chairman, have worked far long time on amtrak, keeping amtrak viable and i will say that possibilities for high-speed rail, it becomes even more important to have the national system have the opportunity for high speed rail to connect into amtrak and provide better synergism and ridership and service to amtrak and the high speed rail that i do think will help ease the traffic congestion in many parts of our country. i was pleased that you mentioned the amtrak reauthorization bill last year. the first amtrak authorization bill, before this last one, was 1997, and i sponsored that as chairman of the service transportation subcommittee. i think we did some great reforms to begin the process of having a federal partnership for capital grant programs for state, be able to invest in rail and that is an important step forward to making it more viable. any successful rail project is going to have multiple partners, private sector, federal, state, it is so expensive. the early investment is expensive but it becomes much more efficient after it is finally built and established. i am pleased to w

chairman, have worked far long time on amtrak, keeping amtrak viable and i will say that we've had a very productive partnership at keeping the national part of amtrak also viable and i think that is essential and now that we're beginning to see the possibilities for high speed rail, i think it becomes even more important to have the national part of they have system also have the opportunity for high speed rail to connect into amtrak and therefore provide really better synergism and ridership and service to both amtrak and the high speed rail that i do think will help ease the traffic congestion in many parts of our country. i was very pleased, you mentioned the amtrak re-authorization bill last year. the first amtrak authorization bill before this last one was 1997, i sponsored that one as chairman of the surface transportation subcommittee. i think we did some great reforms in last year's to begin the process of having a federal partnership for capital grant programs for states to be ailing to invest in rail. i think that's an important step forward to making it more viable. becau

enhance amtrak's capabilities? >> one of the next steps we absolutely must take is the development of a national rail plan. when i say that, i mean it from a most comprehensive standpoint. we have to understand how high-speed rail is going to overlay on traditional intler city rail, how commuter rail is going to overlay on top of that. and frankly, we have to understand how it's going to interact with the freight rail network. so there are all these components that need to be looked at to ensure we have a comprehensive strategy when it comes to rail. you can't talk about high speed rail without talking about the impact on freights. you know that map is a document that happens to exist today, but certainly there's the need for a much bolder, clearer vision. and a national strategy on how to get there. >> have you ever talked or even put on the table with the amtrak corridors that do share freight rail lines, which make for problems of on time service, which then cause problems at the fare box, have you put on the ta

i learned on my recent 9,000 mile trip on amtrak trains that amtrak is unique.both a company and a mode 06 travel. i often pound that much of the latent desire and hope people feel for passenger service is vested in amtrak. they're willing to go a long way to help out and rehabilitating stations and providing hosts to many of our stations to help travelers. and as enthusiastic as the people who have train service are, i found the people who don't have service but want it, are even more enthusiastic and hopeful. they're tireless advocates and a real inspiration. the transformational vision for passenger rail service takes teamwork and focus from all. we pledge to work with all who want to improve passenger rail. and we thank this committee for their support. >> thank you very much, mr. boardman. an encouraging report. clearly, there's a great deal of progress being made. you've laid out an excellent project. some 20 years ago my late wife and i and my children took a trip. one of the first ones to ride one of the -- the first month or so -- to ride the auto train

i learned on my recent 9,000 miles trip on amtrak trains that amtrak is unique. we are both the company and a mood of travel. -- we are both a company and a mode of travel. we are willing to go a long way to help out in rehabilitating stations and to help troubles. as enthusiastic as the people have train service are, i found that the people who do not have trained service but wanted are more enthusiastic and helpful. they are tireless advocates and they are a real inspiration. the transformational vision for passenger transportation in the u.s. takes teamwork and focus from all. we pledged to work with all who want to improve passenger rail and we think this committee for their support. >> thank you very much. that is a very encouraging report as well. certainly, there is a great deal of progress being made. he laid out an excellent agenda of actions already taken, those that are under way. i am glad that you have the ground breaking for the autumn train terminal. some 20 + years ago, my late wife and nine, our children took that trip -- my late wife and i and o

i learned on my recent 9000-mile trip on amtrak trains that amtrak is unique.r both a company and we're a mode of travel. and i often found that much of that latent desire and hope, people feel for passenger service is vested in amtrak. and they are willing to go along way to help out and read a bill taking stations and providing host at many of our stations to help travelers. and as enthusiastic as the people who have train service are, i found that the people who don't have service but when it are even more enthusiastic and hopeful. they are tireless advocates, and they are a real inspiration. the transformational vision for passenger rail service in the united states takes teamwork and focus from all. we pledged to work with all who want to improve passenger rail, and we thank this committee for their support. >> thank you for it much, mr. boardman. that's a very encouraging report as well. and certainly there's a great deal of progress being made. you've laid out an excellent agenda of actions already taken, those that are underway, and those that are plan.

and amtrak to make that happen. so thank you very much for having us here and i look forward to questions. >> ms. fleming, we welcome you and ask you to make your remarks now, please. >> mr. chairman, ranking member thune, ranking member hutchinson and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss high-speed inner city passenger rail and the american recovery and reinvestment act. the $8 billion provided by the act for high speed and other inner city passenger rail projects have focused more attention on and generated a great deal of anticipation about the possibility of developing high-speed rail systems in the united states. my testimony has two parts. i will discuss the factors that we have identified that affect the economic viability of high-speed rail projects and how f.r.a. strategic plan incorporates these factors. first, while the potential benefits of high-speed rail projects are many, these projects are costly, take years to develop and build and require substantial upfront public

even as more americans were demanding increased amtrak service.d this chart that we have here in quick fashion describes some of the hurdles we face. for you -- for you who have a problem with the discerning colors, the blue is investment. you can see the bottom is that green band. and when we look at how much we've invested in our highways and our 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 invest more in rail. last year we took a major step forward with my landmark law to prepare for the next generation ahead of the traveling demand that's obviously building. the law -- that law provides $13 billion over five years to repair and update amtrak's infrastructure and grow his service in towns and cities that are ready for passenger rail. we also created new grant programs for high speed rail investment. it has been a long road. but this new law finally paves the way for a solid and oncoming commitment for passenger rail. fortunately, we

the amtrak president is a witness today. i will leave it to him to talk about the progress that amtrak is making with these dollars. let me talk about the president's high-speed intercity rail initiative. the obama administration believes that the transportation investment strategy must involve several strategic goals in the coming years, ensuring safe and efficient transportation stretches, building a foundation for economic competitiveness, promoting energy efficiency and environmental quality, and supporting interconnected livable communities. high-speed intercity passenger rail will address many of the strategic transportation goals. we are on track to achieve this vision in a timely manner using the same build out approach that european countries have used. through the grant guidance that was issued on time, we intended to develop merging and regional high-speed corridor services that exceed 110 miles per hour in corridors of 100 miles to 500 miles. we intend to upgrade the lineup -- the reliability of service. the pres

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

the progress that amtrak is making with these dollars. let me now talk about the president's high speed intercity passenger rail initiative. the obama administration believes that our transportation investment strategy must address several strategic goals in the coming years. ensuring safe and efficient transportation choices, building a foundation for economic competitiveness. promoting energy efficiency and environmental quality. and supporting interconnected livable communities. high-speed intercity passenger rail is well-positioned to address many of these strategic transportation goals. at fra, we're on track to achieve this vision in a timely manner using the same build-out approach that european countries have used. through our grant guidance which was issued on time, we seek to advance new express high-speed corridor services, with speed above 150 mile per hour and dedicated track, in corridors of 200 to 600 miles. we intend to develop emerging and regional high-speed corridor services, at speeds of 9 to 110 miles an hour in corri

t-bone needs, i listened carefully, i didn't hear it connecting to amtrak, it might. but amtrak is the only connected intercity service coast to coast, border to border in the united states. and we need the incremental improvements knot 90 to 110, so that people build a culture of riding the train. so they fill up the high speed trains that are connected in some fashion, and it might even be at an airport, but it could be somewhere else, where you connect our system. people want to be seamless. they don't want to go to the border of pennsylvania and new york at route 15, when we had to build the connection, if you remember, governor, to make sure that new york kept up with the leadership that was coming out of pennsylvania. to make that interstate connection. that's the difficult -- difficulty we have today with railroads. we don't always connect. >> senator, if i may, the texas t-bone does connect into the amtrak houston metro multimodal facility in downtown houston. >> great. it's a good way to finish. we very much appreciate this panel, very informative. thank you

amtrak is the nation's rail operator. it designs and provides service it designs and provides service on behalf of the states a á@@@ available for grant funding. a lot of the discussion that has followed has been about speed. but the real issues are trip time and market relevance. and the natural yardstick for comparison is the automobile. so when we talk about improving speeds we need to be thinking about those increases in the context of their effect on trip times. frequency is major component of relevance and we need to make sure we are developing a sufficient number of frequencies to provide travelers with range of choices. there are really three ways to develop passenger train speeds. the best known method is one that a lot of people have in mind when they say high-speed rail. and it's been an order of magnitude the most expensive and time consuming, trains that operate consumely in the 120 to 150 to 220-mile-an-hour range. these projects require a new right of way with very high standards of engineering, our dedicat

caller: putting out a national call for amtrak and the high- speed trains that they have in japan, it would not cost any more to buy a ticket for them and to implement as much money as we spend on the airlines and their big failures. it is safer to travel on the ground. the contract up to 200 miles an hour. of course, it would not work for international, but for national journey is, i think that the airlines and the businesses, the lobbyists that kept amtrak down, they are always down in them and saying it is not feasible -- yes, it is. it would save lives. and in the end, i think it would save money. host: minnesota, the morning to tom on the republican line. caller: the of -- i am a retired locomotive engineer on the railroad and we have very similar issues as far as hours of service. the younger people having to work the back end of the clock. it is a serious issue, a money issue. you can't beat around the bush about that. they would like to have an older fellows leave the service of railroads or airlines. host: who you work for? caller: a very large red road and that u.s., united

in fact, we have regular reporter from amtrak and as part of our oversight we do varfy these numbers.> the numbers i gave you were a metric >> are we meeting our job with the metric jofment we see the number of projects on the way. those projects are really just beginning. the construction season gets into high gear. it's hard to pin down exactly but all the indicators are that they are heading into a positive direction >> we are hopeful that that added expansion will allow them to retain those employees and keep them about their business rather than laying off bus drivers. >> that makes sense. thank you. i blobe my time is up. >> on your side. ms. miller is recognized. thank you. i appreciate all of your testimony. i am sorry i missed your testimony. i was at another meeting. i would like to draw your attention to an a.p. article that was all over the place. the article said the stim luis watch. i like to think of myself as looking at things from a global perspective. can you not blobe how bad things are in the state of michigan. we have had the highest unemployment month after month

amtrak? who does such a good job? this add mipstration is taking over so much power, this country is not going to look like our democrat country when this administration and this congress gets finished with it. >> we have some video of president obama meeting qut french president in france today. before he gives his speech at the norman di american cemetery and memorial. the financial times reporting during the meeting, the french president warns of tough sackses on i ran. tough new sackses my be necessary this autumn after the latest attempt he will tell obama that a meeting between the french president and the foreign minister on wednesday produced no breakthrough but left the french frezz fuming. back to the phones. missouri on the line for independents. >> good morning. how are you? >> how do you think congress should handle this? >> i am attorney. i understand the lady from michigan and the circumstance she's in and not having healthcare for the last four years, which is completely horrible situation. i'm disable

look at amtrak, the post office that runs in - deficit every year, look at states like new york, illinois, california, $12 billion every year of fraud. what will happen to all of the fraud if it goes to 300 million people we are trying to ensure. this is too much government. callerguest: what is the role of government? we talk about waste, fraud and abuse. part of this debate has been if you have $47 million -- 47 million people uninsured, we all pay the cost of the uninsured. small business has been weighing in and are very concerned about employer mandates. large employers do not want the employer mandate. we will have a real struggle between the business community, the policymakers on health care reform. host: next call, from chicago. caller: it is interesting that the republicans have a problem with the government, except when they have a pregnant woman. anyway, there was a hearing of three of the largest health-care insurers. they were investigating the cancellation of all these policies, and investigation by the subcommittee on investigations showed that health insurance well point,

you mentioned amtrak expects to award $190 million for the project. wonder if you are aware, a lot of members have been talking about some projects in their districts. passenger rail and west to i was city, my understanding is this would create a hundred jobs at the cost of $23.2 million, estimated 170,000 riders on that project. we have worked very hard on this. both governors endorsed the project. do you know much about this? is this something you could help us with, something you have already taken a look at? help me out here. >> we don't know a lot about it and we have been helping our staff. frank has been working on a regular basis into iowa to look at what can be done and get into i well. we have some projects we need to do in illinois to make that happen. that is part of what we're looking at for the $8 billion side of what is going to happen, which the administration might want to comment on. there is a requirement that now that there is an application being made by the state of the land by iowa to receive those funds, they need to be compete

we're also going to by the way include in this council amtrak, the corps of engineers and the coast guard. they all have goods movement and safety responsibilities. and we need to engage them in this process. and your point well-taken. we insist on having freight goods movement part of this future transportation. we also, mr. casey, propose to greatly simplify the process for getting transit projects approved. we have today is new starts, small starts, slow starts and no starts. and when i first said that, you know, it is a little humorous but it is also sad. that's the state of affairs. now, we have to, just as we need to expedite highway projects, bridge projects, we need to expedite consideration of transit projects and compress the 14-year period that those projects now excruciating go down to into three or so years. have you looked at our proposal and seen the specifics of it; think we can do it? i think we can. >> i think we have to do that. you know, again some of the these projects especially in the philadelphia area, we've been studying new starts for a number of years and they j

all we have to look at amtrak. deficit every year. you look at states like california. the $12 billion every year. what is going to happen if we go to 300 million people? this is going to be too much government. >>guest: i think the caller had hit on one of the classic debates. what will the role of government be? he talks about both sides saying they want to squeeze that out of the system. if you have 47 million people uninsured how'd you get them covered? he went over the groups. there is general consensus that we all pay the cost. if you get the uninjured covered that should help lower health insurance cost for those who are covered. small business has been waning in. small business person calling in. large employers. i think we're trying to have of real struggle. already starting between the community. >>host: let's good to our next call. doris from chicago, illinois. >>caller: thank you. a statement about health care. it is interesting that the republicans have a problem with the government is standing between a person and their doctors except when it comes for a p

just like any government program -- amtrak, numerous programs with the car industry -- the government does not run companies, and i am concerned that if we have government-run health care, the quality of health care will be going down. i believe in freedom of choice and individual decision making, but i want to go to a health- care provider that i want to choose. i urge you strongly -- i watch you on c-span and it is very informative, but did in, fight, and make sure this bill does not get passed through. i do not care about political capital and all that stuff. make sure americans are protected and do the right thing. thank you. guest: you are absolutely right. the idea of rushing this through, and the call is from the democratic majority in the president to have the bill passed in the house and senate by the august recess, by august 1. we're talking less than six weeks, maybe six or seven weeks. the president wants something he can sign in september. there is no reason for the rush other than a political reason. the president certainly enjoys robust approval ratings at this time. an

we had in identifying the substance and whether people who were sick actually had been exposed to amtrak. then the whole challenges with distributing -- the biggest blows to anthrax. then look at the swine flu and all the excitement we had around that potential pandemic in the united states and say to yourself, what if either mother nature or a terrorist alters a virus out there and it is communicable? do we have a national disease surveillance system to pick it up, whether it is mother nature or a terrorist? if we have the system, do we have the capability to do the research and development, and manufacture the antidote or vaccine. and if we have a surveillance system and the ability to manufacture the antidote or vaccine, do we have a distribution system? the years after anthrax, we see the pandemic right now. the greatest concern i have is that we spent a lot of time when we should have worried about nuclear-weapons and fissile material, radiological. from an intellectual point of view, i am even more concerned about biological weapons. host: tom ridge served as the homeland security

accepting credit cards, it turns out there are over 200 federal entities that accept credit cards, amtrak, the postal service, the treasury's financial management services. it turns out that our government paid these credit card companies over $200 million in interchange fees to visa and mastercard in the fiscal year 2007. i repeatedly asked the credit card industry and the banks to demonstrate that the rates that they've established are legit in the, to process the card transactions and, unfortunately, they have not been able to provide any data or information to suggest that the amount charged even to the federal government represents a reasonable fee. in fact, the gao report on this recently said that the fms tried to negotiate lower interchange fees with visa and mastercard and negotiations were not successful. in addition to the general questions of the fees on retail establishments across america. what is the status of your effort to make sure uncle sam isn't paying too much for the credit card companies for use of a credit card. >> this is a complicated question and to be honest wi

guest: i have long been a supporter of amtrak and i at least hope we would see high- speed rail, something europe has had for decades. there is a big investment to look at high speed rail, to connect people from cleveland, detroit, chicago, st. louis, milwaukee. but obviously transit in urbanized areas, you need that. my district is fairly rural. we do not have things like subway cars. i think we only have one bus in my congressional district. in fact, that needs to be part of the equation, to get people off the road. host: we will have to leave it there. thank you for joining us. up next, we will talk to republican congressman scalise. we will be right back. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> every weekend, the latest nonfiction span offers on c- span2. saturday, how you run for congress with $7,000 and your sixth grade students managing the campaign? she gave it a shot in ms. cahill for congress. sunday, joel rosenberg takes you how the followers of g hyde, jefferson, and jesus are battling to dominate the m

that we can do short of, madam speaker, turning this over to the federal government, to run what -- amtrak, the post office or indeed the medicare program. and i don't think that's what people really want and expect. we can do better than that. and there are a number of issues in particular that we can talk about in detail if we had more than just an hour, madam speaker. but clearly, this idea of electronic medical records, i think, is a way of trying to save money. i think the money we put in the stimulus package, $19 billion to provide grants. i've got a piece of legislation that would help physicians purchase hardware and software and a maintenance program that is specialty specific, whether it was my specialty of ob-gyn or general practice or surgery program produced by a company in my district called greenway, where you have as part of that electronic medical record program, you have all the things set up of best practices that are developed not by a government bureaucrat, madam speaker, but by that very specialty group, those men and women, those leaders of that specialty society tha

amtrak and pennsylvania shared the $145 million cost of the expansion of philadelphia to harrisburg. >> that's a good suggestion and one that we ought to i think take to heart if which do when we start looking at evaluating these projects. >> senator, it is a key part of our plan. >> it is, ok. and let me ask ms. fleming to sort of follow-up that question too. do you think the department should take or make sure these forecasts, when it relies on this information that you want to make them as accurate as possible. i guess my question is, do you believe there ought to be a neutral party that evalue waits these forecasts too in addition to having the -- >> ridership and other forecasts are key factors in determining whether a project or a system is going to be economically viable. and unfortunately, you know, statistics and results have shown that ridership tends to be overestimated and costs tends to be underestimated. so we feel there are several ways to try to get and provide more reliable statistics. the first would be kind of following governor rendell which is really obligating t

extent at this point it makes our job a little easier but yes, in fact, we have regular reporting from amtrak as part of our oversight we do verify these numbers. >> from the federal aviation administration, we are using a metric number that i gave you today and provided in my testimony are based on a metric of the national economic council as a divisor. and once the grants are reported and underway, we will collect the data and have accurate, but the numbers i gave you today were forecast on a metric. >> and are we meeting our job retention goals with the recovery fund money, would you say? >> i think it's early to tell. i think we are seeing positive progress as you reported earlier. we are seeing tremendous increase in march and april to may. we see the number of projects that are underway has increased dramatically, and in those projects are really just beginning. construction now, as construction season gets in high gear. so i expect another dramatic increase as we get into july and august, september, the prime construction months. so it's hard to say, you know, japan exactly where we ar

forward and i think could go right into amtrak. it can have a lot of great results, and i hope that it is one of the first projects that can get some of the stimulus funding that would be available, and i think it's great that she's here to talk about the national system and i just want to recognize governor rendell who is also someone i've worked with a long time and his brother is actually my constituent, and also a good friend and someone that with hill i have worked in dallas and texas, so we have a lot of interest here and i look forward to hearing from the witnesses and it's a very distinguished panel. thank you very much, stir chairman. .. forgo additional opening statements and we'll try to deal with this expeditiously and have just five-minute rounds or six-minute rounds maybe to give just an extra minute for use as the members see it. i'd like to introduce the witness panel. a good friend and governor ed rendell of pennsylvania. just like the people of new jersey, our neighbors in pennsylvania rely on trains on a daily ba