear that. We can move forward and have projects that 

make sense and private sector capital is involved, with private 

business can have competition, and then that might be something 

to look forward to. 

But my second reason for being involved in this is because, as 

Chairman Mica said, 70 percent of the air traffic congestion problems arise in this corridor, and has an impact throughout the country. 

Mr. Chairman, I don’t have a question. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your statement and participation. 

I yield next to another subcommittee chair. The gentleman from 

California who is going to chair the Economic Development, Public 

Buildings and Emergency Management Subcommittee of the House 

Transportation Committee; the gentleman from California, Mr. 

Denham, for his opening statement or question. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. 

Good morning. I represent an area in California recently granted 

a large sum of money for high speed rail. It is being started in a 

small town called Borden, which I represented for eight years now. 

The problem was, I went and asked anybody in my district where 

the town of Borden was. They said that was the town that was 

there 70, 80 years ago. 

So my concern is, as we move forward, my question to Mayor 

Bloomberg and Governor Rendell, as co-chairs with Governor 

Schwarzenegger of the organization Building America’s Future: 

What is the goal of this organization, and how important is it to 

build America’s future to achieve high speed passenger rail in the 

Northeast Corridor? And what safeguards are put in place to insure that decisions aren’t made out of the blue for political reasons, 

or money being spent—an expanded budget that continues to grow 

outside of what the taxpayers already approved? 

Mr. RENDELL. There is no question that’s a problem. If we see 

a problem it doesn’t make any sense to spend a whole lot of money 

for low speed; it’s not going to accomplish anything. We know how 

precious dollars are. We want every dollar to be spent well and 

bring us maximized return on our investment. 

The answer to your question is, problems like this, in my judgment—I’d like the Mayor to follow up. We think projects like this 

should have to go to something like a National Infrastructure 

Bank. The President has talked about creating one. It should be 

staffed by transportation experts, former state DOT directors, academics, people who work in the business, people from finance. They 

would make the decisions, totally devoid of politics; and employ a 

cost benefit analysis. The Penn study did a great cost benefit analysis. 

That’s how major transportation projects should be decided. Not 

who’s a powerful Congressman—no offense to the men and women 

on this panel—but it should be on a cost benefit analysis: What is 

the national benefit? What is the regional benefit? What is the economic benefit? What is the demonstration benefit? 

45 

It can only be done by taking it out of the political process. Who 

would set the criteria for an infrastructure bank and make its decisions? Congress. You would write into the bill an agency that creates what the infrastructure and the criteria could be; even decide 

what the weighting would be. Improvement of the environment, reduces CO2 to the environment. There has to be criteria taken into 

consideration. 

Benefit to existing business, cutting cost, that would be considered. All things that enter into cost benefit analysis, that’s how we 

should be deciding major projects. 

By the way, that is not in any way an expression of lack of confidence in the men and women of Congress. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. I would answer differently. I think if there’s a 

local interest with their money on the line, they will insure that 

the project has some value. They may make mistakes. But you 

want to get it down to the lowest level of whatever you’re trying 

to build is actually used. 

So, I’ve always thought that Congress made a terrible mistake 

with all the stimulus money by not having a local component. 

‘‘You’ll have X dollars, but you have to put in a certain percentage 

of that yourself.’’ 

That’s local politicians, the local public, the local community 

boards, the local press, would insure there is a need for the project; 

because they would have some of their own skin in the game, if you 

will. Instead, Congress comes and says, ‘‘We’re going to build something,’’ and you find out that the town wasn’t there for 70 years. 

Get down to the operating level, and then you will get a lot more 

real feedback in terms of whether it’s a valuable project. 

Mr. RENDELL. We have a very significant match, and the local 

has a much greater share * * * Transportation project * * * Federal Government share. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota, and he is the new vice 

chair of the Aviation Subcommittee, Mr. Cravaack. 

Mr. CRAVAACK. Thank you. I want to be the first guy not to have 

to tap his microphone this morning. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the time. I thank the 

panel. I appreciate your being here today and taking the time from 

your valuable schedule. 

I truly admire the passion that you all have for the Northeast 

Corridor; and I applaud the move of the government and/or private 

sector cooperation. 

But I also come with a caution. I come with a caution from the 

American public who sent the 112th Congress to Washington, D.C. 

to be fiscally responsible. And my question is—and it’s a generic 

question: 

Where will it leave the Nation in order to come up with the financing? How much more are we going to borrow from—as Mr. 

Scardelletti so aptly put it—from Communist China? 

How much more in debt is this Nation going to become, which 

is now rapidly approaching our gross domestic product? 

So I applaud and I therefore strongly encourage this distinguished panel, so that we all can advance this project forward, to 

seek a private sector competition and to invest and attain the best 

46 

transportation system at the most efficient cost to the American 

taxpayer. 

Additionally, I applaud—I thought my name was hard—Ms. 

Todorovich, for bringing up another point of government bureaucracy in the environmental impact study and how long it’s taken to 

obtain this. 

I would look very well into trying to expedite this project and trying to get an environmental impact statement out to the public, so 

we can start moving this project forward. We in Minnesota have 

our own challenges with environmental impact studies, as well. So 

I agree with you wholeheartedly on that. 

So, bottom line is, I thank you very much for the passion that 

you all have. I look forward to this committee and working for this 

project and maintaining a fiscal responsibility to the American taxpayer. 

So thank you. 

Mr. RENDELL. On the debt issue, we’ve run up a lot of debt very 

recently and gotten very little for it. Give us the debt to do this 

work, this infrastructure, and you will get millions of new jobs, we 

will get the revitalization of American manufacturers. That’s important. It is probably the number one issue in the mind of the 

public right now. 

Number 2, the November 2010 election. Deficit reduction and 

spending cuts were paramount in the election itself. Yet 61 percent 

of transportation ballot initiatives were approved by voters 

throughout the country by an overwhelming amount of 64 percent 

yes votes, for either increased tolls, taxes or increased borrowing. 

The American people get investing in infrastructure as something important to them, to their quality of life, to public safety, 

and to job creation, real, good paying jobs, as the union representative said. 

So if we’re going to have debt, let’s get something in return on 

the investment. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

Waiting patiently for his opening statement or question, the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Reed. I thank you for your patience. 

Mr. REED. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m happy to be here in 

New York City. As the Chairman said, I’m from Indiana, and my 

governor and the state has done a few novel things with the infrastructure in my state. It’s called for major moves that resulted in 

now over 200 infrastructure project being funded, primarily by the 

turnover of the management of the interstate highway system in 

our state to a private company, leaving the state government with 

almost $4 billion being distributed, as I said, to 200 projects across 

the state. 

My question is for Mr. Scardelletti. Related to the fact that I 

grew up in Illinois, my dad was a coal miner, I was raised with respect for the workers. And I’m here today because of my dad’s well 

paying job in the coal mines. 

That being said, I’m also familiar with the history of the safety 

record of the coal mining industry, starting out in the early part 

of the 20th century; and the government involvement in regulation 

and work rules which have been developed over the years, to help 

make the work environment very safe in that industry. 

47 

And my question is: On public-private involvement in projects 

such as that, does it matter if there are good jobs for the government or good jobs for your members working for the private sector 

at the organization level? 

I’m curious why there would be resistance to any job creation, 

whether public or private, and what the downside to that would be; 

knowing that, in my view, local, state and Federal Government has 

passed laws historically to promote worker safety and worker 

rights. 

So, thank you. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I want to thank each of our panelists, too, 

for their participation. I want to go now to questions. 

I owe a public apology to Ms. Hayworth as she didn’t get to make 

a commentary. I didn’t realize she had to leave early. She’s not on 

the panel but she was great to come out today in support of this 

effort, and I request unanimous consent that her statement be 

made part of the record without objection. 

So ordered. 

Now I’ll go to questions, a round of questions. Ms. Brown has 

been patiently waiting to ask a question. 

Ms. Brown? 

Ms. BROWN. I do have a question. First, from a previous statement, I want to clear something up. It’s very important that we 

don’t mislead the people in this room. When we came up with the 

$8 billion dollars, we received, the Federal Government received, 

the Department of Transportation received, over 270 applications. 

And keep in mind, those proposals were put together by region. 

When the person said he didn’t know, he was just elected. Keep in 

mind, that mayor, that community, put in an application. We didn’t 

just award a grant. It was applied and they went through an extensive study. Just to keep the record straight. 

And when you mentioned—keep in mind, whatever system we 

developed, we’re looking at a system that is completely external. 

There is no system in Europe or Asia that is an integrated system 

like we are in the Northeast Corridor. So when we develop a system, let’s keep that in mind. 

Because one of the things—this is the second time for the 

English to put their proposal out. The first time they had to take 

it back because of the number of accidents occurring in the system. 

So all of these facts you have to keep in mind as you develop a 

comprehensive system. Let’s keep that in mind. 

Let me go to my question. 

The Republican Committee in their proposal last year, that 

would eliminate all funding for Amtrak, which we experienced for 

eight years in the Republican administration, which would force 

the railroad into bankruptcy; strand hundreds of thousands of commuters, and eliminate a minimum of 20,000 jobs nationwide. 

The Committee also proposed to resend the $2.5 billion of the 

high speed rail fund it awarded to the states that goes to the 2008 

Federal funding level. There was no high speed rail program in 

2008. 

My question is, how do we educate members the importance of— 

we are talking about high speed rail, we’re talking about high 

speed, more speed, in all of the hearings they always talk about 

48 

high speed is important. What is also important is reliable train 

times, knowing it will come at 8:00 every day. 

How do we develop and educate new members who may come 

from areas that don’t understand the importance of developing a 

comprehensive system? 

And the union person, I also want to know whether or not you 

think that those are union jobs? Because when I travel those systems, it is interesting. How many jobs are in the system and how 

safe the systems are? 

Mr. HART. Congresswoman, I’ll take a quick shot at that. 

We are very focused on a public awareness campaign, and it is 

not only targeted to Members of Congress, but to the public in general. Most of the public is not aware of the value that rail transportation contributes to America. Freight rail, passenger rail, high 

speed rail. It is very important that people understand the benefits 

that rail transportation provides. 

And also, the outstanding record that Amtrak has done in certain markets. And it is not at all in the interest of America to zero 

out Amtrak’s budget. It is important, though, that Amtrak realize 

it must do better in operating its system and upgrading its focus 

as a priority urgency to bring high speed rail to Americans. 

Mr. MICA. Mr. Scardelletti, a question was directed to you. 

Mr. SCARDELLETTI. Thank you for you comments. 

The rail labor unions have been involved in the railroad industry 

since the 1800s. And through all these years we have established 

a wage scale and benefit level that is clearly what is described as 

middle class. And they’re good jobs and most people who work on 

the railroad work their entire life; and then they retire on a pension that’s funded by our employers and by the employees for the 

rest of their life. 

There are Federal laws, safety laws, and I don’t think anybody 

can match that. But if we are privatized, the private sector—what 

I see in this scenario is, it’s all about beating down the worker to 

the new wage level, which is 12 bucks. Everybody wants to pay 12 

bucks, to compete with our friends in China; which is insane, in my 

opinion. 

You mentioned the zero funding. You work for a company that 

every year a group, the president of the United States wants zero 

funding, put you out of business. 

How in the world are you going to take that company, to try to 

make improvements, when half of the government wants to put 

them out of business? It’s not going to happen. We have all these 

things you’re talking about now. 

We would have them today, if a series of presidents of our country, both parties, would have took the initiative to say, ‘‘Let’s invest 

in Amtrak and have high speed rail, like the French government 

and all the other governments did to create their high speed rail.’’ 

Our country didn’t do that. Our Congress, half for it, half against 

it, and we just get by. What we do, we get by. 

But it’s been here throughout all the fights, all the Congresses 

and all the zero budgets, it’s still here, 40 years. 

Amtrak still provides the best service that can possibly be provided under the conditions that our government mandates to Amtrak. You can’t do all these things. You can straighten the rail out, 

49 

you have to end all these curves in the Northeast Corridor, and you 

will get your fast trains. 

There’s no will to do it from our government. It is up to the government. We could have had it. We wouldn’t even have this conference. We’d have high speed rail and the other countries would 

be talking about us instead of us talking about them. That’s what 

I see. 

Mr. MICA. We’re now seven minutes into this, and I would like 

to yield to Mr. Shuster and then continue quickly. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

To keep the record straight, the stimulus, as my good friend 

points out—there was criteria put in place. We think the FRA 

used, but we don’t know, because they won’t share that information 

with Congress—when they put those dollars out there, if they used 

the criteria to do that. I have my doubts, and now that we’re in 

the majority we might be able to find out exactly how those dollars 

were spread throughout the country. 

I agree with the governor and the mayor that dribs and drabs 

around this country are not going to get us high speed rail. 

Respectfully, I don’t think Amtrak is currently capable of putting 

this kind of program into place—maybe a partner to it, but I think 

we have to have private sector dollars invested. The Amtrak plan 

is out there, spend $52 billion for the next 30 years. It won’t get 

us high speed rail. 

We need to partner with private sector dollars, and to bring the 

private sector in to give them a piece of the action and a return 

on their investment. So I think there are people out there who are 

willing to do it as long as we in Congress and the stakeholders are 

willing to be involved. 

Again, Amtrak spending $52 billion over 30 years won’t increase 

capacity. And, in fact, they said 20, 40. If they spent $52 billion 

they would be maxed out on capacity. So we really have to look at 

this in a smarter way. We’ve got to make sure that the money 

being invested makes sense. We need all the stakeholders involved. 

Mr. Scardelletti, rail labor is extremely important to this. We’ve 

got to look beyond the way the country has done things in the past. 

I think your brothers and sisters in freight rail are doing very well 

for themselves. They’re working for private companies. 

Again, the question that was put out there and I want to ask 

you: Does it really matter, if we get the guarantees for labor unions 

to be part of this system? Does it really matter if it’s private sector 

or public sector or the company that you are working for? 

Mr. SCARDELLETTI. Here’s my experience. Amtrak started 40 

years ago. I know what we have. In my opinion, part of the objective in moving to the private sector is to reduce everything we 

have. 

Mr. SHUSTER. But in the freight system you are getting more dollars. When you work without a contract for several years the Federal Government won’t negotiate with you. The private sector folks 

are doing quite well. And, I might add, are increasing job opportunities. 

Amtrak over the last ten years has lost 10,000 jobs; 800,000 over 

the years. I think if we take a new model, a new approach to this, 

50 

not only can we stabilize, I think we can increase the employment 

in the high speed passenger rail system. 

Mr. SCARDELLETTI. You use that remark you made about the loss 

of jobs. We have lost the same amount of jobs in freight railroads, 

or more. The loss of jobs is a result of technology that we can’t stop. 

For example, we had carbon paper, that’s how you did everything. 

You made carbon copies and you had a copy machine and you had 

a lot of people and the equipment broke down a lot and you had 

to repair it a lot. 

Today’s equipment is far more efficient. On the internet * * * 

There is no paper. This is where the jobs went, just like in any 

other corporation. Could Amtrak put more trains on the track? We 

have more riders than we ever had. So that’s not why we lost the 

jobs. 

We lost the jobs because we’re more productive as people, and all 

people are today in all industries. And technology has literally—if 

you had ten people, you might need one, or none, because the computer does it. That’s where the jobs went. That’s all I’m saying. 

Mr. SHUSTER. If you had high speed rail and it grew, these jobs 

would follow, whether on the train, whether they’re producing 

new—— 

Mr. SCARDELLETTI. I don’t disagree with you. If you gave a company established in 1970 the motivation and the money to do what 

you want, and they didn’t do it, that would be a whole different 

hearing. I might agree with some of what you said. Instead, you 

beat them down at every turn of the corner. You beat them down, 

discouraged employees. How would you like to work for a company 

where you didn’t get a raise for years? 

Mr. SHUSTER. I haven’t got a raise in three years. I’m in Congress. Sometimes you have to deal with that. 

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman. His time has expired. I hope 

you guys can stay around for the discussion. 

I yield to our ranking member, the gentleman from West Virginia, Mr. Rahall. 

Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the yield. 

You know, we had matters in this Committee on Transportation 

and Infrastructure in the past over worker protection. Bob, you recall them very well; 13C protection for transit workers. But I have 

a great deal of confidence that this year we’ll be working together 

and there’s not going to be these wholesale attacks on worker protection. Certainly not in the Northeast Corridor, where it’s needed 

more than ever. 

I said that the other day in our Committee. I hope our politics 

ends at our committee’s doors when we work on these issues of 

transportation. 

Mayor, I understand your criticism for the lack of any local 

match. You stated that was one of the problems with the stimulus 

program. Of course, the goal of the stimulus program is to get 100 

percent of it out there as quickly as possible. 

But in the PRIIA act, we have established for the grant program 

where a 20 percent local match is required; and that just started 

in 2010. So I hope those issues, yours about local concern, which 

I share, will be resolved in the PRIIA act as it gets implemented. 

51 

One of the criticisms that we heard on the PRIIA act—or rather, 

one of these processes set in place for the PRIIA act—in 2008, for 

the DOT to request proposals from the private sector for financing 

high speed rail service grants in certain corridors, including the 

Northeast Corridor. Yet no one has submitted a proposal to DOT. 

So my question would be to you, or to other members of this 

panel: Why have there not been private proposals submitted to 

DOT? 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. I think the answer to that is that nobody 

thought the government would let the project satisfy the demands 

of the market. The government would constantly intervene and 

prevent the investor from charging what the market will bear; preventing the developer from adjusting the size of the work force 

based on the needs of the system. 

And if you stack the deck against them, all you’re doing is transferring the problem from one to another. There’s no reason why the 

other side would want to take that on. 

I was struck by Congressman Cravaack’s comment on China. 

And one thing; when you think about China—nobody is more of a 

capitalist than I am. And I really don’t think that capitalism is the 

only system, I don’t think that we should privatize everything in 

government. There are certain things, at least in New York City— 

which I have a little bit of expertise in—that work quite well with 

government. I’m quite proud of what we have done here. 

But it is true that the Chinese must be doing something right, 

because they’re the ones that are loaning us the money so we can 

subsidize things like Amtrak. Whereas, if you took the amount 

money that we spend on Amtrak and divide it by the number of 

riders and offer everybody that amount of money, they’d mostly 

walk. 

This is ridiculous. Nobody needs—I’m the biggest proponent of 

high speed rail service. But you have to get serious. Do you want 

to build out or do you want a jobs creation program? 

And one of the problems with the stimulus thing is, we talked 

about wanting to get people working quickly, and we also want to 

do infrastructure. Remember shovel ready and that sort of thing? 

Go back to the way we came out of the Depression. We built all 

of the major municipal buildings; we built the railroads; we built 

the bridges. 

That’s what we did with that money, but it took a while to get 

going. 

We can’t have it both ways. If you’re going to create jobs right 

away, you’re going to waste most of it. If you want to build for the 

future, you have to plan and you have to say, ‘‘OK, if the project 

doesn’t justify the investment, we’re not going to do it.’’ 

That politically today may just be so naive and so unrealistic 

that we can’t do it. That’s what you guys and women have to wrestle with. What are you trying to do? And you can’t do everything. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have to go worry and make sure we 

clean the snow. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mayor, for being with us. And I know Governor Rendell only has a couple of minutes. He changed his entire 

schedule. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. Anything Ed says I’m in favor of. 

52 

Mr. MICA. Thank you both for coming on a difficult day, for your 

leadership. You guys have been fantastic. The Committee owes you 

a debt of gratitude. We hope you continue to work with us. We’re 

all headed in the right direction. We have a couple of bumps in the 

road before we get there. 

VOICE. One question to the Mayor. Is that your snow shovel outfit? 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. I don’t have a Class C license, so I couldn’t 

drive a plow. 

Mr. MICA. Governor, I’ll excuse you. You can go ahead and scoot 

if you have to leave. 

Mr. RENDELL. Thanks very much for you all being here. It’s impressive that so many came out, given the weather forecast and impediments. I also want to say to all of you, I know we’ve got proposals for spending the money. 

I think the President was right last night. We’ve got to cut the 

deficit, but we’ve also got to keep investing. There isn’t a business 

out there that’s successful that doesn’t invest in itself. If you stop 

investing, you stop growing as a country. If you stop growing as a 

country, you’ll be a second rate power relatively soon. You’ve got 

to find a way to do both. The only way to do both is to forget about 

the election, and spend this year trying to find real solutions to 

real problems. 

The fact you are here, the fact that the Chairman and * * * 

Really supply advice and leadership on this. We can do big things 

in America again. This is a big thing. You shouldn’t shy away from 

this because it’s difficult. You shouldn’t shy away because of cost. 

It’s a lot of money. We could put people to work. We can make this 

transportation system first class. We can lead the world again. 

Mr. MICA. What I’d like to do is, I know you’re leaving, and 

thank you again, Governor, for being with us. We have the other 

three panelists. If you would please join us in our discussion, our 

open forum is open to the public. We’ll try to start that a little 

early, maybe about 12:45. That will give members and other folks 

a few minutes to reconvene. 

If you have any closing comments, Mr. Scardelletti? 

Mr. SCARDELLETTI. Mr. Chairman, I want to make one—I’m not 

trying to be obstructionist. The Mayor said about the subsidy to 

Amtrak, ‘‘you could walk.’’ That is really unfair. Who is going to 

walk? Where are you going to get these millions of people, how are 

you going to move them? You could say the same thing about bus, 

air and highways, how much money our government put it highways. 

How much money does our government put into highways? How 

much money does it put into airways? So that’s not the right thing. 

That’s not the kind of thing that is conducive to good debate, to say 

that kind of comment. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

We have to give the opportunity to respond. 

Ms. Todorovich, any closing comments? 

Ms. TODOROVICH. Yes, thank you. 

Quickly, on the local match issue. No high speed rail system 

around the world has been built with significant local contribuVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:30 Jul 27, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00066 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULLCO~1\1-27-1~1\65480.TXT JEAN
53 

tions. If we rely on 20 percent local match from each of the 12 

states in the Northeast, it’s never going to happen. I think the governor pointed out that there’s a $47 billion combined deficit among these states. So there’s a paradox, in that the 

Northeast mega-region is the place in the country most suited for 

high speed rail anyplace in the United States, with the density and 

the population. 

But it’s also the most difficult place to build this system because 

we’re crossing all these state boundaries. 

If this committee is serious about building two dedicated tracks 

for high speed rail, I think you have to develop a new public authority or a public benefit corporation, or some type of entity that 

has the ability to finance and raise revenue and hold firms accountable and get this project done. 

If we rely on an infrastructure advisory commission—everything 

is advisory—it’s never going to happen. That’s something that I 

would look to all of your leadership for. 

Mr. MICA. Great comments. 

Mr. Hart. 

Mr. HART. Chairman Mica, thank you and the members here 

today for giving me the opportunity to present a couple of thoughts. 

Congressman Rahall, your point about private sector investment. 

I’ve been involved in this for a while. I want to continue to advocate for private investment. 

The most important thing to public-private investment is consistency. They hate change, and they’re not going to invest big money 

if one government supports high speed rail, and a new governor or 

new legislature comes in and cancels it. 

And that is why the Florida project is so important, and why 

Chairman Mica’s leadership, along with Congresswoman Brown, in 

compelling a new model, where the shortfall in the match can be 

made up by private sector investment. 

And that is going to happen. It will be a $300 billion investment 

from some entity. And there are eight private companies that are 

competing in Florida. Let them compete and let them make the 

commitment to invest, take the risk in management and operations, maintenance and operations; they will do it, if the level of 

playing field is consistent and the commitment to high speed rail 

is consistent. 

The Tampa-Orlando route is not the worst route in the country. 

It’s also not the best route, but it is a start. The route from Orlando to Miami is extremely opportunistic for investment. So continuing to motivate the private sector, give them the opportunity 

to put the money up, and they will do it. 

Thank you. That’s my closing comment. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Hart. 

We are pleased, again, to be here in New York, and pleased to 

have Mr. Nadler who is a senior member of our T&I Committee. 

I’d like recognize him. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I wanted to start with Mr. Hart. Mr. Hart observed, I think correctly, that you are not going to get private sector investment on 

a long term project if you have very uneven public sector involvement. 

54 

Things can change on a dime, because today you have an administration and a Congress willing to put money, and tomorrow you 

don’t. Maybe next year you do again. You need certainty in planning. 

This leads me to the conclusion that, obviously, if you’re going to 

have high speed rail—or for that matter bring up a rail up to a 

state of good repair—we have to have it in the public sector. However much the private sector wants to get involved, we must have 

some certainty in the public sector. We must have some guaranteed 

funding source. 

We must have assurance that, depending on the vicissitudes of 

this election, after this election, we don’t double the financing, and 

after the next election zero it out, and after the next election after 

that, triple it. 

You have got to have some guaranteed funding source at some 

reasonable level, which may go up and down from time to time but 

returns to a reasonable level; so that, number one, the public sector 

can participate; and number two, so you can get the private sector 

to participate in either one of them. 

I would ask Mr. Hart or the Governor to comment. 

Mr. HART. I agree with you, Congressman. That’s very important 

and I consider it to be political sustainability; financial sustainability, environmental sustainability. Political sustainability is the 

objective here, and it will spark private sector investment. We do 

need a dedicated fund, revenue for high speed rail; and Amtrak 

needs additional funding, as well. 

So I agree with your observations. 

Mr. RENDELL. Congressman, I would say that’s another reason 

for an infrastructure bank. If we did it, Congress has control of the 

amount of its capacity. But that’s going to be there administration 

after administration. It’s going to make a binding commitment for 

the long term, whatever the public subsidy will be, obviously 

matched by the private sector. It’s going to have the ability to 

make those long term commitments. 

Mr. MICA. I yield to Mr. Reed. 

Mr. REED. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have a closing comment in response to my colleague, Ms. Brown 

from Florida, about the proposed cuts out there; specifically Amtrak. 

My philosophical point is: The freshman class gave up a tremendous amount to go to Washington, D.C. We were charged by the 

American people on November 2nd to get our deficit under control 

and make the hard decisions and cut spending down in Washington, D.C. 

I am committed and I am aware, Mr. Chairman, that we are 

having this discussion as to where we’re going to spend our Federal 

dollars in a public session, with all these people here, so that this 

debate can be open, it can be vigorous. 

And I am so pleased that our leadership down in Washington has 

been engaged in the open rules, so that this discussion can continue on the floor of the House. Because the pros and cons of each 

dollar being spent has to be discussed in public. Through that public dialog and through that public scrutiny, we’ll get certainty. BeVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:30 Jul 27, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00068 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULLCO~1\1-27-1~1\65480.TXT JEAN
55 

cause there will be a commitment from the American people to 

know our dollars are being spent wisely. 

And I’m just honored to be part of this debate and I appreciate 

the Chairman, and we’re going to have this debate publicly. And 

those final decisions will be made with that participation. 

And I yield the rest of my time. 

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman. 

Any other members that seek a last comment or recognition? 

Thank you so much for coming out today. Thank you, Governor. 

Thank you Ms. Todorovich. I want to thank labor, Mr. Scardelletti, 

Mr. Hart of the High Speed Rail Association. 

There being no further business before the Transportation Infrastructure Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, this 

meeting is adjourned. 

And I invite you to participate in the open discussion that will 

follow. 

[Whereupon, at 12:18 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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