[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 168 (Monday, November 16, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1617]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                      HIRE MORE HEROES ACT OF 2015

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, November 4, 2015

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the state of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 22) to amend 
     the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exempt employees with 
     health coverage under TRICARE or the Veterans Administration 
     from being taken into account for purposes of determining the 
     employers to which the employer mandate applies under the 
     Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act:

  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chair, I thank Chairman Shuster and Ranking Member 
DeFazio for working with me on both of my amendments.
  The amendment I offer would require the Department of Transportation 
to submit a report to the House Transportation Committee and the Senate 
Commerce Committee on research managed by the Federal Railroad 
Administration (FRA) to develop a system to measure vertical track 
deflection caused by a moving railroad car.
  Such a system should be able to identify a combination of factors 
that, individually, may not be able to cause a train derailment but 
that, together, could endanger safe train operations, such as 
deteriorated cross ties, fouled ballast, and other deficiencies in the 
structures that support rail tracks.
  The amendment authorizes the Department of Transportation to develop 
a plan for using quantitative inspection criteria to identify poor 
track support systems if such an approach is supported by the FRA's 
research.
  The amendment also authorizes the Department to develop a plan to 
install instruments to measure track deflection on its Automated Track 
Inspection Program geometry cars within 3 years of the date of 
enactment of this bill, if this approach is supported by the FRA's 
research.
  I developed this amendment in very close consultation with the 
families of Rose Louese Mayr and Elizabeth Conway Nass, who were 
tragically killed in a coal train derailment that occurred in Ellicott 
City, Maryland, in my district, in 2012.
  These families have worked tirelessly to understand the technical 
circumstances that led to the 2012 train derailment and to identify 
specific steps that can be taken to prevent future tragedies. I am 
deeply honored to have worked with them on this amendment.
  According to the National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) report 
on the Ellicott City accident, ``the point of derailment was a rail 
fracture several hundred feet'' before a bridge. After extensive 
laboratory analysis, the NTSB concluded that the broken rail segment, 
``showed evidence of rolling contact fatigue, a gradual breakdown of 
the rail-head surface.''
  The Ellicott City accident is one of several recent accidents that 
have involved rail-head wear and drawn attention to the ways in which 
the presence of multiple individual defects can eventually lead to a 
rail break.
  While track conditions are addressed in current Federal Track Safety 
Standards, there are no quantitative inspection criteria. Consequently, 
these conditions are rarely cited as defects to be remediated.
  I hope that we can build on the research foundation that my amendment 
requires and eventually develop rules that will address specific track 
conditions.

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