mr. kaufman, the last person to turn in a speaker card. chair nolan: good afternoon, mr. kaufman. >> i am going to throw out a few numbers at you. these are all from the mta records. we did not dream them up. i want to talk about just two of the many reasons that many oppose the central project. in fact, what is opposed is gross, quite significant, day- by-day. ridership. back three years ago, when this product was being sold to some rather gullible elected officials, figures were being tilted of 90,000 people per day. as you know, that is nowhere close to being correct. i might say just in passing, that puts it up in a legitimate field with, let's say, some of the new york subways, which may be 800 riders per day, 900,000 riders per day. someday, maybe this will carry that many. those are two car trains. by the time the final eir k9 and address 76,000 riders per day, -- by the time the final eir came out and addressed the 76,000 riders per day, that was at the time of the eir. however, that turned out to be wrong, too. now, it is shown as 65,000 riders per day, including

mr. jon kaufman, who passed away. he was my trainer in the role who implemented the skills for me. lastly, i would like to thank, on this special occasion that is coming up on december 25, the one who was born at this time, and who many years ago was given a name in the original -- it was the name shalom, prince of peace, the one who is born on december 25. i would like to thank him for his grace and goodness to meet. he has given me grace to this point. thank you for the award, all of you. [applause] executive director ford: in our capital programs and construction division, our next awardee will be drew howard. can you step up to the podium? [applause] drew is the office manager of our capital controls project relations at the capital programs and construction division. he has been with the agency for 19 years. his responsibilities have included the project management segment heading the civil and over had engineering groups. he was the driving force behind the successful third street light rail jobs program, which has evolved into the city build a program. -- city build program.

mr. kaufman of cover-up. >> thank you, mr. chairman. first of all thank you so much for your work and what you have accomplished. i can't you mentioned some things that need to be done from your perspective some kind of international agreements others uniform standards. i think you talked about responsibility to an accident if it occurs having a definition of that, but perhaps some insurance requirements reviewing that lawyer devotee issues. i think what i'm hearing from you is in terms of the prevention one is responding and the other is prevention. so in terms of prevention i guess my question to you is it adequate regulations exist, but was it merely the enforcement of the regulation that was the problem? because certainly we know that mms had very significant problems and i think there was a report in 2008 that talks about how dysfunctional mms was command and we heard in this situation here how the inspection simply didn't occur in the manner that they were prescribed and we are supposed to occur, and so sometimes we have problems

mr. kaufman of cover-up. >> thank you, mr. chairman.irst of all thank you so much for your work and what you have accomplished. i can't you mentioned some things that need to be done from your perspective some kind of international agreements others uniform standards. i think you talked about responsibility to an accident if it occurs having a definition of that, but perhaps some insurance requirements reviewing that lawyer devotee issues. i think what i'm hearing from you is in terms of the prevention one is responding and the other is prevention. so in terms of prevention i guess my question to you is it adequate regulations exist, but was it merely the enforcement of the regulation that was the problem? because certainly we know that mms had very significant problems and i think there was a report in 2008 that talks about how dysfunctional mms was command and we heard in this situation here how the inspection simply didn't occur in the manner that they were prescribed and we are supposed to occur, and so sometimes we have problems i

kaufman. this is just over 20 minutes. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: madam president, i ask further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: i ask unanimous consent that jillan liebeck be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's proceedings. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: madam president, in these closing weeks of the 111th congress, the senate will be saying goodbye to a number of retiring colleagues. for my part, i will miss them all, but i have to be honest, the most poignant farewell for me will be the departure of my dear friend, senator chris dodd of connecticut. chris and i have a lot in common. we're both proud of our irish roots. we were both elected to the house of representatives at the same time: 1974. chris moved over here in 1980 and i followed four years later. and we both ran for president with similarly unambiguous results. over the years we've collaborated on many legislative initiatives, including most recently the historic pa