[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 115 (Thursday, July 1, 2021)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E736-E737]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       INVESTING IN A NEW VISION FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND SURFACE 
                     TRANSPORTATION IN AMERICA ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                           HON. JOE COURTNEY

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 30, 2021

  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my support for the 
INVEST Act which finally, at long last, includes robust funding for 
roads, bridges, rail, and new incentives to address climate change 
equity and most importantly job creation. However, I want to clearly 
state my deep concerns for an amendment adopted by the House, which 
creates a so-called North Atlantic Rail Interstate Compact to control 
the development of high-speed rail.
  I share the intent of the authors of the amendment to support high-
speed rail throughout the Northeast. Connecticut and the Northeast 
region are home to some of the most densely-populated areas of the 
country, which are served well by mass transit, and high-speed rail 
would have significant positive impacts for our region and our nation 
as a whole. That is why I am proud to support the underlying bill, 
which triples funding to Amtrak and provides a 500 percent increase in 
the funding dedicated to improving high speed and passenger rail. The 
resources provided in the INVEST Act signal an unprecedented 
opportunity for the New England region, at the state and federal 
levels, to work together with common purpose to build on the work 
already being done to expand rail service in the northeast.
  I remain concerned, however, about an amendment added to En Bloc No. 
1 to establish a North Atlantic Rail compact. While I appreciate the 
goals of this proposal, I believe that it is duplicative of existing 
interstate regional rail efforts and short-circuits established 
cooperative long term rail planning in the region. The North Atlantic 
Rail compact has as a goal a multi-phase rail development vision for 
the northeast that includes initial ``early action'' projects, many of 
which are already under development, and longer term goals of a cross-
Long Island Sound tunnel and a new right of away across the rural 
communities of eastern Connecticut. Notably, many of these longer term 
goals reflect previously considered plans for rail expansion in the 
northeast and contradicts already-completed environmental assessments 
for existing high-speed rail plans and could cause significant negative 
environmental impacts in our region.
  The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has already done extensive 
study on many of the concepts listed in the North Atlantic Rail plan 
which have been ruled out as part of the Northeast Corridor (NEC) 
FUTURE comprehensive plan for the route from Washington, D.C. to 
Boston, Massachusetts. The existing NEC FUTURE plan has taken years of 
work with stakeholders with thousands of public comments and has met 
crucial environmental milestones to move forward. As noted by Amtrak in 
a June 28, 2021 letter to the House Transportation & Infrastructure 
Committee opposing the underlying compact proposal in the amendment, 
``Amtrak, state DOTs, the NEC Commission and FRA already have the 
institutional capabilities, the collaborative framework and the 
requisite rights to advance high-speed and other intercity passenger 
rail service in New England.''
  This compact as proposed in the amendment is also duplicative of 
existing regional rail cooperation between the Northeast Corridor 
states. The Northeast Corridor Commission and the NEC Future plan has 
been developed in partnership with state departments of transportation, 
metropolitan planning organizations, and local communities. In 
contrast, the NAR has been included as part of this bill without the 
support of major stakeholders such as the Connecticut Department of 
Transportation and without clear plans for oversight, transparency and 
public engagement that are inherent in existing regional planning 
efforts and state and federal agencies.
  This is a critical flaw, as many of the goals at the core of this 
compact would occur in and disproportionately impact Connecticut in the 
near and long term. As an alternative, the underlying bill authorizes 
expansion of interstate rail compacts that would be competitively 
approved and funded to develop plans to expand high speed rail through 
interstate cooperation and coordination. That is the approach that 
should be taken on this effort, rather than a duplicative organization 
without the full buy in of critical stakeholders.
  I appreciate that there have been significant changes that Chairman 
DeFazio of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and 
his professional staff made to the original NAR proposal, including 
making the North Atlantic Rail into an interstate compact instead of a 
federally-chartered special purpose entity, and most critically, 
requiring ratification from each state in order to go into effect in 
that state. The original proposal would have created an unaccountable 
federally-chartered entity with control of funds and eminent domain, 
which the Committee wisely eliminated from the plan. Unfortunately, 
these improvements still fail to justify the need for an additional 
interstate compact on top of existing state and regional entities and 
requires extensive evaluation and review as this bill moves forward.
  As the House and Senate come together to finalize the surface 
transportation reauthorization bill, I will continue to raise these 
concerns with lead Congressional negotiators. Additionally, I hope that 
my colleagues consider weighing these impacts against the existing 
mechanisms which are already in place to create high-speed rail in the 
Northeast, including NEC FUTURE, and the underling authority the bill 
provides to expand cooperative interstate rail compacts. Just last week 
on June 24, all 18 voting members on the Northeast Corridor Commission 
unanimously approved the CONNECT NEC 2035 plan, a 15-year action plan 
to rebuild the Northeast Corridor, and which could provide $70 billion 
in state-of-good repair funds over the next 15 years. The existing 
framework of the NEC FUTURE already has the organization, funding, 
environmental safeguards, stakeholder support, and local buy-in to make 
high-speed rail a reality for our region more quickly and more 
effectively than the NAR proposal could do.
  In closing, despite these concerns, which I believe can and will be 
addressed in the process and based on the overall historic opportunity 
that the INVEST Act provides, I will vote in the affirmative to keep 
this process moving forward.

                                                    June 28, 2021.
     Hon. Peter DeFazio,
     Chairman, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, 
         House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
     Hon. Sam Graves,
     Ranking Member, Committee on Transportation and 
         Infrastructure, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairman DeFazio and Ranking Member Graves: I am 
     writing to express Amtrak's concerns about reports that the 
     House may include in the INVEST in America Act an amendment 
     that would create a ``North Atlantic Rail Compact'' (NARC) 
     with

[[Page E737]]

     an ostensible charge to construct an ill-defined ``North 
     Atlantic Rail Network.'' Amtrak is strongly opposed to the 
     adoption of this amendment and the likely negative 
     consequences of such a decision for the Northeast Corridor 
     and the national rail network. Adopting the amendment would 
     establish--without any hearings, committee consideration, 
     studies or opportunity for those impacted by the proposal to 
     be heard--support for an infeasible proposal, previously 
     rejected because of the harm it would do to the environment, 
     by an advocacy group called North Atlantic Rail (NAR) to 
     build a new, up to 225 mph dedicated high-speed rail line 
     between New York City and Boston.
       The dedicated high-speed rail line's route (NAR Alignment) 
     would not follow the existing Northeast Corridor (NEC) 
     alignment that parallels Interstate 95. Instead, it would 
     travel beneath the East River in a new tunnel; cross dense 
     urban sections of Queens and Long Island to Ronkonkoma; turn 
     north to Port Jefferson; traverse the Long Island Sound in a 
     16-mile tunnel to Stratford, Connecticut; and after passing 
     through New Haven and Hartford, turn east across Eastern 
     Connecticut and Rhode Island to Providence, from which it 
     would follow the existing NEC rail corridor to Boston. Most 
     of the line would be built on elevated viaducts. Extensive 
     portions of the high-speed line would need to be constructed 
     along newly acquired and cleared rights-of-way on which there 
     are no rail lines or existing transportation corridors today.
       Building a high-speed rail line along the NAR Alignment was 
     evaluated in the comprehensive, five-year NEC FUTURE planning 
     and environmental review process--and rejected in the Record 
     of Decision (ROD) issued by the Federal Railroad 
     Administration (FRA) in 2017 because of the harm it would 
     cause to the environment, its costs and failure to provide 
     needed investment to the existing NEC. Instead, FRA, eight 
     NEC states, the District of Columbia and Amtrak endorsed a 
     Preferred Alternative that would increase track capacity and 
     speeds along the existing NEC alignment, and build dedicated 
     high-speed tracks parallel to it where warranted, to minimize 
     environmental impacts and benefit all Amtrak and commuter 
     passengers on the NEC rather than just those traveling on 
     high-speed trains.
       The prior rejection of the NAR Alignment is not the only 
     crucial fact undisclosed in the cursory description of the 
     NAR Proposal on NAR's website and in its handouts.
       Federal safety regulations governing Tier III (above 186 
     mph) high-speed rail equipment would preclude the operation 
     of conventional speed (125 mph or less) intercity and 
     commuter trains over any portion of the NAR Alignment. This 
     means that passengers traveling from currently served NEC 
     cities such as Stamford or Bridgeport to Boston would have to 
     change trains to travel on high-speed trains over the NAR 
     Alignment, as would passengers from New London, Springfield, 
     and Northern New England. It also means that New York City-
     to-Boston trains would not be able to operate above 160 mph--
     which will soon be the maximum speed between New York City 
     and Boston--over the NAR Alignment until the entire line was 
     completed, which NAR acknowledges would be decades away.
       While NAR's advocates claim that the NAR HSR Line would 
     cost $84.6 billion, and ``Early Action Projects'' 
     (investments in other New England rail corridors) an 
     additional $23.4 billion, they have not provided any 
     engineering or cost study to substantiate those figures.
       Building a new 240-mile high-speed rail line, much of it 
     through heavily populated areas where there is no existing 
     rail line or right-of-way, would require purchasing or 
     condemning innumerable homes and businesses, and routing the 
     line through parks and wetlands. Maps prepared for the NEC 
     Future study indicate that the least intrusive route along 
     the NAR Alignment would:
       Bisect Forest Park in Queens on a viaduct, and travel in a 
     trench through Eisenhower County Park in Nassau;
       Be built on trenches or viaducts through residential 
     neighborhoods and business districts alongside the Long 
     Island Rail Road's heavily traveled Main, Hempstead and 
     Ronkonkoma Lines (on which service would have to be curtailed 
     during construction); and
       Follow new alignments, primarily on viaducts, between 
     Ronkonkoma and Port Jefferson, and through numerous 
     communities, parks and wetlands between Hartford and 
     Providence.
       While the ``Early Action Projects'' listed on NAR's website 
     are all worthwhile projects, they are not new ideas and have 
     no connection to NAR's high-speed line proposal. In fact, 
     most of them would not connect with a high-speed line built 
     along the NAR Alignment. The massive levels of funding it 
     would consume would make it less likely that these projects 
     would be funded.
       Likewise, a federal funding commitment to the NAR 
     Alignment--which would cost more than the Biden 
     Administration's proposed investment in all passenger rail 
     projects throughout the country--would leave little federal 
     funding available for projects in other regions.
       The amendment would give NARC, the Compact it creates, 
     responsibility for planning and constructing the New York 
     City-to-Boston high-speed rail line. NARC would be tasked 
     with planning other New England passenger rail improvement 
     projects, a responsibility currently held by FRA, the states, 
     the NEC Commission and Amtrak. NARC would gain these 
     important and complex responsibilities once only two of the 
     seven New England states ratified the compact creating it, 
     even though it would have no resources or employees at that 
     time. It would be governed by an unwieldy 17-member Board on 
     which the federal government and each NEC state would have 
     the same number of votes (two) on issues relating to the 
     construction of a federally-funded high-speed rail line from 
     New York City to Boston as Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. 
     Oddly, the amendment would not give NARC the legal authority 
     possessed by Amtrak and states to condemn properties 
     necessary for the construction of the NAR Alignment, or the 
     remedies Amtrak has if freight railroads that own rail lines 
     on which Early Action Projects would be constructed decline 
     to allow those projects.
       Amtrak recognizes that the advocates for the NAR proposal 
     are well-intentioned. We share their vision of faster service 
     between New York City and Boston, where Amtrak carries more 
     travelers than all airlines combined despite inadequate 
     infrastructure and investment that makes the trip on Acela 45 
     minutes longer than traveling the same distance from New York 
     City to Washington. The best way to accomplish that is to 
     advance the series of investments contemplated by NEC Future, 
     which will produce near-term benefits--shorter trip times and 
     more trains--for all NEC rail users as each project is 
     completed.
       Fifty years after the creation of Amtrak, the stars are 
     finally aligning in ways that would provide New England with 
     the improved and expanded high-speed, intercity and commuter 
     service it needs and deserves. For the first time in Amtrak's 
     history, we have an Administration, a Congress and multiple 
     New England state partners who support making the types of 
     investments other countries have made to develop world class 
     passenger rail services. Because of climate change, an 
     unprecedented pandemic, a growing population, and increasing 
     congestion in other modes, the need for investments in 
     passenger rail service to provide mobility, reduce emissions 
     and spur an economic recovery has never been greater. Amtrak 
     and our state partners stand ready to seize that opportunity.
       Two months ago, I testified before your committee to urge 
     support for investments to reduce trip times between New York 
     City and Boston to less than two hours and thirty minutes. 
     Amtrak and our New England state partners along the NEC are 
     about to begin one of the most important steps in that 
     process: a study to evaluate alternative alignments--
     including their environmental and community impacts--for 
     increased capacity and higher speeds between New Haven and 
     Providence to identify a Preferred Alternative, as 
     contemplated by the NEC FUTURE ROD. The NEC Commission is 
     about to release its CONNECT NEC 2035 report, a 15-year 
     roadmap for implementing NEC FUTURE's vision for expanded and 
     faster passenger rail service. In April, we released our 
     ``Amtrak Connects US'' vision that would provide or expand 
     Amtrak service, also over a 15-year time period, on the same 
     intercity corridors off the NEC Main Line that are included 
     in the NAR's list of ``Early Action Projects.''
       Amtrak, state DOTs, the NEC Commission and FRA already have 
     the institutional capabilities, the collaborative framework 
     and the requisite rights to advance high-speed and other 
     intercity passenger rail service in New England. Right now 
     would be the worst possible time to throw a monkey wrench 
     into the progress they are making by creating a new 
     bureaucracy with poorly defined and overlapping aims and yet 
     no institutional capability. Continuing to move forward with 
     the NEC FUTURE investment program, which has already received 
     Tier I environmental clearance, and advancing the ``Amtrak 
     Connects US'' vision and state rail plans, offer the best, 
     fastest, most cost-effective and most environmentally 
     responsible path to achieving the improved and expanded high-
     speed, intercity passenger and commuter rail service that 
     residents of New England expect and deserve.
           Sincerely,
                                                 William J. Flynn,
                                  Chief Executive Officer, Amtrak.