into the consideration of the costs and benefits of the various projects that could be pursued under the settlement act? >> senator i think in looking at -- you know obviously when we do our studies one of the areas that we look at are alternative approaches. as you pointed out, i think that will be something that does get scrutiny. as to what are the water supply demands that are trying to be betmy be project first of all. and then what are the option available to meet that demand? overall through our history and in my prior capacity i have the opportunity to spend time up. here and testify for water resources. one of the things i went back and looked at, the back of the envelope speculations for the relative different types of projects that we have. there were a couple of large-scale storage projects one was the black rock reservoir proposal another one in

california, the auburn dam. the cost per acre foot of overall project cost versus yield somewhere in the neighborhood of 17,000 of $46,000 per acre foot. you look at the water smart conservation proposal that we have gotten, water conservation is not going to create a new supply for a new demand. but it certainly can lead to saving water, being able to put that in storage, maintaining flexibility in a situation. those are down from $500-$800 per acre foot. the title 16 water reuse projects that we have, which have great drought resistance aspects to them, they're -- they provide water in times of plenty as well as times of shortage. they are about $8,000 per acre foot. it gives you the kind of range's. we made investments. the projects in the yakima river basin are around $2500 per acre foot. the major infrastructure

improvement in california tie between two canals which resulted in about 40,000-acre foot per year on average $850 per acre foot. cheapest water in the west. so we are making improvements that i i think are adding to the bottom line of water availability. every project needs to be evaluated on its own merits, but it shows you the range and the differences. and quite frankly what we found is we have a lot of demand for these water reuse and conservation projects. water managers, this is not a federally driven program. we have the availability, but we are getting applications on a yearly basis that greatly exceed the available resources because water managers view that as the best opportunity to yield water supply. in a lot of cases much better than large storage. >> thank you. and i appreciate your focus on looking quite transparentally at the cost per acre foot and the yield of these individual projects.

i think that's incredibly important given the stress we're at west wide now. ms. cody i want to move to you now. for a number of years now the bureau of reclamation has leased water from the local water utility to maintain flows in the rio grande necessary to support local wildlife populations. many have suggested expanding that program to lease water from local irrigators on a voluntary basis. can you can you tell us a little bit about how water leasing has been used in other states around the west to meet water needs and what new mexico should keep in mind as we consider expanding the toolbox. >> thank you for the question. the other areas that this has been done, i think we heard testimony here today in washington state where the department of ecology has worked with having water left in

streams by having people voluntarily agree to use that water. i don't know, honestly, if the state is paying for that. that would be a question for my colleague over here. california is another place where people with senior water rights have entered into long-term contracts with the municipal areas to move water on a voluntary basis. usually those are structured as a contract rec lalamation has done some work providing guidelines for long-term transfer of water and short-term transfer of water in those situations. so those options are out there. others have proposed to do similar things in other areas of the west command that could include new mexico. >> thank you. >> thank you, madam chairman nice to see you again. thank you for being here. you are aware of my efforts to pass legislation as 593 which

would compile the bureau's maintenance backlog that would be available to the public and updated every two years and your staff has been very helpful. you have been very helpful in working with my office to move this legislation. it unanimously passed the senate the last congress. will you commit to continue to work with me to move this legislation so that we can understand what the total backlog is and eventually the way to address it? >> yes, senator, for commitment. that's a very valuable bill. my staff does the same thing. your staff has been wonderful to work with. >> folks across the west, we are in serious need of more water. ranchers in my state, big horn basin, they need water to grow sal fall far and raise cattle. many have junior water rights and worry about getting the water that they need to keep there livelihood. the sentiment and the west has always been the old saying whiskey is for drinking, waters are fighting over. the best solution to solve the water crisis is to increase water storage in the west. the state of wyoming has developed a strategy to increase

water storage and i support them on this. i've introduced legislation, s 1305 to expand the storage capacity of the reservoir to provide more water for southwest wyoming. together we are looking at other options to expand our reservoirs. my question my question is, will you continue to work with me with governor mead to help move water storage projects forward. and what steps are you taking to address this need across the west for more water storage? >> to the wyoming specific examples that you referenced, senator, of course we will be happy to keep working. particularly i know we have had some activity on the font knell reservoir issue. we want to work through the technical aspects in particular, but it is -- i think it is demonstrating where we see that there is value and economic viability in particular looking at existing storage facilities. so yes, absolutely committed to

continue working with your office. overall we have a number of storage proposals that we are continuing to do work on, particularly in california, 2,004 legislation required us to look at for major new storage opportunities in california, one one of those dams is a facility in the delta itself did go through a phase one dam raise increased water stored by 60,000 acre feet. now looking at a second raise potentially another 1,00000,000 acre feet. we have completed some in there in the process of completing others. we're looking at increasing storage in the reservoir south of the delta and california and think that that might have a great opportunity to provide additional water supply. as i mentioned, we looked at smaller regulating reservoirs. one of the most successful aspects of that is brock reservoir on the lower colorado

river. obviously we got 60 million-acre feet of storage on the colorado river, quite frankly and trying to get more water into those existing facilities. facilities but there is great value in the regulating reservoir 8,000 acre feet. yielding about 60 to 70,000 acre feet of yield. $172 million. the major municipalities pay for that. we provided technical assistance and once again that proved to be a great value to the dollar per acre foot added. so it's not a comprehensive look across the west. it's more where there have been projects identified that we think there are responses for that want to look at storage and we certainly believe that's one of the tools we need to address our water resource challenges. >> i appreciate it. with increasing water water storage in terms of wyoming, the wyoming water development commission is working on creating a feasibility study on the bull lake reservoir. i know your familiar with that. congress enacting language,

broadening authorities under the safety of dams act. will your bureau then have the authority to integrate a dam safety fix at bull lake with the wyoming water development commission with the proposal to enlarge the facility? >> we need to look at that authority issued under our existing safety of dams legislation. but i don't think it warrants. we need to be looking as we're doing major corrective action to existing dams, we need to look at the opportunity to increase storage. but i do think there is an authority issue there that we need to work through cost share issues on that point. >> finally, in your written testimony you mentioned other witnesses have testified that the drought is not just in california but in many western states as well. and i believe any drought relief bill shouldn't just address california's drought crisis. there should be a west-wide drought relief. i'm wondering what you're hearing from western governors that you represent.

>> chairwoman, ranking member, senator, members of the community, the governors have been phenomenally engaged in the western governors drought forum. the invasion of our current chairman, brian sandoval of nevada. as we have gone across the west, senator, governor martinez of new mexico hosted a workshop on drought impacts on tourism and recreation. governor brown of california hosted a workshop on drought impacts on agriculture. mr. connor participated with us in las vegas when we did a workshop that governor sandoval hosted on drought's impacts on water supply. they fully recognize that this is a regional issue and it demands a regional collaborative solutions. >> thank you, madam chairman. >> thank you, senator.

senator frank en? >> thank you. we have been hearing from the testimony of the western united states experiencing record low snowpack, unusually dry weather, the warmest temperatures on record, and these drought conditions are having tremendous impacts on our communities and our economy. we've also heard the cooperation between states and western states and federal government and different entities. to address these impacts. to make matters worse, many climate models are projecting that portions of the west are just likely to get dryer and hotter. so now more than ever i believe that the federal government should take the lead in supporting research on how

climate change will exacerbate drought conditions like the ones we've been talking about today. mr. connor, what does the department of interior doing to better understand the impacts of these climate-related events? and how is that informing our understanding of what we're going to do going forward? >> thank you senator franken. we have a number of areas in which we are participating, particularly in the area of better understanding the impact of climate change on water resources and systemically trying to assess the right strategies. we participate in our us geological survey the global change program that helped put

together the national climate assessment. certainly within the department itself we have had a focus on putting together more transparent use of our water related data. not only can we use that but there's a lot of smart people outside the department. we have an open water data initiative to try and standardize data enough so that we can put it out and make it accessible. because we think others particularly in academia can help us understand the changes that have occurred to date and how to move forward. and from a more practical standpoint we have a basin study program within the bureau of reclamation and we are looking at opportunities to assess on a basin wide scale supply, demand imbalances over a 50-year period using the best climate data and downscale models to assess power supply changing on an individual basis.

>> as we go forward as we are projecting dryer, hotter weather going forward because of climate changes. is that going to make certain technologies suddenly economic where they were not before. anyone is free to comment. desalinization of brackish water in arizona. i think san diego has a billion-dollar desalization project that will deliver 7% of the county's needs. going forward, it seems like you mentioned the us geological survey. i know that, you know, the aqueducts in california, for example, go through some very arid areas. and there's a lot of evaporation. and i know the u.s. geological survey study covering certain -- in very low precipitation areas

covering the aqueducts so you don't lose the evaporation. going forward are we going to see certain approaches become economical, start to make sense like desalization or like that, covering the aqueducts? are we going to start seeing those things become economical? and anybody can weigh in. >> i will -- thank you. i will comment on -- we are for example, we are leasing water, one season leases. ten years ago we paid $137 an acre foot. this year it's about $275. and this is just a reverse option where we solicit bids from water right holders. so costs have doubled. with more frequent drought what does that mean for the cost of water? what does that mean for the cost of leasing? the yakima integrated strategy has some controversy around the benefit cost analysis.

one of the proposals is to have a pumping system set up because there are 200,000 acre feet of dead storage. if you could pitch that water down to yakima. 200,000 acre feet is an enormous amount of water for fish and agriculture. i think it could be that as water is more scarce projects like that make more economic sense. thank you. >> any other comment? >> senator frank up -- franken. look at some statistics for desalization of water. for example, in texas the desalinated brackish groundwater the cost is about $1000 per acre foot. for pacific ocean for pacific ocean desalinization is about $1500 to $2100 an acre foot. you can pay that was central arizona project cities to treat and deliver portable water at a about 1200 to $1,600 per acre foot. it's becoming more economical becoming more in the range of what we're seeing now for the costs of water. >> well, thank you.

i know that someone mentioned israel before. and they are doing these -- you know, they're a very arid area with a great agricultural sector and they are exploring desalization. as we go as we go ahead of the future there are certain technologies that will become economic. thank you. >> senator gardner? >> i'm happy to allow senator king to go. just flip-flop if we can. >> really one major question and i'm not sure who wants to tackle this. this may be something we take for the record. i'm interested in the historic data of water in the west. in other words are we facing a new crisis or are we seeing a return to a normal situation over the last thousand years or 10,000 years? and i think that's an important question because that will

inform our response. does anybody have any response to that question now or is this something that we have to look at? mr. conner do you have any background on that? >> i have a quick thought but i think it deserves more elab ration for the written record. we have about 100 years of stream flow data in most of the river basins that we've got. >> that's a blink of the eye. >> the blink of the eye. the example i want to give, and the last 15 year drought the end streamflow, the runoff is the lowest on record. over that peter -- period of drought. through tree ring data there has been research that is highlighted that it's in the lowest first percent isle of the last 1200 years. there are new mechanisms to look at what the -- the estimates of what the runoff within that basin has been and we are at the very lowest levels through that

tree ring data. we may have similar reconstructions of data in other basins that we can now start to compare to the find out where we're at saw how significant is this drought because drought of course is cyclic. >> i appreciate that. any further information, that's important to have to inform how we respond to this. i was in california in april of the mountains and was shocked to see the reservoirs, what looked like august levels in april with a should have been full. i was told the snowpack in the sierras was at 6% of normal. and i thought they said 60%. it was 94 percent down, which is just stunning. it seems to me that one of the things -- and you all have mentioned this at various parts of your testimony. we really need to talk about conservation and efficiency measures, not necessarily conservation don't use, but use more efficiently. low flow toilets, drip

irrigation, all of those kinds of techniques which are probably the lowest cost and i think you testified to this, mr. conner, of all the alternatives, those tend to be the lowest cost per acre foot as opposed to reservoirs, desalization and other technologies. is that accurate? >> absolutely one of the most efficient ways. it's the low-hanging fruit. particularly for municipalities, the appliances, the plumbing that they use. one area and our water smart program that we've been investing in since 2009 we have invested $460 million of federal money and yielded 860,000 acre feet of water that we view as conserved or contributed as new supply that we facilitied to that program. one of the ongoing. i looked a it the 50-plus projects that we just announced

a couple weeks ago, turf removal programs for a lot of municipalities are very highly leveraged in their water savings amongst municipalities in the west. >> one question about energy efficiency -- i'm thinking energy but water efficiency is price signals. what is the incentive for the efficiency if someone is putting in a low-flow toilet is there a price signal on the water that will make that a justifiable expense? are they doing it just to be good citizens or saving themselves money? i think this could be something we can discuss further but that's important. are we talking about incremental price savings. it seems to me that's an

important discussion. if water is the same price whether we're in a terrible drought or in a surplus situation there is no incentive for people to the that kind of efficiency. mr. michael, on your -- talk to me about your farm and the incentives for water efficiency. >> california, because of the regulatory climate we use every resource as carefully as we can. we have an incentive based on our cost of production to always use things as carefully as possible. we installed drip irrigation on 60% of our farm. we have successful claptive projects on modernization of our water district that benefits all the water users. so i think it's important as you mentioned, not only to look at the very large projects but also find ways to incentivize local efforts and work in collaboration with the bureau and federal agencies to help that along. and stream lining some of the

environmental requirements if you to were going to have participation by the private sector and storage projects there is ways to encourage other participation but we are very proactive in terms of our water resources. >> thank you, senator king. as we talk about updating our infrastructure and updates around the current one of the areas that we forget is efficiency or conservation is water systems that leak. how much water will lose because of age infrastructure. >> the key for holding this hearing today while we in the west talk about drought issues that may have spurred this hearing, all of us in the west could talk about water all day every day of the year regardless of a doubt or not. in parts of colorado today is flooding. two years ago in 2013 we saw

massive and catastrophic flooding in colorado intersparsed with drought in parts of the state as well. if you just look at the needs of colorado over the next several years by 2016 it's estimated that on municipal and industrial uses needs alone for water by the yeerz 2050 colorado will have to have an additional 600,000 to 1 million acre feet of water. that's just talking about future projected needs on our water supplies. if you look at what happens in colorado without that water over the next several decades we lose between 500 and 700,000 acres of farmland through urbanization and urban water transfers if we don't have the water that we need. we have done a good job of conservation in colorado. and we should look at ways to develop critical conservation approaches. in colorado we have basically

resulted through hard work of many people resulted in 18% water savings per capita in colorado since the year 2000. per capita water efficiency has resulted in an 18% per capita water conservation rate. if we hit the median level, though, of every water storage project that we need to get to that 600,000 to 1 million acre feet of water we're looking at a $15 billion infrastructure cost in colorado alone to development 600,000 acre feet of water that we need by 2050. that's a significant cost. if we build every water project in colorado that is under consideration, that is under construction, that is -- i guess the acronym is ipp. if we build all the plans that we have we still are somewhere between 500,000 to -- we're

somewhere between 180,000 and 500,000 acre feet short of the water we need in 2050. regardless of the drought which is severe and catastrophic in parts of this nation the conversation we have to have on water in the country is real. without drought, $15 billion in colorado alone to meet our needs by 2050. and so a couple of questions that i have to the bureau of reclamation. one of the concerns that we hear is giving more flexibility or power to the department of interior to manage water projects. i'm concerned about that and believe we need flexibleibilty at the local and state level do. you think additional flexibility at the local levels would be more prevl to more control at the federal level? >> the western governors have

adopted policy resolution water resource management in the west with the chairman's permission i'd like to submit that for the record. it is emphatic about the governors' -- about the state primacy over water management authority. >> and thank you. i think one of the challenges we also see is it has taken a dozen years for chatfield reservoir to receive the approvals that it needed to move forward in colorado. in northern colorado where the flooding is occurring we have another water storage project that started in 2004. and the nis project which could store tens of thousands of acre feet of water. but we don't have the necessary permits for that project. is there something we can do from a permit point of view to increase our ability to store more water? >> chairman woman murkowski

quoting from that self same policy resolution 2014-03 it should be flexible for decision make in construction of infrastructure account for regional differences and minimize the cost of compliance. >> and thank you. i think there are three legs of the stool to a sound water policy. number one is increased water storage as we see we need. number two is critical conservation what we with do to be more water efficient. number three is what you just said the federal-state-local partnership whether it's funding or planning to take advantage of every opportunity we can to store additional water. and one other project that i wanted to ask you about mr. conner. i had a conversation with

jennifer gamable. we talked about the arkansas value conduit. it has received funding over the last several years. but we need to move forward or figure out a way to move forward. the funding issues need to be resolved and we have to ramp up this project so we can build this 100 mile long pipeline to provide water to the people of the arkansas valley. what specific actions did the bureau of reclamation like to see at the local level or state level in order for the arkansas valley conduit to move forward? >> thank you senator nor that question. i think overall it is a time of transition with the arkansas valley conduit. our goal up to this point at the bureau of reclamation has been

to look at the permitting actions that need to be done. figure out the best alternative in moving forward and laying out that project and getting it to a full design phase. that's what we have been working over the last couple years to invest the money to get to the design phase and understand the costs. we are close to that transition point. what we've talked about over the last year is, is there a way to use state money. i know they've got a significant low-interest loan from the state. is that enough to get it started and phase in construction and serve some of that demand? i agree with you. it's a critical important project. and give us time to look at other programs that might be used to contribute to the cost of construction. i say that, as much as i think the administration has supported the robust budget and congress has added to it knowing the importance of water resource

issues we are in a bind with these rural water projects. and i think we're looking at 300 to 400 million more for the arkansas valley conduit. >> are there actions you would like to see contact my office with those so we can share those with the local operators and water managers. >> we will do that. absolutely, senator. >> thank you, madame chair. we have heard from the western senators. i know last night when i was chatting with my wife who live back in montana we checked on how the four kids were doing and how the three dogs were doing. and what does the rain gauge say. we just had a bunch of storms come through montana and may has been a pretty good month but the west is having drought. it's a serious issue. and though the drought conditions that we're seeing in montana are not as severe as those in california we still

face below average snow packs. we've seen much welcome rain storms over the last few weeks but they're not going to replace the summer snow pack runoff with the head waters, the three forks of the missouri that form are 30 miles away from where i grew up. in fact recent news reports including the flathead river basin showing that we're at 55% of normal snow levels. the cuteny river basin is reporting 16% of normal levels. so the concern now is we're looking at june 2nd is what does this mean for fire season coming up around the corner. montana has over 7 million federal acres that are at high or very high risk of wildfire. most of which are managed by the forest service. that's approximately one in four federally controlled acres in montana. and nearly two million of the forested acres are most in need

of some kind of treatment because they are near populated communities or critical watersheds. the hazardous treatments were only performed on 52% of the forests. and now we are looking at a significant fire season. our access to recreation our habitat, all of these critical montana treasures are at risk because of wildfire. your testimony mentions how a number of national forests in arizona were created primarily for the purpose of watershed protection. in fact i understand the city of phoenix set aside $200,000 for active forest management. the national forest project on arizona national forests. and the purpose as i understand it, the protect the watersheds supplying water to our

communities. could you expand on the risk to watersheds that unhealthy forests pose? >> senator certainly. in arizona we've looked at the condition of forests in pre-settlement times and there were less than 50 trees per acre and today there are 1,000 trees per acre. they are choked. in the 1980s we burned 85000 acres in those forests in the 1990s, 230 acres. in the 2000s, over 2 million acres have burned in the forest. so we are seeking ways to thin the forest. and honestly it's going more slowly than we like it to go. some of that is the restrictions under the endangered species act. and we look at transferring that stream lining to arizona to help

with our forest issues and our forest health. >> connecting the dots there what impact on the watershed does a wildfire pose? >> so after the wildfire, the erosion and runoff you get from soil going to the streams creates huge water quality problems. it increases the turbidity in the streams and raises the treatment costs for the cities who take the water out of the streams further downstream. that's one of the issues. it also chokes our reservoirs with silt and the reservoirs will fill up and lose capacity over the long term. we'll lose storage long term as well. that's one of the other issues that forest fires create. >> you mentioned a resolution in which the western governors' association adopted in wildland fire management. it draws attention to the use of

active forest and rangeland management as a means to prevent wildfire. how are healthy forests linked to helping maintain clean, reliable water for our communities? >> chairwoman murkowski, senator, western governors understand the interrelatedness and recognize that wildfires and water supply and forest management all impact one another. i think we would certainly subscribe to the comments of the previous witness and beyond that i would ask for the ability or permission to answer more fully for the record. >> thank you. lastly, for deputy conner, your testimony talks about how increased wildland fire risk

impacts public health and habitat for threatened and endangered species. what is the department doing to mitigate that risk? >> a couple of areas. to get to the point that you were talking abilityout, there is not sufficient funding we would like to see with hazardous fuels redestruction. we tried to expand the interest and the partnerships available to deal with that. and the bureau of reclamation we started a western water enhancement partnership for the reason you identified here. we had a couple of situations in colorado where denver faced massive maintenance costs cleaning up post fire because of siltation and impacts on the reservoirs. we formed partnerships one in montana of hungry horse with local entities and the forest service to try -- we would add money and do fuels reduction above critical water infrastructure. it's starting to take off.

we're getting -- i was out for an event last year in arizona. we are starting to get traction with interested entities. we are expanding upon the resources to bring to this issue. and we have a fire proposal in the president's budget. we have to get over the finish line where we can increase the cap, the cap and make available emergency funds for fire suppression so we don't have to take it out of other accounts. through that we would like to have more stable budgeting for fuel reduction where we can marry up fuels reduction with land landscape issues. >> i appreciate that. and that point that we want to be filling reservoirs full of good clean water and not silt as we look at one way to

mitigate mitigate the impacts of drought. thanks. >> i want to continue on mr. conner, the relationship between water and some of our endangered species. when reclamation makes decisions on supply and delivery, is the legal contract between the bureau and water users equal to the federal government statutory responsibility to protect threatened or endangered species? is it viewed equally. and whatever your answer is i'm curious to know why? >> it's not necessarily viewed equally, chairman murkowski. it depends on the contractual language. and the vast majority of contracts contain what is called a shortage clause. and that clause depending on its language but the majority

have interpreted to say shortages to contracted amounts due to drought and even regulatory requirements result in reclamation not having to deliver that quantity of water. there are some contracts where the language is different and that has not been told be the case. >> let's use a specific example. i was in the central valley in california and all the discussion there is about release to provide for the delta smelt. in that situation, is that one where the -- where the statutory requirement to protect the smelt overrides the legal contract, again, with the bureau to -- for water for users? >> it is the statutory regulatory requirements as

manifested in biological opinions are legal requirements that the bureau has to comply with in part of making water decisions. >> how, then, as we're trying to gather the data to better understand whether we're making headway with the delta smelt or others with the environmental releases, how are we doing with our data collection? i mentioned in my initial questioning, the collaboration that is obviously key throughout all of our agencies. are we also collaborates when it comes, then to the data collection that is necessary for making these decisions? as we're talking about these environmental releases? >> chairman murkowski i recognize that there are differing views having read all

the testimony presented today. but i think we are doing a much better job of collaborating and applying the biological opinions. i can give you several examples. these biological opinions from noaa fisheries having to do with delta smelt and several species are very significant in how they effect water supply. over time -- but they've received a great amount of independent scientific review which isn't always the case in all biological opinions. the two between them i think they were subject to four independent reviews prior and two reviews subsequent. the national academy upheld them as being fundamentally and conceptually sound in their application. having said that they also raised issues about reasonable and prudent alternatives saying

they weren't as well grounded in science and needed to be looked at closer. we have engaged in a collaborative science program with water users. and we have gradually made incremental changes in how we apply those biological opinions. we have done a better job to install monitoring stations, monitoring turbidity, where the fish are. it's given us more flexibility to operate the pumps at higher levels. we have just recently this past year made a change to the statement that applies for the delta smelt which is critical because we were taking smelt at the pumps in a matter that would get close to that incidental limitation which would have caused us to reconsult. we took new data. we were convinced that the scientific soundness of that data to increase the incidental

take statement. we are getting better making changes. you can argue the changes should have been made several years ago but it's we are moving in the right direction with respect to flexibility. and i think there is data out there that benefit to the fishery from the application of these biological opinions. >> from the western governors' perspective are we getting better? are we doing enough? are we gaining the data that is going to be helpful? >> as it turns out, data needs -- emerges as one of the key themes of the workshop discussions in the first year. and as we move into years two of three of the western governor's drought forum that focus will sharpen. up with there is a lot of data out there but it is poorly coordinated

sinth sized, analyzed and interpreted. as we look forward to the coming years of the drought forum we're going to explore ways to ensure that the data, statistics and information are improved and sustained. >> i'm going to ask one more question and then turn to my colleague and we'll wrap up here. a lot of headway i think with the technologies that allow us to conserve more water whether it's as was mentioned by my colleague, senator king whether it's low-flow toilets or what we're seeing with low-drip irrigation, it's incredibly impressive. it's also very expensive but it just goes to the point that these investments will be made for the long term, recognizing that we're going to be dealing with these water and drought issues for some time. but considerable technologies that are there.

i mentioned the energy water nexus in my comments. it's my understanding that in the -- in the -- in the energy producer's world there has been some pretty considerable technology that allows our -- our energy producers particularly in oklahoma, to be managing water more efficiently and in ways that i think catch a lot of people by surprise that they are putting more water back into the system than they are using. is this something that your group, the drought forum, has been looking to in terms of best practices that are out there? >> absolutely. and in fact our drought forum

workshop series began in norman, oklahoma where governor fallon hosted. we learned a great deal about opportunities that energy producers have to source marginal quality water to return cooling water to reservoirs to reuse and adjust cooling water consumption through advanced computer controls. we have learned a great deal about opportunities that utilities have to use reused and brackish water and effluent. so by all means. >> senator cantwell? >> i think this hearing is about the new normal that we're seeing in drought conditions and that we need new solutions. i thank mr. conner and mr. lorrainger for talking about those solutions.

but i want to get your specificity on whether the next parts of the yakima basin project, things like the reservoir and building fish ladders, are those the logical next step? >> i do senator cantwell. i do see those as logical next steps for moving forward. the comprehensive plan that exists as it addresses water supply and environmental issues and trust issues i think represents a very good strategy that seems to have been moving forward with broad, you know -- i wouldn't say consensus. you can't get consensus on anything in the water world. but as broad support as you can get from a number of constituencies. to be blunt there is always a question of what is the appropriate federal role in this strategy versus state and local entities. and i know the state has really stepped up to fund a significant

amount of the program as soon as it got the plan was finalized. and we are making incremental investments -- >> i know you're not an expert on agricultural issues. but aren't we -- isn't the federal government going to see this one way or another? i mean, when you have drought emergency -- emergency drought issues related to agriculture people are going to come here and talk about crop loss and ask the federal government to help. isn't this about measuring the level of investment we can make now that we talked about the improvements that saved 35000 acre feet of water that could then be used for something else. that was the beginning of this process. isn't this about investing now so we don't come back later with all these disasters and ask for help? >> i think that's a very good point. i think we have made that point in other basins when we've

advocated for, you know significant resources for funding conflict basins like the cla math basin. there are assistance programs that and there's an argument to be made that these up front investments do help to head off those kind of shortages, conflicts and the relief measures that are needed. >> so i think the thing i like best about the cooperation is farmers and ranchers and tribes and everybody comes together and fishermen and agree on what they think is the best way to increase capacity at this point in time. or the best way to relieve you know some of the key issues in drought. so i think they're coming to the federal government asking for us to try to be able to move faster and to support these efforts that will give us more capabilities.

so, to me i definitely know, again, it's not the department of interior's job to look over your shoulder and say this other agency's going to be coming in asking for billions of dollars of relief. i guarantee you that's what's going to happen in our agricultural communities. a little bit of prevention up front to help with this would go a long way. you talked about storage of rain water. could you elaborate on that? >> yeah. it was pretty clear early on that snow pack was not accumulating. and typically, their reservoir management curves. they would let the winter rain go. they need capacity for the winter snow pack as it's released. and they also have responsibilities for maintaining minimum stream flows for fish downstream from the projects. the nature of their management is such that the rain water was adequate to get them through the season. and i'm not sure about their

reservoir rule curves for the next year. in the state of washington even on the agricultural side, there's concern and it's a very tough situation. but what they really talk about is next year. because we're looking at california and we don't have that year-to-year series of droughts yet. and what that means for carryover in the reservoirs. thank you. >> we're likely to see that. did you have something you wanted to add on this about how we look at the cost investment issues now as it relates to helping this situation? you might turn your mike up a little. >> i think you raised an interesting point. and as some people have proposed that in the past that such storage would be a way to offset some of the cost and insurance loss. we do have people at crs that are experts in that could help

with that that question and follow-up. >> okay. and what about some of these storage or innovation ideas that have been proposed by cooperation and local communities? do you think we should support more of those at the federal level? >> as you know crs cannot make recommendations or proposed solutions. we can outline the options. i'd say there are a lot of innovative options out there that we've heard several of them today. i think it was john keys who said at this table many years ago and said water reuse is the last untapped river in the west. i think mike points out that a lot of these questions on what's the best option comes down to the fundamental question of what is the federal role in the water supply? does congress want to take that on? is it a federal taxpayer responsibility for these projects? or is it the collaboration approach as we see with local governments. that's a policy question for congress.

>> and why wouldn't we follow that? i mean, we're not saying that the department of interior isn't involved either way. they're involved either way. >> no, certainly they are. >> i guess. and this world of you know, information and change where everything is becoming you know, flatter, that this is just one more example of where collaboration on the ground by people who don't usually agree about water, agreeing about what the best next steps are. and then, the department aiding with helping those projects to move forward. whether it's moving the authority or in finance is a better way to go than saying, okay, we're going to come back to the department of interior and look for a lot of bottom down solutions that might take another ten years. i guess what i'm looking for is i think this is the new normal that we're going to have for at least several years. >> i see the point you're making. >> and so -- >> there is a lot of collaboration going on. yeah. >> well, if those are the results that we could get, like

the 35,000 acre square feet saving by doing some small things, i guess, let's figure out what we need to give the department of interior to move more quickly on those kinds of projects so they can help these communities you know, who are making the decisions together, which, again, i would think probably alleviates some of the legal battles we've had in the past when people don't agree. mr. connor? >> senator cantwell if i could just -- as i mentioned before there are specific federal interests, particularly in the basin that were involved in and the reasons for ongoing investments. but i think the action plan makes it clear there's an ongoing federal role that needs to be played with respect to these challenges that are upcoming. and so the question is recognizing the limitation and resources we need to be as creative as possible and figure out how we're going to address that role. it is critical. and this is the new norm. >> well, i definitely think so when you talk about that the resources. i'm saying we're going to see

this one way or another. this is going to come back on to us if it's in the form of again, the ag losses which i can't, you know, our prediction for washington state was something, i don't remember what it was. 1.2. huge economic impact. anyway, i think the witnesses, i think this has been a good discussion, madame chair. and i do think that we should continue to get some information from our national laboratories that are doing on what is the long-term impact or at least the next ten-year projection. i think that might give us indication of what we ought to be look at as far as helping to alleviate in the next short, you know, time period. but, again, thank you for this hearing. >> thank you, senator cantwell. and thank you to each of our witnesses here today. i think this has been a good discussion. i think this is clearly highlights why it's important that we do a broader water bill.

initially, the focus has been on california and the very dire situation there. but i think it's clear that the focus with legislation moving forward needs to be western wide. and so some of the discussion that we've heard today, i think will help us as we formulate that. good discussion about the collaboration, the need for flexibility, the need for some streamlining. we've got some permitting issues. obviously storage is a key consideration. the technologies that will allow us to have greater efficiencies, greater conservation. these are all going to be critical. but i agree with you, senator cantwell. as we're dealing with the here and the now when it comes to

water and water access we need to be looking long-term. senator king was trying to figure out. is this cyclical? is this 1,000-year event? but whether or not we have to find that going forward, we need to be trying to be as long-term in our view and our vision on this as possible. because if this is the new normal going forward then we've got a lot of work to be doing. and we're willing to take up that work here in the committee. again, working with many of you, reappreciate the perspectives you have lent, and again, thank you for your time this morning. and with that, we stand adjourned. thank you.

the new congressional directory is a handy guide to the 114th congress with colored photos of every house member. a fold out map of capitol hill and a look at congressional committees, the president's cabinet, federal agencies and state governors. order your copy today. it's $13.95 plus shipping and handling through the c-span online store c-span.org. here on c-span 3 tonight, a house transportation hearing with the head of amtrak testifying about last month's deadly train derailment. then a senate banking hearing on reauthorization of the export/import bank. and later, a look at ways to improve the u.s. criminal justice system through methods other than incarceration.

amtrak ceo joseph bordman said this week they would be equipped with safety technology before the end of the year. following last month's derailment in philadelphia that killed eight passengers and injured hundreds. he made the comment at a house transportation hearing that also included national transportation safety board chair christopher hart and federal railroad administration head sarah feinberg. this is just over three hours. >> the committee will come to order. today's hearing will focus on the tragic amtrak accident that occurred philadelphia on may 17th. we have all heard some of the preliminary information surrounding this terrible event. an amtrak northeast regional train en route from washington

to new york derailed on a curve in philadelphia. the national transportation safety board has reported that the train was traveling at 106 miles per hour despite a 50-mile-per-hour speed limit on that portion of the track. eight passengers tragically lost their lives and approximately 200 were injured. we were not aware of any defects or issues identified to date with respect to the track, the locomotive or other infrastructure. today we will get an update from the ntsb on where their investigation stands and any additional information they can provide on the cause of this accident. since the accident, the federal railroad administration and amtrak have taken several steps to improve safety along the northeast corridor. amtrak is assessing the curves along the nec to determine if additional speed restrictions should be imposed and amtrak has announced it will be installing inward facing cameras to gain a better understanding of how incidents occur, and they've also committed to finish

implementation of positive train control on the northeast corridor by december of this year. today i want to review what actions amtrak took on passenger rail safety before this accident and particularly why fra didn't mandate the review of severe curves sooner. finally this accident heighted the central role of the northeast corridor plays in moving people along the northeast coast. the nec represents 2% of the nation's land mass and 18% of the population and the gdp. hundreds of people use the corridor daily to get to work and travel between some of our largest cities. when the corridor is out for just several days there is a real and significant impact on people's lives and the economy. this committee is committed to focusing resources and improving the northeast corridor including in the bipartisan amtrak reform bill that passed the house just a few months ago. i look forward to working with my friends in the senate to get that reform bill enacted into law.

in closing i look forward for hearing from our witnesses regarding these important issues and i would like to recognize ranking member defazio for an opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thanks for holding this hearing today. i certainly agree with you about the extraordinary importance on the performance of the population of the east coast on the united states on the use of this corridor on a daily basis. in terms of the number of people that use it and the contribution to the economy and what happens when that corridor goes down, and i also agree that this committee does have a long-term commitment to amtrak and other infrastructure needs of the united states. unfortunately, that is not shared by your republican colleagues on the transportation, housing, urban development subcommittee. in fact, on the day of the accident, they cut a $251 million, is it? or $290 million from the capital

budget of amtrak. the capital budget goes to things like positive train control. it also goes to things like the 140-year-old tunnel if that collapses or becomes unusable, the system will totally be out of use for an indefinite period of time or many of the 100-year-old bridges that need repair or replacement along that line. any cuts to the budget of amtrak which has a $21 billion, a $21 billion backlog on critical infrastructure investments and maintenances investments and things that do include positive train control and do include bridges and bridge safety and do include signal systems and other things that are so outmoded and i don't think they're using vacuum tubes and they're sort of before that era.

this is not okay. and to further reduce that budget is going to jeopardize minimally the operation of this corridor or even worse, cause an accident directly with the tunnel collapse or bridge collapse or failure of the signal system. we can't point to this accident and say it was directly caused by a lack of investment. that's true. we still don't know what happened and we're looking forward to the ntsb, but we do know that the ntsb first in 1969 proposed that we should move forward with positive train control and we have something called the most wanted list in 1990 and the first edition of the most wanted list said we needed positive train control and since that time quite a number of people have died in preventable accidents around the country because of the lack of positive train control. yes. human error. that's what positive train

control is designed to prevent. human error. we still don't know if it was a mechanical malfunction. it's a relatively knew train set, but we don't know yet. the point is ptc could prevent accidents like this. it could have prevented many other accidents over the last two decades since it was first recommended by ntsb and we need to move forward with all due dispatch in installing that system on commuter railroads and passenger or other passenger railroads or the entire amtrak system or on those required critical freight lines and particularly those carrying hass douse materials and broken areas. i'm pleased we are here today to try and understand better what caused this accident and what to do to prevent it in the future and i don't think we'll get to a definitive point, but for me the bottom line is we can no longer ignore a $21 billion backlog. we can't ignore we're running

trains over 100-year-old bridges of dubious stability. we can't ignore that we're running trains through 140-year-old tunnels that need total rehabilitation. we can't any longer ignore the fact that we have signalization systems that are, you know, pre-vacuum tube era that are trying to link into more modern, sophisticated systems. so there is much to be done, and i wish that all our colleagues in congress shared our commitment to infrastructure investment. with that, mr. chairman, i yield back the balance of my time. >> thank you, gentlemen and they will now recognize the subcommittee chairman on railroads, pipelines. >> thank you and good morning. first, let me thank you for holding this hearing and obviously, very important.

i also want to thank the ranking member capuano for quickly going up to philadelphia and really surveying the situation and it was important to understand specifically some of the things that were happening, but let me -- let me talk a little bit about my frustration. we went up there to immediately assess the situation. individual was already making definitive statements and now three weeks later while we had a brand new locomotive we can't confirm whether or not there was a malfunction with that locomotive and even though ntsb made definitive statements still cannot defend whether or not

there was an operator error, cannot identify whether or not there was an engineer that bypassed the system. the engineer has been working with ntsb, but still cannot verify that the cell phone that was in use whether it was texting or using cell phone service during that time. it's my understanding the engineer has given his password and we still can't identify whether or not there was an issue. >> the ntsb came out and made an immediate statement a couple of hours after the accident and three weeks later is unable to identify any of these issues around it. i think this committee expects answers. i think these families are owed answers. i think the american public is looking to make sure that rail

safe across our entire nation. we're also looking for solutions. i'm looking forward to seeing ptc implemented in a very, very quick manner and i ask that you take a look at this emergency proclamation that was put out, emergency order that was put out by fra. my concern is a year and a half ago when we had metro north, one of the worst accidents this country has ever seen and almost the exact same emergency order was put out a year and a half ago saying ptc was important and that we still don't have ptc on that area of track either. now a new emergency order saying we will have amtrak on the northeast corridor by the end of the year. obviously, we have concerns. we are looking for solutions. i think the families deserve to hear what those solutions are and more importantly, those solutions are put into place. with that, i yield back.

>> we recognize the ranking member of the subcommittee, mr. capuano. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome to the members of the board. i'm looking forward to your testimony. we want answers and more than anything else, they need to be right and not just speculation. i also want to comment that i know many people along the northeast corridor and particularly those in philadelphia, my friend congressman brady and my friend are watching this closely and they want answers, as well and they'll be keeping a close eye on this. i guess i'm looking forward to the specific lessons we learned and also the lessons that congress has learned and what should our priorities be. we talk a good game, are we going to fund this or are we not going to fund this? ptc is not new and not limited just to amtrak. positive train control issued across the country of every rail line in this country. are we going to require it or are we not?

everybody here knows we don't want to talk about it and there are proposals floating around congress to delay it even further and we all understand the realities of the costs involved and those are questions we need ask in a serious basis how much responsibility will we as a member of congress take on our shoulders the next time an accident happens and we look in the mirror. have we done everything we can reasonably do? reasonably do to prevent it, and i think i'm not looking for scapegoats. i am looking for answers as we all are, and i have full faith that the ntsb along with the fra and amtrak will find those answers and again, i want them quickly, but more importantly, i want them right. i appreciate you being here i

appreciate the chairman calling this hearing very much. i yield back. >> thank you. with that, i would like to welcome our panel of witnesses. thank you for being here today. first, the honorable christopher hart is the chairman of the national transportation safety board. next, joseph boardman, the president and chief executive offer of amtrak, next miss sarah feinberg, for federal railroad administration and just been nominated and congratulations as you go through that process. good luck. >> the brotherhood of local employ nears and train derailment. i ask that our witnesses' full statements be included in the record and without objection, so ordered since your complete written testimony will be in the record i'll ask you to keep it

to five minutes, your statement and with that we'll start with mr. hart, please proceed. >> thank you and good morning. chairman schuster and ranking member defazio and members of the committee, thank you for inviting the ntsb to appear before you today. earlier today we released a preliminary report and it's a summation of facts reviewed up to this point and i would like to review these facts with you this morning. at approximately amtrak regional train 188 derailed north of philadelphia's 30th street station. >> can you pull your mike closer? >> yes. i'm sorry. >> as the chairman mentioned, the ntsb is determined that seconds before the derailment, the train was traveling at 6 miles an hour heading into a 50 mile per hour curve. the train slowed to 102 miles per hour before the data recording ended. sadly, eight people were killed and more than 200 people were injured as a result of this accident. on behalf of the ntsb i would like to offer my sincerest condolences to those who lost loved ones and our thoughts remain to those still recovering. briefly, areas we will explore include track recorder, mechanical, signals, operations, human performance, survival

factors and medical. much work remain, but there are few facts that i can report to you today. we know a properly installed and functional positive train control or ptc would have prevented this accident. ptc is technology that is designed to prevent overspeed derailments as well as train to train collisions and they worked protection zones and proceeding through misaligned switches. the accident we have investigated have shown us that we need technology that can step in when humans fail due to distraction, medical conditions or other factors. as a result, the ntsb has called for train control technology for decades as was mentioned since 1969. present law requires implementation of ptc by the end of this year and seven years after the mandate was signed by congress into law. we know most railroads will not comply with this law. those railroads that have made the difficult decisions and the safety enhancement should be commented for this leadership. it much have a trance parents accounting of the steps that have been taken to meet a new deadline. regulators and policymakers need

that information to make important policy decisions and the traveling public deserves that accountability. rail car crash worthiness is another area that we'll investigate. as you can see from the picture, the survival space in the first passenger car was severely compromised. we will fully document and analyze the damage to this car and other cars and make recommendations that the ntsb determines are necessary to improve crash worthiness and improve on recommendations in this area. we have received full cooperation from the crew and

their interviews and follow-up conversations. as you know, we are evaluating the engineer's cell phone records to coordinate the timing and voice activity with the accident time line. this process involves reviewing the time stamps from the phone records which are from different time zones with data from other information, such as the locomotive event recorder and the outward facing camera and radio communications and surveillance video. when we have clarity on this time line we will release this information to you and to the public. additionally, the ntsb has called for inward and outward facing video and with audio

recordings on trains. since amtrak uses outward facing cameras at the time of this accident. these cameras can provide critical information with the ntsb as we work to determine ways to prevent future accidents. in this case the engineer states >> thank you, mr. hart. with that, mr. boardman, please proceed. >> thank you. i'm going to start this morning by offering my heartfelt regret for the recent derailment at frankfurt junction. it was amtrak's train on our railroad and we're responsible for the incident and its consequences. i regret it deeply, and based on the conversations i've had over the last three weeks that sentiment is shared by everyone in our company. everything we've done since the accident has been driven by a sincere hope that we can do something, however small, to mitigate the suffering and loss that everyone endured as a result of this terrible accident. we've been greatly helped in that effort by the people of philadelphia and i would like to thank all of them, but particularly mayor nutter and the staff of the hospitals thank you for everything you did on behalf of the passengers and employees. >> we want to do everything we can to support the ntsb's

investigation. i'll refrain from addressing matters that are still under investigation. we'll be working closely with both the ntsb and the regulators and the fra to ensure that we address the root causes of this accident and to you, ladies and gentlemen of the committee and to our passengers and employees. we run a safe railroad and safety will continue to be our top priority. the northeast corridor in particular has an excellent safety record and this is so shocking because it is so unexpected. in no other place in the country is the comparable volume moved. the last fatal accident on the northeast corridor occurred 28 years ago. >> the northeast corridor's safety systems are the best in the country. we operate a layered signal system that provides it with multiple levels of protection. >> there is an alert that engineers are awake. there is an automatic cab control system to prevent train

collisions and stop the train if the crews fail to acknowledge or comply with signals and there's the enforcement system, amtrak, that's amtrak's positive train control system. to stop trains that engineers have failed to comply with authorized speed limits. at points between washington and new york were trained to exceed 125 miles an hour. it's installed in the amtrak that operate the northeast cor door and should be to apply in december 31, 2015. this stops people responsible for safe movement of the trains. we operate an oversight and coaching system from the crews. our engineers and conductors are required to pass an extensive fra-approved training program and to develop a high level of familiarity with the route. probably millions of train movements negotiated a curve at frankfurt junction safely since amtrak took over the northeast cor door in 1976. the system works because generally speaking we've put together a series of layered nets each guarding the previous layer. we rely on these systems where

we have not been able to completely eliminate the risk of human error. there is also a risk of a gap in the most tightly woven net. the train 188 derailment revealed one such hole in the safety net and in the weeks since the derailment people have asked a seemingly simple question. why didn't the track have some kind of safety feature involved to force the engineer to slow the train? this is the right question to ask and i'll address it directly while providing you a necessary background information to understand the answer. in 1990 an amtrack train derailed on a sharp curve in back based station in boston and collided with an oncoming mbta train.

it failed to slow before the curve. shortly thereafter industry operator reviewed the nec and other places where the approach speed of a train was greater at which the speed might derail in the curve. if an engineer failed to slow down. at those points we modified the system by installing a code if an engineer -- a code change point to force engineers to slow down. the southbound tracks at frankfurt junction were one such place. the derailment speed at frankfurt junction is 98 miles an hour. it approached that curve at 80 miles an hour while the southbound train approaches at 110 miles an hour.

so in short, when a train approaches from one direction, but doesn't slow down there's no risk of derailment, but if a train comes from the other direction and doesn't slow down for whatever reason there, is a risk of derailment. we, therefore, apply the modification to the southbound tracks so the trains approaching from the north at speeds of 110 would receive the signal indication from the cab just before the curve forcing them to slow at 45 miles an hour so that they can pass through the curve safely at 85 miles an hour. they didn't have the same protection installed because the approach speed was 80 miles an hour which was slow enough that a train could round the curve at that speed without derailing if the engineer failed to slow down. at that time, the notion that an engineer might actually

accelerate into the northbound curve was not a circumstance we anticipated and thus, we didn't mitigate for. it was a reasonable decision reached by reasonable experts under reasonable circumstances and since this and similar change points were installed in 1991, the application of this policy successfully prevented overspeed derailments throughout the northeast corridor for about 25 years. that clearly changed on may 12th. the proper response now is for us to figure out what happened and to narrow or eliminate the gap so that this accident cannot happen again. the full implementation of ptc later this year will be a major step forward in this regard until it is full ney service and we're working now to implement the measures called for in the emergency order to ensure the safety of the trains and passengers. the most important thing we can do, however is to implement ptc. amtrak is the nation's leader in ptc, we were the only company to have a system approved for use for speeds up to 150 miles an hour. no other class 1 railroad in the

united states, not one, is as far along in installing ptc as amtrak is. my belief and the importance of ptc predates my arrival at amtrak. as the federal railroad administrator i worked hard to secure the passage requiring ptc installation on the railroads. i still believe the single greatest contribution that my generation of railroaders can make to this industry is to implement ptc as rapidly as possible, and i promise you that by the end of this year this system which will dramatically enhance safety will be complete and operational on the nec. thank you. thank you, with that, ms. feinberg, proceed. >> chairman schuster and ranking member defazio, thank you for

the opportunity for discussing issues related to the amtrak accident in philadelphia, pennsylvania and the safety of passenger rail. we extend our deepest sympathies the victims of this accident and to their loved ones, and i can assure them that we will take every step we can to ensure an accident like this cannot happen again. i also want to thank the city of philadelphia, its mayor and first responders for their heroic and incredible response to this accident. their leadership was truly remarkable. let me say at the outset, all of us at the fra are heart broken about this tragic accident. the driving mission of our organization is to keep the public safe and so while every accident matters to us, this accident in particular which appears to have been preventable and which took so many lives and left so many injured is truly painful for the fra family.

we continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding the accident. while it will take time to complete the investigation, we have not and will not wait to take actions that will improve the safety of amtrak as well as other passenger rail operations. on may 16, four days after the accident i directed amtrak to take several actions to resume north of philadelphia. i followed those directives with an emergency order on may 21st. amtrak has complied with those directives thus far and amtrak will follow through to implement them. when we released the may 21st emergency order we stated we were considering taking additional steps to direct similar orders at other passenger railroads that may have similar curve and speed issues. we continue our work on those directives and we plan to release additional information about that work in the coming days. and while the cause of this

accident has not been officially determined, we do know that speed was a significant factor and speed, simply put s what we refer to as a human factor. a factor based on human behavior. human factors remain the leading cause of all rail accidents and they are also the most difficult to address, but today i want to announce that fra is preparing a package of actions that we will finalize in the coming weeks and months aimed at addressing just these kinds of factors, human factors, factors such as speed, distraction and training. these actions may include additional emergency orders, safety advisories, rule makings, agreements and other initiatives and again, beyond just those next steps, i want to assure you that the fra is firmly committed to continue taking additional actions, as many as it takes, that will mitigate the risks and hazards identified in the

ongoing investigation. now there has been significant amount of public discussion about what, specifically, would have prevented this accident, which specific technology and which new regulation, but the reality is if we believe that the cause of this accident was speed it would have been prevented by positive train control. as this committee is aware, positive train control is the single most important technological development in more than a century and it is absolutely necessary to ensuring the kind of safety that we expect on our rail system. per the congress' mandate, railroads are required to install ptc on all passenger routes and certain freight routes by december 31, 2015, seven months from now. fra has been actively pushing the railroads to have ptc fully implemented by the deadline. we have met with the railroads for years on this issue. we have hired staff to assist and oversee the implementation of this technology. we have earned the submission of ptc safety and implementation

plans and we have inquired with individual railroads and with the aar about their progress and we have worked with the ecc with the spectrum. we have also urged year after year for more funding to be connected at commuter railroads and amtrak to implement positive train control. for the past two years as part of the grow america act, fra has requested $825 million to assist commuter railroads with the implementation of ptc as well as additional funding for amtrak's implementation of ptc. it was grant the authority to review, approve and certify ptc safety plans on a railroad by railroad basis. they asked for this authority in order to ensure that railroads would be forced to work with safety regulators to take other and equivalent actions to raise the bar in safety even prior to full ptc implementation. we believe it is important that even those railroads that fail to meet the congressionally mandated deadline be required to

improve safety in the interim. despite the many challenges facing full implementation of ptc, the fra's role is to carry out the enforcement of the deadline mandated by the congress and to ensure that railroads implement ptc as quickly, safely and efficiently as possible. so on january 1, 2016, the fra will be prepared to take necessary enforcement actions against railroads that have failed to meet the deadline. safety will be the fra's priority and we appreciate the attention and focus to issues related to the passenger train accident in philadelphia. again, i want to express our deepest sorrow for the victims and their families, we will make the american rail network as safe, reliable as possible. i look forward to your questions. >> you may proceed.

>> hello, ranking member schuster and the teamsters rail conference they represent, thank you -- >> can you pull up the microphone closer. >> okay. thank you for the invitation to speak today. i first want to express our sincerest condolences 188 and their family. it's a sadly familiar territory for me because i've had to convey the sorrow to the families of 11 members since i became national president five years ago, and i fear that this will happen many more times. it's even more tragic when technology could have prevented a death and positive train control could have saved five of those lives. the ntsb has confirmed that excess speed contributed to the derailment. these facts implicate the railroad industry. >> crew size, fatigue, inward facing cameras and the

expectations for amtrak. the small percentage of americans who are working locomotive engineers and all railroad operating employees are among the most highly skilled, highly trained and highly regulated professionals in the nation. but today's workforce or workplace often creates task overload for engineers and when too much is expected of any system, man or machine a breakdown is inevitable. one of the questions before us now is what level of risk we're willing to accept knowing all of that. most of the industry and not amtrak or vnsf seeks a blanket five to seven-year extension of the deadline. although not on the nec, there have been peripheral problems with the spectrum and fcc radio tower approvals and those must be addressed and they do not justify a blanket delay and i urge you not to be stampeded for one. we must remember that ptc is no silver bullet.

it's not designed to prevent any accident and any claim that ptc renders the second crew member unnecessary is plainly put, not true. ptc cannot replace the second crew member because it doesn't do the work of a second crew member. it isn't the second set of eyes and ears to monitor the left side of the train for defects, stuck brakes or observe the left side of the highway rail crossings for highway rail grade incidents or to separate the trains when we have first responders that need to get access. we urge you to take up the hr-1763 addressing those concerns and we think the time may have come to reconsider the 1981 language that eliminated the second crew member on northeast corridor locomotives. while we do not know whether fatigue played a part in amtrak 188, fatigue should be a major concern to all of us. to be frank the 2008 overhaul of the rail hours of service has produced very little progress

towards mitigating fatigue. work schedules are far too variable and unpredictable and instead of dealing with all issues, some have settled on single issues like sleep apnea. i am here to tell you that c. machines won't address fatigue, caused by variable and unpredictable work schedules in order to get the benefit. we must redouble the benefits to fatigue in the railroad industry. i urge for inward facing cameras because it gets louder by the day. cameras can be an accident investigation tool, but they create a false sense of security if more than that is expected. cameras don't slow or stop trains, positive train control does and that's the plainest way to put it. our privacy concerns with cameras are what i would call america's privacy concerns. many railroads insist on leaving cameras on continuously even when trains are stopped on a

siding for hours on a time with crews captive on a locomotive that comprises of 65 square feet of space. constant surveillance like this we view as un-american and it does nothing to improve railroad safety. the truth is that some railroads have shown more interest to use camera data to punitively attack employees and that is just unacceptable to us. finally some things do come down to dollars and cents at least for amtrak which cannot continue to rely on the funding it receives. >> what we spend on passenger rail is embarrassing when compared to china france, uk, russia and turkey. we cannot expect amtrak to run a first-class railroad when it's funded at third world levels. we cannot expect reliable performance that is 75, 100 or 125 years old. our transportation infrastructure is crumbling around our feet including amtrak yet amtrak is a good investment, a necessary resource and short

changing amtrak creates other costs elsewhere. i strongly urge you to provide the resources to amtrak to thrive and grow and not just limp along. i appreciate the opportunity to address you today and we have accomplished much and i look forward to implement the lessons of 188. i'll answer any questions you may have. >> thank you very much, mr. pierce. we'll start with a round of questions and i would encourage all members to -- there's a lot of interest. this is an important topic so i would encourage you to keep to five minutes. if the interest remains high we'll consider doing a second round of questions, so again, please rich the five minutes and there are a lot of folks here they think will ask questions and i will be quick with the gavel so watch the clock. i'll start out. ms. feinberg, in december of

2013 with the metro north commuter train derailment it was a very similar circumstance. the train was going too fast and the accident required the -- the fra required metro north to put the codes into the atc system so the trains going at those speeds and now you've just issued an emergency order that literally cuts and pastes that order from two years ago to be put on amtrak. it seems that the next logical step, and i think you said this is right now you're going to look at all of the curves, but don't you think they should have done that after that -- after the metro north derailment? should have put out an order for fra, and i know you weren't there at the time and wouldn't that have been the logical step at that time was to look at the northeast corridor and the curves. >> we put out a safety advisory urging commuter railroads to take a look at their curves and to see if there were additional steps that they should take. the emergency order that went out at that time was aimed at

metro north, and i know as you know, emergency orders are very narrow. they cannot be particularly broad. they have to be legally sustainable and enforceable and at the time the fra looked at expanding that emergency order to many other railroads and to all commuter railroads and deemed that it would not be legally enforceable and we did not have evidence to show that we had this problem elsewhere. as you may remember, metro north had a series of fatal and non-fatal accidents. they seemed to have a systemic safety culture problem and when we looked beyond metro north we did not feel that this was a systemic problem with other railroads. we were not seeing derail ams with other railroads and we were not seeing engineers at high speeds and we believe the emergency order aimed at metro north would only be enforceable to metro north. >> legally, you didn't think you had the ability to do the northeast corridor? >> that's correct. >> does the e.o. today, are you

able to enforce it throughout the northeast corridor? have them look at it or do you have legal problems there? >> the e.o. that went out last week or -- i'm sorry, ten days ago was aimed specifically at amtrack. we are looking beyond amtrak to see if we would take similar or other steps at other commuter railroads and we went directly to amtrak and others beyond that. >> only amtrak. >> for the emergency order. >> does that mean you have the authority to tell connecticut and massachusetts, are they able to be included with that. >> that would want work for the emergency order that's currently out, but that's what we're looking at right now for next steps. >> see if you can include them? okay. mr. boardman, positive training control. you said in your statement you're committed to getting it by the end of the year. the -- can you talk a little bit

about the process that you've been talking to the last couple of months and i know you were talking spectrum and that was the last step of the equation and can you talk about the cost and the money? you have the money? can you talk about the spectrum? >> we, at this point in time do have the positive train control installed on the northeast corridor. all sections that we own on the northeast corridor is fine what we had learned along with the freight railroads is 900 megahertz system that exists right now really wasn't providing the capability and high density areas. the decision was that we needed to go to a 220-megahertz radio system. that really provides a much better propagation of the signal and a much more reliable service. so what we've been doing is making sure that we finally received approval for the 220 megahertz system within the last couple of months and we have to test it.

we have to get the data radios ready and that's what we're doing now. so that's where we are. >> and you learned that because you had ptc operation from boston, new haven to boston? >> that's correct. >> along with ptc. >> and the entire stretch from washington, d.c. to boston will be urn the new, increased megahertz. >> >> for everything we own and control. >> what would massachusetts and connecticut with the state owned? >> there is a section between new york and new haven that's new rochelle to new haven that we don't own or control. that's owned by new york state and connecticut, under the control of metro north. >> thank you very much. seeing my time has expired and the five-minute rule, i turn to mr. defazio. >> thank you, mr. chairman. you implied and didn't expand upon it that you're going to

look at the cars themselves, whether or not more resilient cars could better protect passengers in crashes, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> have you looked at that previously? >> yes. we've been looking at passenger car crash worthiness for several years. >> what can we design -- mr. boardman, i believe, these cars are what era? '70s? >> they started being delivered in about 1975. >> and have you asked to replace them? >> we have a plan to rebuild these cars and we are replacing some cars at this point in time. the ones that were built in the '40s. >> in the '40s? >> yes, sir. >> and are you going to somehow improve their resilience in the case of crash? >> our expectation is to be able to use crash energy management which is something the entire passenger industry is beginning to do. >> but these current cars don't meet whatever -- >> they do not. >> and what would that take? >> in terms of dollars?

>> yes. have you asked for this mono? >>. >> if we asked for replacement we would talk about $4 billion. >> have you made a request? >> we've made requests for rebuilding and some questions for replacing. >> okay. and what happened to those requests? >> the requests for replacing was a complex request because if they were long-distance trains or they weren't receiving enough revenue for us to be able to pay back on. >> but the bottom line is were you allocated the congress or not? >> no, sir. >> so congress denied you the money? >> yes, sir. >> again, back to mr. hart, do you believe that we could either rehab these cars he's talking about in a way that would increase resilience and survivability or do you think they need to be totally replaced? >> thank you for the question. that's one of the things we've been looking into and we'll look at it here just as we are

currently with the ramada accident with the crash worthiness of their cars. >> would you pull your microphone closer, please. >> i'm sorry. yes, both for this accident as we are with the ramada accident in terms of the crash worthiness of the cars. whether it will be new cars or whether these can be fixed. >> okay. when i look at photos, i mean, the locomotive looks pretty intact and, think, that's new construction and the engineer obviously survived yet that first car i've never seen and i heard some first responders say they've never dealt with anything like that before. so, i mean, that implies -- are there other in other nations or elsewhere around the world where they have modern railroads, do they have more crash worthiness in their passenger cars? >> that will be part of our investigation is what other countries are doing in this respect is making sure that we're the leading edge of crash worthiness on the car. >> ms. feinberg,y i appreciate that you will push very hard. commuter railroads are one of

the greatest laggards here and they've asked help of congress and they're at a loss now to get this technology installed. >> that's right. we've asked for $875 million to assist commuters, commuter railroads and implementing ptc. we've also opened up the riff program for railroads who are looking for loans that will assist with ptc implementation. so we just completed work on a $967 million loan to mta that will assist with ptc implementation, and then as we approach the deadline, one of the things we have asked the congress for authority for previously is to work with railroads who absolutely won't miss the deadline. who absolutely will miss the deadline, to work with them to bring, to raise the safety bar

in the interim. >> so they will dodge some sort of interoperating changes to compensate for the lack of positive train control. >> exactly. and they would have to go through an approval process and work with us. we continue to hold their feet to the fire to make sure they're working toward ptc implementation. >> and when you look at a step process, those that are really trying versus those who haven't tried at all? >> i would expect it would be merit based. correct. is. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. what operations has amtrak made since the accident? what has amtrak made and will they be instituting others? >> we did the the code change on

the northbound section of the frankfort curve as requested by the fra. we've been evaluating the rest of the curves as required by the fra, and also checking checking the entire northeast corridor to ensure we had speed limit signs along the way that all met the requirements of the emergency order. in terms of how we check on our engineers, we have a very robust and regular method that we check engineers. for example, just since january 1st of '14 until now, we've had over 16,000 speed checks of engineers along the northeast corridor. so that's like 35 times a day do we check somebody along the northeast corridor to make sure that they're operating at the right speed. we have a recurring training program, a black training program that lasts for a week every year, and they have to be certified on a biannual basis. so we have -- we continue to do that. we continue any kinds of changes

that occur. we continue to provide additional training for engineers. >> thank you. how many curves does amtrak now have after doing this audit that have atc how many do you still have that you want to implement the atc on? >> after the back bay accident and the consensus for what they need to accomplish, they identified six curves. one of those was the northbound section of the frankfurt curve. since fra requested us to look at it under the new circumstances, we've identified at least four more at this point in time. we had 300 curves on the northeast corridor that could meet the newer conditions, and

we're moving forward with those. >> one of the questions that has continued to come up -- we've we funded it fully out of this committee. what guarantees do we have that the northeast corridor profits will actually be used to implement new safety and ptc regulations? >> the way that we have worked with the committee on how we're developing a program is to make safety decisions on safety issues, and funding decisions are really about the larger scale of infrastructure, not only for the railroads, but for highways and for aviation, which i've been talking about for several years at this point in time, and the necessity for increases in that way. safety decisions. we're making those decisions and making sure we provide safety decisions.

>> i guess the fundamental question is when we pass a broad bill like that, what types of guarantees would there be on the priorities of the spending patterns? last year amtrak spent $350 million on new cars. that may be an important issue, but the question is it a priority of congress? is it a priority of amtrak? and do the priorities align? >> we think they do, congressman. we work regularly with the staff of the committee. with work with all of those interested in both safety and the improvements along the northeast corridor. the sufficiency of funding to do all the things that we want to do, there's always scarce resources. so we have to make those decisions based on those scarce

resources, but we don't reduce the idea that we need to have a safe railroad. we make safe decisions along the way. thank you. and my time is nearly expired. let me thank you for your efforts. mr. feinberg as well as the mayor of philadelphia all coming together for a very, very rapid response. i appreciate not only the collaboration, but certainly the timeliness. and i know speaking on behalf of mr. capuano, working with you and helping to understand how we can resolve the problems in the future. thank you. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank the board, the panel for the testimony you've had. it's very thoughtful and very difficult decision to make. i would like to ask you, is the

ntsb taking a look at the decisions on prioritization of the ptc, or is that beyond the scope of your normal activities? >> we would look at the specific event and determine what needs to be done to prevent that from happening again? >> but you wouldn't be in the business of determining whether the prioritization made by amtrak or others, ptc, let's assume everybody did ptc tomorrow, there can't be implements tomorrow. every rail company in the country would have to determine what do we do second, third, fourth, fifth? that would not be in the normal purview of the ntsb? >> that would be correct. exactly how we would lead that to the implement. >> that's fair enough. that's what i expected. miss feinberg, do you agree with mr. boardman's comments that amtrak will reach the december 2015 deadline to get ptc in the

entire northeast corridor? >> we see no reason they will not meet the deadline. >> and do you have an estimate of time frame for the rest of the corridor? >> well, beyond the fortheast corridor, other than in michigan, the amtrak decision will be dependent on freights implementing ptc. so that could take some time. >> do you have any estimate on the cost of that? >> the cost is in the billions. billions have been spent. they have billions further to go. >> multiple billions of dollars to the rest of the amtrack system? >> yes? >> and what about the rest of the class one freight railroads? how much would that cost? >> i actually thought that was the question you were just asking. so again billions. >> what about the short lines? are they implementing positive train control or just for the class ones at amtrak? >> it's for class ones and for

passenger railroads. >> so the short freights will not be doing it? >> we are working with the short lines a bit separately. >> what about commuter rail? will they be doing it? >> yes. >> what about subway systems? i would hope the fta would be working with you on that. >> we work closely with fta, and they work closely with their organizations. >> so even under the best case scenario, that the government was flush with money, it would take multiple billions of dollars and many years to get from where we are to where we want to be on positive trade control across the line. is that a fair assessment? >> i would agree with you on multiple billions with a "b." in terms of multiple years, i worry we are approaching that position. but we believe there is a congressionally mandated deadline. we intend to enforce against it.

this is not a new requirement for railroads. >> mr. hart, have you taken a look at the accident, whether the seat belts would have helped or not? >> it is part of passenger surviveability investigation. >> so that will be part of the final report when you have one? >> yes. >> because i just road the train up to philadelphia. there are no seat belts on the train. yet i flew down here today from boston. i had a seat belt on the entire time. and it would strike me that -- i don't know. i have no idea and i'm looking the forward to your report, that seat belts would be something that should be considered both to prevent death and injury. >> we will be looking at that as part of the surviveability aspect. >> if they recommend seat belts in passenger trains, is that something you would pursue? >> it would certainly be something we would look at. there are different opinions about the requirements of seat belts on trains. >> different opinions?

>> yeah, well i recognize that seat belts might seem like a accident, there are also people who tend to be up and walking around between cars during an accident. the fact that you would have to harden the seats in order to put seat belts into the seats. >> i understand about the current figurations but i would suggest talk to them about automobiles, about planes. i understand the current configuration might have to be addressed over time, the concept of seat belts, i was under the impression it was no longer debatable that seat belts in an accident at any speed, preferable to no seat belts. if that's the case, maybe i'll take mine out of the car too. >> we would certainly work closely with the ntsb, just as we do on every recommendation. but there is belief of hardening of the seats required to put seat belts on trains would cause

more injuries in an accident. >> so we're back at it again. it is cost benefit analysis how many people will have to die or get injured before we take the next step. the same questions we've had with automobiles. the same question with planes. >> no, sir. not a cost benefit issue. simply how do you keep the most people inside the car safe. thank you, with that mr. duncan is recognized for five minutes. >> miss feinberg, last week secretary of fox appeared to agree that this accident was not necessarily caused by lack of funding. in fact, his exact quote was i don't think you can categorically say that more funding would have changed things. do you agree with that statement? >> i think he was referring to the behavior of the engineer. i do think there are consequences to funding issues, yes. >> mr. boardman, i noticed total operating revenues of amtrak

have gone up from $2.4 billion to $3.1 billion, about 700 billion increase in funding. and on top of that, the government has given you $1.4 billion in additional funds each year. and i'm assuming that you felt that amtrak was moving fast enough in installing positive train control because you said in your testimony that you were ahead of every other railroad. is that correct? >> we are ahead of every other railroad. >> and i'm also assuming that you were shocked by this accident because you testified that it's been 28 years since you had a derailment caused fatality, or fatality caused by derailment.

so railroad passenger travel is still about the safest method of transportation. is that correct? >> we believe that, yes. >> and did you ever tell this committee or the congress that you didn't have the funds to move fast enough on installation of positive train control? >> we did not. >> all right. miss feinberg, how do you intend to -- what enforcement actions would you take against railroads that aren't moving fast enough would a railroad be given credit -- for instance, if one railroad is a little bit behind another railroad in installation, but they have a better safety record, or maybe they have the best safety record of any railroad, would they be given credit for that good safety record? >> we have having an internal conversation at fra now about how exactly we wil