>> ladies and gentlemen, the president and vice president of united states [applause] -- of the united states. [applause] >> please, have a seat. i am thrilled to be here for what is an extraordinary accomplishment by this congress, the bill we are about to sign into law. i would like to acknowledge a few of our special guests. first off, we have the crew from the campaign for tobacco free kids. [applause]

we have our fda commissioner, dr. peggy. we have our cdc director, and we have some extraordinary members of congress here on stage, senator dodd, senator bourbon, senator harkin, representative waxman, rep christiansen, and rep platz, all who did a big part to move this legislation forward. [applause] i want to thank all of them. there are three members of congress that i have to especially thank, representative waxman, representative dodd, --

senator dodd, and most importantly, senator ted kennedy who cannot be here today. [applause] and the legislation i am signing today represents a change that has been decades in the making. since the middle of the last century, we have known about the deadly effects of tobacco products. more than 400,000 americans now die of tobacco related illnesses each year, making it the leading cause of preventable

deaths in the united states. more than 8 million americans suffer from at least one serious illness caused by smoking. these health problems caused us all more than $100 billion a year. what is even worse are the effects on our children. one out of every five children in our country are now current smokers by the time believe high school. think about that statistic. one out of every five children are smokers by the time the live -- they leave high school. -- leave high school. i know how difficult it can be to break the habit when it has been with you for a long time. i know that kids do not just start smoking for no reason. they are aggressively targeted as customers by the tobacco industry.

they are exposed to a constant barrage of advertising where they live, where they learned and where they play. most insidiously, they are offered products with flavorings that mask the taste of tobacco and make it even more tempting. we have known about this for decades and despite the best efforts of so many leaders and advocates. the tabasco but the top -- the tobacco industry lobbies on the hill. when henry waxman first brought tobacco ceo's before congress, they denied that tobacco was deadly. nicotine was addictive, or that there marked reduced marketed tool -- to children. -- that their advertising marketed to children. 15 years later, their campaign has finally failed. today, thanks to the work of democrats and republicans, the decades-long effort to protect or children from the harmful effects of tobacco has emerged victorious. today, change has come to washington. this legislation will not ban all tobacco products and it will allow adults to make their own

choices. it will ban tobacco advertising from within a thousand feet of the school. it will force these companies to more clearly and publicly acknowledged the harmful and deadly effects of the products they sell and it will allow the scientists at the fda to take other common-sense steps to reduce the harmful effects of smoking. this is a victory for bipartisanship and it was passed overwhelmingly in both houses of congress. it is a victory for health care reform as it will reduce some of the billions that we spend on tobacco related health care costs in this country. it is a law that will reduce the number of american children

that pick up a cigarette and become a smoker. it is a law that will save american lives and make americans healthier. with the passage of this legislation, it is not complete. not just america but in the world. if current trends continue, 1 billion people will die from tobacco related illnesses the century. so, the united states will continue to work with the world health organization and other nations to fight this epidemic on a global basis. no matter how long or how hard this fight may be, what is happening today gives us hope. when i ran for president, i did so because despite the power of the status quo, it was possible for us to bring change to washington and the progress that we have made these past five months has only reinforced my

faith in this belief. despite the influence of the credit-card industry, which passed a law to protect consumers from unfair wait hikes -- rate hikes. we passed a law to protect homeowners from mortgage fraud. despite the influence of the defense industry, which passed a law to protect taxpayers. and today, despite decades of lobbying and advertising by the tobacco industry, we passed a law to help protect the next generations of americans from growing up with a deadly habit that so many have lived with. when henry waxman open that first hearing back in 1994, he began by quoting an ancient proverb. a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. our journey for change is far from over, but with the passage of the kids tobacco legislation that i am about to sign, we're taking a very important step that will save lives and dollars. i want to thank members of congress and all the help advocates that fought so long for this to happen. we hope that you feel good about the extraordinary changes will bring to this country.

>> thank you very much. let's go sign the bill. >> there we go. [applause]

[applause] >> thank you guys. [applause]

>> thank you guys.

[applause] >> how is c-span funded? >> publicly funded? >> donations, maybe. >> government?

>> it gets its funding through the taxes. >> it is a public funding thing. >> i do not know. >> how is c-span funded, 30 years ago, america's cable companies created c-span as a public service, a private business initiatives. no government mandate, no government money. >> a look at a senate hearing on the future of high-speed passenger trains. the heads of the federal railroad ministration and and track are among witnesses. this lasts about 1 hour 45 minutes. >> we could do several things,

here. they just invite members of the audience to come up and make it look like there is a big crowd appear. you've got some senators and that is all you really need, but i do not want your egos to be upset. there is a lot going on today and part of it is obviously what happened with the metro rail system. it is actually depressing and sad that there is no highway for the ntsb or the department of transportation or anybody else like to make recommendations, but they have no enforcement authority. i did not know that until this happened.

of philosophies about the federal government, but it seems to me that where you have a heavy train being hit by -- vice versa, a light train being hit by a heavy train and something went wrong and yes, we know, we'll speculate and it'll all come come out in the end and in the meantime, the only thing that really counts is the, you know, all those families of the dead and sometimes the families of the injured suffer@@@@@@ hello? >> sorry, the train was a little late getting here. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

among chairman, he is the chairman. thank you all for being here. nd my apologies for a couple of minutes off target. the -- what we'll try to do in order to expedite things is to -- we'll limit opening statements to the three of us, make them short and we'll ask the other members who may come to include their opening statement in the record or in their question period. we're going to work in five-minute cycles here. so i will start by once again thanking you all for being here. the roles you play are very important and we're pleed to have a chance to talk to you. this hearing comes to order and we gather here at a rather sad moment.

many lives were lost at the -- with the crash of the metro. and we -- there are numbers still to be computed of those who were not only perished, but those who were wounded. and what it -- it tells us, as we see the confusion that's followed, and the effort that's followed, is how important the use of the metro, transit system, is. and for the last few years, we look and we see that amtrak, because we're talking now about intercity but we can't ignore the contribution that transit rail makes. the last few years, we've seen amtrak break ridership records

year after year. and the -- in 2008, amtrak's ridership hit more than 28 riders, -- more than 28 million riders, making the sixth straight year ofains. these gains prove two important points. it establishes the fact that people are sick and tired of waiting in traffic, standing in line at the airport, and hailing dangerous -- inhaling dages emissions and just waiting indeaf -- dangerous emissions and just waiting indefinitely for their travel mechanism to be there. if we provide convenient and reliable rail service, americans will choose it. secondly, these gains prove that time cries out, this time cries out for a major investment in high speed rail. we need to fill a rising demand for faster and more efficient rail service. for years, we've had flights --

beg and claw for funding against those who wanted to bankrupt amtrak, even as more americans were demanding increased amtrak service. in this chart we have here, in quick fashion, it describes some of the problems we face. for you who have a problem discerning the color the blue is highway investment, since 1949. aviation is the yellow and intercity passenger rail, you can just about see at the bottom is that green band. and we -- when we look at how much we've invested in highways and aviation system, it's obvious that we invested too little in the -- in rail.

now we're not suggesting that those other modes aren't important, but we need to investment more in rail. last year we took a major step forward with my landmark law to preprayer for the next -- prepare for the next years. it take -- takes $5 billion over the next few years to grow and prepare and we created new grant programs for high speed rail investment. it has been a long road but this new law finally paves the way for solid and ongoing federal commitment to passenger rail. fortunately, we have strong partners in the white house in president obama, vice president biden, and with the help of secretary lahood. they know that to keep our commuters mobile, to keep our nation competitive and to get

our economy back on track we cannot simply rely on cars and planes to get people from place to place. we need to balance -- we need a balanced transportation system and high-speed rail is part of that equation. that's why the recovery law we passed in february contains more than $8 billion for high speed and intercity passenger rail. this will not only improve rail service but create jobs. in this tough economy, these transportation investments are smart investments. they put people to work, reduce delays, and congestion, and cut carbon emissions and our dependence on foreign oil. president obama and his administration have presented a great vision for high speed rail network here in america and i'm committed to working with the president to turn that vision into reality and i look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how to make that happen and i turn first to my

-- to the ranking member on the subcommittee, senator thune, and then we'll hear from chairman rockefeller and ranking member hutchison. mr. thune: thank you, mr. chairman, for calling this timely hearing and we've got a dwibbed panel i want to welcome as well and look forward to hearing from all of you. my state is one of the few in the country that doesn't have passenger rail and you have to hearken back a long ways in theages of history to a time -- in the anals of history to a time when we did. i recall my father who is now almost 90, talking about back in the 1930's taking the railroad from my hometown about 130 to 140 miles, that was a fairly frequent thing, people at that time traveled by passenger rail a lofment it's been some time since we had that in south dakota.

we're dependent on freight railroading. i can probably approach this issue more dispassionately than most, since it's not something we have in our state, though maybe with the stimulus money we could get some. that would be nice. it is an opportunity, obviously, the fund that's been made available for high speed rail and the -- in the president's budget, nottle on the stimulus money but the other $5 billion in the next five annual appropriations cycles, but i also would argue it poses some risks. it's a great opportunity for advancing high speed corridor drment to address congested corridors but it's a great financial risk of to the taxpayers if the selection and management of the sprodget not carried out. this is the key area i'm most interested in hearing about from today's witnesses. in my judgment, the federal government does a poor job of trying to decide how to spend

its money. one common result is money gets spread thinly over a wide range of projects and as a result, none of them gets done correctly or quickly or the government uses soft criteria that results in choosing unviable or unsustainable objects. we find that cost -- original cost estimates were low from the beginning. how does the department of transportation and federal railroad commission plan to deal with these problems? specifically, what i'd like to hear our panelists discuss today is how will the projects be chosen, how will the department validate the data such as ridership and project kansases submitted by applicants and what oversight will occur and how will it be carried out to ensure that projects come in on budget and on time. i hope congress will monitor how this program is implemented and i hope the program succeeds. and that when we look back five

years from now and after spending as much as $13 billion as is envisioned by the president, that we'll see great progress. to me, it means trains that serve real needs that are constructed on budget and on schedule, filled with passengers making the routes economically viable. i want to thank our panelists for appearing today and sharing their testimony. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. the chairman of the committee, senator rockefeller. i want to make him a general, but -- >> thank you, chairman lautenberg. first of all, i want to apologize. i'm not on the judiciary committee. the white house is anxious to have all senators meet with judge sotomayor before recess,

i have been assigned a time at 3:15. that's kind of for life, for her, should she win, which i think she will. so i have to excuse myself but i do that without any misgivings, because this is frank lautenberg's passion and has been for years, really more than anybody. so i also welcome all of you, including governor rendell, i just told him, i never see him in person, it's always on television. and it's kind of exciting, you know to meet somebody like that >> mr. chairman, you don't know how exciting it is. i've worked with him. >> now, i agree totally with senator lautenberg that the -- on the excitement of high speed passenger rail. i've spent 10, 12 years either

chairing or being ranking on the aviation subcommittee of this body. and it just occurs to me that we're down now, to relatively few airlines with lots of problems and if you just look at the pattern of people's behavior, they want to use fast rail. they want to use rail. and they want to use fast rail system of that's what this is about. i look at west virginia, people have been -- people don't necessarily assume there's a lot of passenger rail through west virginia, it's actually a huge fact, it is obviously in southwestern virginia also. in fact, our amtrak service, which senator lautenberg helped so much, has increased -- has

doubled in one of its lines in the last year. doubled. and the other has rizz bin 19%. west virginians don't travel endlessly, so this is a very important statement. earlier this year, senator lautenberg joined as he indicated with the vice president, the $1.3 billion application -- allocation to the stimulus package. it was called -- it was cold, the speeches were not interesting, but the money is real. that's what counts. and i have to say, in a nonpartisan fashion, that it is thrilling to have, as senator lautenberg pointed out, somebody in the white house who

wants this and isn't happy with the level of green up there. wants more green. i believe that passenger rail can do a lot for us as a country. that's not a cliche. we need to increase the use of passenger rail enormously, not just for passengers but for freight and we need to do it as fast as we possibly can. the -- it affect ours climate change. it affects 1/3 of our greenhouse emissions in this country. the department of energy's oak ridge national laboratories says the inner city passenger rail is 17% more efficient than air travel. that it is 21% more efficient than auto travel. says something. so encouraging greater use of it is terribly important.