[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5461-5470]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

   PROTECTING VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS AND EMERGENCY RESPONDERS ACT OF 
                            2014--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now 
resume legislative session.
  The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I can still remember my first job as 
though it was yesterday. I worked as a busboy at a local family 
restaurant during our small-town fair. While that job only lasted a few 
days, I still remember how incredibly proud I was to have earned a few 
dollars myself. The next year that same family hired me to bus tables 
and wash dishes year-round at their family restaurant. I soon went from 
busing tables to bagging groceries and then stocking shelves at the 
local grocery store.
  I grew up on a small farming and ranching operation. So whether it 
was drying dishes after dinner or helping my dad with the cattle, hard 
work was simply a requirement for every single member of my family. In 
addition to tending cattle, my dad worked as a utility lineman. And my 
mother worked in a factory inspecting wheels on the assembly line.
  Like a lot of Americans, I learned the dignity of work long before I 
ever held a job. I learned at home.
  Everyone deserves a fair shot at success in this country. That is at 
the heart of why raising the minimum wage truly matters.
  Minimum wage workers are not just teenagers. They are single parents 
working two jobs to make ends meet. They are women working a minimum-
wage job at a movie theater for 8 years waiting for a raise. They are 
students working toward a degree that they hope will make all the 
difference in their lives. They are mothers and fathers working 40 
hours a week--sometimes many more--to support their families.
  These are the Americans who work hard and earn the Federal minimum 
wage and still find it difficult--some would argue impossible--to get 
ahead.
  At $7.25 an hour, the Federal minimum wage has lost more than 30 
percent of its value over the past four decades. Groceries and housing, 
education and energy costs all continue to rise, but the minimum wage 
simply has not kept pace.
  This financial hardship is especially felt by women who make up a 
majority of minimum wage workers in this country. And stagnant wages 
hinder a family's chance to work their way into the middle class.
  For many, raising the minimum wage means the difference between 
poverty and dignity. It can mean the difference between a trip to the 
food bank and a trip to the grocery store. It means the difference 
between earning enough to just barely get by and earning enough to at 
least think about the future.
  That is why I am supporting the Minimum Wage Fairness Act to raise 
the Federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour by 2015.
  According to recent estimates, more than 100,000 New Mexicans would 
receive a direct raise from this legislation, and another 43,000 would 
see their pay increase as overall wages improve, dramatically 
increasing economic opportunities for New Mexico families.
  Raising the minimum wage is not just good for those workers; it is 
good for business and it is good for the economy at large. A higher 
minimum wage helps reduce turnover, increases productivity, and boosts 
consumer demand.
  A higher minimum wage puts more money in the pockets of people who 
spend locally and helps create a ladder of opportunity into the middle 
class.
  Americans are no strangers to hard work and embrace the belief that 
if you work hard and you play by the rules, you should be able to get 
ahead, you deserve a fair shot.
  There are cities in New Mexico that are already taking the initiative 
and

[[Page 5462]]

raising the minimum wage on their own. The city of Santa Fe's minimum 
wage is $10.51 per hour. As a city councilor myself, I fought to raise 
the minimum wage in Albuquerque. And today Albuquerque's minimum wage 
is still $1.25 more than the current Federal rate.
  In Las Cruces, there is a growing grassroots effort to raise that 
city's minimum wage.
  I know this fight. We need to raise the national minimum wage so that 
all workers have a fair shot to get ahead. Because, the truth is, the 
deck has been stacked against working families for some time now. Too 
many working families are forced to make decisions that hurt the 
progress and strength of our Nation as a whole--such as taking on an 
extra shift instead of pursuing their education, or having to choose 
between paying the heating bill or the phone bill.
  Raising the minimum wage is key to making this economic recovery work 
for all of us. But raising the minimum wage alone is not enough to 
constitute a middle-class economic agenda.
  We need to put preschool within the financial grasp of every working 
family, and we need to address the outrageous increases in college 
tuition and loan costs. We must invest in vocational training and help 
build the modern American manufacturing economy of the 21st century. We 
must close the gender wage gap to ensure that women are paid what they 
deserve--paid equally with men.
  Fair, livable wages, together with educational opportunities for 
middle-class families--that is a formula for a real opportunity agenda.
  It is time to ensure that every New Mexican, every American has a 
fair shot. It is time to raise the minimum wage.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
  The Finance Committee is considering something we call in the Senate 
tax extenders. One of those is the wind production tax credit. For the 
next 10 minutes or so, I wish to address that law which has been on the 
books for more than 20 years. It expired in December, and, in my view, 
needs to stay expired.
  One of the things we remember most about the late President Ronald 
Reagan, is what he said about government programs: The closest you will 
come to eternal life on this Earth is a government program.
  Well, my nomination for the most glaring example of a government 
program that seems to have eternal life is the wind production tax 
credit--the Federal taxpayers' subsidy for what I would call ``big 
wind.''
  Here is what the wind production tax credit does. Let's say you build 
one of those 20-story turbines and the wind turbines begin to go 
around, as they will about one-third of the time to produce 
electricity. So for every kilowatt hour of electricity that you 
produce, the taxpayers will pay you 2.3 cents. That is a pretty good 
deal because the wholesale price of electricity, depending on where you 
are at in the country, might range from about 3 cents per kilowatt hour 
to 7 cents per kilowatt hour. So let's say you are in Oregon or a part 
of the country where they have pretty cheap electricity and you sell 
wind for 3 cents a kilowatt hour. You will pay 1 cent of the money you 
get in Federal corporate tax. That leaves you with 2 cents, but then 
the taxpayer is going to come in and pay you 2.3 cents on top of that. 
Because it is a tax credit, it is worth even more.
  Now it is even better than that. That subsidy is not just for 1 year, 
but it is for 10 years. So every time we have a 1-year extension of the 
wind production tax credit, we tell the owner of the wind turbine--and 
usually they take these ownerships and they put them in portfolios and 
they split them up and sell them to rich people around the country and 
around the world who can use the tax credits--it is for 10 years. So 
the wind production tax credit is 2.3 cents per kilowatt hour of 
taxpayer money, every year for 10 years if you are producing wind 
electricity.
  This provision of the Tax Code was enacted in 1992. It was supposed 
to be a ``temporary'' subsidy. It was intended to do what we have done 
several times in our country, which is to jump-start a new energy 
technology. Well, as President Reagan observed, eternal life for a 
government program sinks in pretty quickly. This temporary tax 
provision, enacted in 1992--more than 20 years ago--has been extended 
eight times since its enactment. The wind industry has become a very 
well-developed industry.
  I asked President Obama's Nobel Prize-winning Energy Secretary, 
Secretary Chu, in the first term of President Obama's administration 
how he would describe wind power. He said it was a ``mature'' 
technology.
  The No. 1 problem with the wind production tax credit is its cost. 
Congress enacted a 1-year extension for 2013. That was at a cost of 
nearly $12 billion to the taxpayers--remember, not all in 2013; that 
was just for a 1-year extension. For 2014 there is another 1-year 
extension which is being considered by the Finance Committee, and that 
will be another $6 billion.
  This is real money. I mean, just look at the amount of money we spend 
on energy research in multiple agencies. The number is about $10 
billion let's say we, through our research, developed a way to capture 
carbon from coal plants and recycle that carbon and turn it into 
something commercially feasible and sell it. Then all of a sudden, 
these coal plants that people worry about because they produce carbon, 
would be as clean as nuclear power, as clean as wind power. As a result 
we would be building coal plants everywhere in America. That seems like 
a better use of taxpayer dollars. We would have cheap electricity--even 
cheaper electricity for a longer period of time.
  We spend $10 billion on energy research in a year and the last 1-year 
extension of the wind production tax credit was $12 billion over 10 
years. By comparison, take tax breaks for Big Oil. One of the last 
times President Obama wanted to end the tax subsidies for what he 
called Big Oil, he identified $4 billion worth of tax subsidies. Well, 
most of those tax breaks, he calls subsidies for Big Oil, are tax 
breaks that many manufacturing companies have.
  The point I am trying to make is that we are talking about a lot of 
money.
  The supporters of this tax credit will say: ``Let's phase it out.'' 
In fact, it is phased out. If Congress did not act, all of those people 
who currently today have their wind turbines would continue to get 
their subsidies for up to 10 more years. So that phases it out.
  But let's say we phase it out according to a proposal that was made 
last year by the wind industry. Well, the American Energy Alliance said 
that might cost as much as $50 billion over 10 years--a huge amount of 
money. Now, there could be some other form of phase out--I would 
welcome the opportunity to see it--that would not cost so much. Maybe 
that would make sense, but beware the phase out.
  The United States uses 20 to 25 percent of all of the electricity in 
the world. It is important to us. We use it for our computers, we use 
it for our businesses, we use it for our military, and we use it for 
our lights. If the lights go out in America, America stops. That is how 
important electricity is to us.
  Where does that electricity come from? Four percent of it comes from 
wind power. Of course, that is only available when the wind blows--
usually at night, usually when we need it the least. Four percent of 
our electricity is wind after 22 years and billions of dollars. The 
rest of it comes from other sources--7 percent from hydroelectric 
power; 19 percent from nuclear power, which is about 60 percent of all 
of our clean energy; nearly 40 percent from coal; and 27 percent from 
natural gas. So 4 percent from wind.
  It is true, as wind power advocates say, that in the past Congress 
has approved other jump-starts for energy technology. But the 
difference is that we put a cap on them.
  We are very happy about all of the unconventional gas we have in this 
country today. Suddenly, we have an enormous amount of natural gas. The

[[Page 5463]]

research for that partially came from Sandia Laboratory, from 
Department of Energy demonstration projects. There was a tax credit for 
fracking, but it expired in 1992. The demonstration projects are over. 
This technology is out in the marketplace and making lives better all 
across the country. Take plug-in electric cars. I supported that, but 
there was a cap on the number of credits we had for plug-in electric 
cars--200,000 per manufacturer. The nuclear production tax credit works 
just like the wind production tax credit. You sell a kilowatt hour of 
electricity from a nuclear power plant, and we will give you a taxpayer 
credit. But that is capped at 6,000 megawatts. So there is a limit to 
it. There is no cap on the subsidy for electricity produced by wind. I 
do not know the exact number, but it is probably in the 50- or 60- or 
70,000 megawatt range.
  Problem No. 1 is cost.
  Problem No. 2 is reliability risk.
  The problem here is that Congress is picking winners and losers. When 
it gives wind power such a big subsidy that is sometimes more than the 
cost of the electricity, it undercuts our coal and nuclear plants. And 
what that does is put us at risk as a country. Any country that uses 
that much electricity needs these big plants to operate almost all the 
time--coal and nuclear--to keep the lights on, to support jobs, to keep 
the cars running, and to make America run. Our country cannot run on 
windmills that only work when the wind blows. We cannot run only on 
solar power that only works when the Sun shines. We have to have 
baseload power.
  Because the wind subsidy is picking winners and losers, it undercuts 
baseload power. It has caused the Center for Strategic and 
International Studies, a very well-respected organization, to say that 
the combination of the federal subsidy for wind power and low gas 
prices could cause as many as 25 percent of our nuclear plants in 
America to close within the next 10 years. That would be a terrible 
blow to our country's economy, to our effort to improve family incomes 
and to find jobs for middle-class Americans.
  How could that be? How does it do that? Well, let's take this 
example. Let's say you are in Chicago and it is the middle of the 
night, 3 a.m., and the demand for electricity goes down as people go to 
sleep. Well, the supplier of electricity to your home or your business 
in Chicago is buying electricity from the market at the lowest possible 
cost. Well, as the demand goes down, the price goes down, and who is 
left out there selling electricity? It is the wind power people because 
they can give away their electricity and still make a profit because of 
the subsidy. This negative pricing is what is undermining baseload, 
coal and nuclear.
  We are very proud of the fact that in our country we have, in effect, 
a domestic price for natural gas. It is very low. Chemical companies 
are moving back to America instead of leaving. Manufacturing plants are 
enjoying the lower costs, and so are homeowners as they heat and cool 
their homes. But remember that natural gas prices can go up and they 
can go down. In 2005 they were not $3 and $4 as they are today, they 
were $13. In New England, even today sometimes natural gas prices spike 
to $30 a unit. So it is important to have diversity and it is important 
to have baseload power.
  The third problem is that these large wind turbines destroy the 
environment in the name of saving the environment. Some people might 
like to look at them. I really do not. Particularly in my part of the 
country, the only places they work are along the foothills or along the 
tops of the most beautiful mountains in the Eastern United States. So 
you string these 20-story structures with blinking lights that can be 
seen for 20 miles in the middle of the beautiful view you have in the 
Eastern United States. They take up a lot of space.
  You could run these 20-story windmills from Georgia to Maine to 
produce electricity, scarring the entire eastern landscape. Or you 
could produce the same amount of electricity with eight nuclear power 
plants. And you would still need the nuclear power plants to produce 
electricity when the wind is not blowing, which is most of the time.
  The final problem is energy security. I had a meeting with George 
Shultz, the former Secretary of State, the other day in San Francisco. 
He made an observation that I had not heard him make before. George 
Shultz said, ``We should pay a lot of attention to generating more 
energy where we use it because of national security risks.''
  George Shultz is head of the MIT Energy Initiative. He was observing 
that the supply of energy ought to be near the user of energy. That is 
especially true with military bases. It could be true for the rest of 
us in this age of terrorism. That is another reason it makes less sense 
to subsidize these giant turbines say in the Great Plains, and then 
someone has to pay for 700 miles of transmission lines through 
backyards and nature preserves to get the wind power to Memphis--to 
bring that electricity to Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley.
  Expecting the United States to operate on windmills is the energy 
equivalent of going to war in sailboats while nuclear power is 
available. It is even worse than that. It is the same as destroying our 
nuclear ships--our nuclear plants, the same way--and replacing them 
with sailboats.
  The energy subsidy for wind turbines has served a purpose for the 
last 22 years. We have spent enough money on them. We have distorted 
the market as much as we can stand. Because of the cost and because we 
are undermining the baseload power of coal and nuclear, which puts us 
at risk as a country that uses 20 to 25 percent of the electricity in 
the world, my hope would be that the Finance Committee would save some 
money and let the marketplace flourish. Give us the opportunity to 
allow the wind production tax credit to stay right where it is, 
expired, as it did at the end of last year. Let those persons who 
already have the benefit of the credits enjoy them for the rest of the 
period of time.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. ISAKSON. I rise to address two subjects briefly on the floor and 
would ask that my remarks be divided appropriately in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ISAKSON. There has been a lot said about the Affordable Care Act 
on the floor of this Chamber for 5 years. I was here when we passed the 
Affordable Care Act. I am in the Senate as it is being implemented.
  There have been lots of things said about it, but this year marks one 
of the things we need to recognize as a major hit to small business. 
Bernie Marcus, a founder of Home Depot and the former chairman and CEO, 
opined yesterday in the Wall Street Journal about the cost of ObamaCare 
to American business, a hidden tax that has been unveiled on the 
American people, the American ratepayer, and the American small 
business person.
  A tax assessment of $8 billion in 2014 is being levied by the 
Affordable Care Act against every insurance company that sells to the 
small- and medium-sized market, to every insurance company that sells a 
Medicare Advantage policy or a Medicare managed care policy. The 2014 
assessment is $8 billion, and it graduates up to where in 2018 it is 
$14.3 billion. That assessment is an arbitrary amount of money that was 
used as a pay-for in the ObamaCare legislation.
  It is assessed on the insurance companies based on their market share 
of the insurance market in small- or medium-sized carriers, Medicare 
Advantage, and Medicaid managed care plans. It represents about a $500-
per-year rate increase on every one of those policyholders, because as 
we all know when an insurance company has the added cost to the 
administration of their policy, that cost is obviously passed on to the 
consumer; $500 a year is $5,000 in the next decade. It also represents 
over the next decade the loss, as estimated by the CBO and NFIB, of 
146,000 jobs.
  Let's think for a minute. The main topics we have had this year in 
the Senate of the United States is income inequality, the need to lower 
unemployment, and the need to create jobs. Yet the signature piece of 
legislation of this administration is going to cost

[[Page 5464]]

us because of a new tax being levied against insurance companies that 
provide health insurance to the American people, and it is going to 
cost 146,000 jobs. It is another example of how we need to rethink the 
approach of the Affordable Care Act.
  We have to recognize all the things it has done from the standpoint 
of taxes, cost, lost jobs, and lost wages. Reform that legislation, 
repeal that legislation, and get it right for the people of the United 
States of America.
  I commend Bernie Marcus on bringing this to the people's attention. I 
commend him on all he has done for my State and for our country, and I 
hope he will keep on giving us his opinion for what is best for the 
United States of America.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a column 
written and published yesterday in the Wall Street Journal by Mr. 
Bernie Marcus, cofounder, former chairman, and CEO of Home Depot.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From The Wall Street Journal, Apr. 1, 2014]

                  ObamaCare's Hidden Hit on Businesses

                           (By Bernie Marcus)

       The law's insurance-company fee will raise premiums and 
     kill at least 146,000 jobs.
       President Obama's promise that Americans could keep their 
     health insurance if they liked it was the most infamous of 
     the Affordable Care Act's sketchy sales pitches. But many of 
     the law's most damaging aspects are less known, buried in 
     thousands of pages of regulations.
       Consider the ``fee''--really a hidden sales tax--that all 
     health-insurance companies have been forced to pay since the 
     first of this year on premiums for policies sold to 
     individuals and small and medium-size businesses. The health-
     insurance tax--known as HIT in business circles--is expected 
     to generate revenues of about $8 billion this year and as 
     much as $14.3 billion by 2018, according to the legislation.
       The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on 
     Taxation predict that insurance companies will pass the cost 
     on to customers, as any company subject to such a tax would. 
     In other words, millions of Americans lucky enough to keep 
     their current health insurance under ObamaCare will be paying 
     much higher premiums because of this tax, with the added cost 
     rippling through the economy and stifling job creation.
       The National Federation of Independent Businesses projects 
     the health-insurance tax will add an additional $475 per year 
     for the average individually purchased family policy--nearly 
     $5,000 over the course of a decade. Small businesses will 
     take an even bigger hit, with the cost of an employer-
     provided family policy rising a projected $6,800 in the next 
     decade.
       Since most large companies self-insure, they aren't 
     affected by the new tax. But smaller- and medium-size 
     businesses don't have that luxury and will bear the brunt of 
     the tax. Many will be forced to raise their employees' share 
     of premium payments or, worse, lay off workers to pay the 
     escalating costs of health care for their core employees.
       The NFIB projects private-sector employment through 2022 
     will be reduced by at least 146,000 jobs because of the 
     health-insurance tax, and perhaps as much as 262,000 jobs. 
     That's like vaporizing some of the largest employers in the 
     country. Just the low-end estimate--146,000 jobs--is still 
     more than the total number of employees currently working for 
     companies like Costco, Microsoft and Delta Airlines.
       Sadly, the NFIB predicts that 59% of the reduced job growth 
     will be in small- and medium-size businesses, America's 
     biggest engines of job creation. Worse, 26% of the problem 
     will be concentrated in very small businesses--the Main 
     Street cafes, retailers and family businesses that are the 
     backbone of the U.S. economy. America's 28 million small 
     businesses make up 99.7% of all American employers. They also 
     create 63% of new private-sector jobs.
       The jobs never created because of the health-insurance tax 
     will be a ``death of a thousand cuts'' on Main Street that 
     adds up to a major wound for the economy. As a result, NFIB 
     predicts total gross domestic product in 2022 will be $23 
     billion to $35 billion smaller than it would have been absent 
     the HIT.
       To get a handle on what this means, consider that 
     McDonald's Corp. grossed $27.6 billion last year, selling to 
     68 million customers per day in 119 countries. So this one 
     new tax on our health insurance is projected to drill a hole 
     in our economy as big as McDonald's in just eight years, with 
     the overwhelming majority of the damage falling on already 
     struggling small businesses.
       According to the Congressional Budget Office, the 
     Affordable Care Act was designed to fix only half the problem 
     of uninsured Americans, by bringing the number of uninsured 
     from 53 million down to 27 million--equal to the current 
     population of Texas. Yet this half-solution has brought with 
     it full-sized problems--like lost health coverage for the 
     previously insured, and job-killing policies like the health-
     insurance tax.
       Poor enrollment figures and endless stories of Americans 
     losing insurance indicate the law won't even be able to 
     accomplish its incomplete goals. Building a sicker economy 
     will not create healthy Americans. Congress and the president 
     must reform this ``reform.''


                                  Iran

  Mr. ISAKSON. America was insulted earlier last month by the Iranian 
people. The government of the nation of Iran has appointed a new 
Ambassador to the United Nations.
  The new Ambassador's name is Hamid Aboutalebi. He will be an 
Ambassador to the U.N. who served on the ground in the Iranian forces 
who took the American Embassy hostages in 1979, captured 52 Americans, 
and held them for 444 days--a man who claims he was just an innocent 
bystander and didn't have much to do with that horrible tragedy. If you 
were alive at that time and watched the ``Nightline'' shows night after 
night to watch the beatings, the torture, the terror, and the capture 
of the American people, you understand full well that nobody could have 
been within sight of that Embassy and not claim to be a part of it.
  My State has been touched. Almost every State of the Union has been 
touched. Those hostages who were held--right up until the time Ronald 
Reagan was sworn in as President--were finally released at the last 
minute when the U.S. Government waived their right to compensation 
against the nation of Iran.
  The nation that held 52 of our diplomats hostage for 444 days signed 
an agreement never to have to pay any reparation to those people and is 
now appointing to the United Nations, the world forum, an ambassador 
who was on the site in Tehran when those people were taken captive. It 
is an insult to America.
  First and foremost, the Government of Iran should apologize; second 
and foremost, the Government of Iran should compensate all of those 
hostages who had been held. Fifty-two hostages were held and 25 percent 
of them have passed away. One of them, as recently as late last year, 
took their own life as a consequence of the injuries they suffered.
  One of the citizens from my State, Col. Chuck Scott of Jonesboro, GA, 
was on television just 2 nights ago about the tragedy in Iran. His 
teeth were knocked out by a 2 by 4 during his captivity. He is going 
back for another surgery in another week to try to remedy some of the 
pain he harbors from that tragedy that took place 34 years ago.
  It is an insult to everything the United Nations stands for, to the 
integrity of the people of the United States of America, and the memory 
of those who passed and those who lived who were held hostage. We 
should demand this appointment be withdrawn by the Iranian Government. 
We should demand an apology on behalf of the Iranian Government to the 
people of United States of America, and we should demand that they 
voluntarily compensate those hostages.
  They are not going to do that, and I know that, which is why we 
introduced legislation, which I principally sponsored 3 years ago, to 
compensate the 52 hostages who were held in captivity from 1979 until 
1981. It is a shame beyond belief that 52 Americans who were held 
hostage are the only Americans in the same circumstance who have not 
been compensated for the damages perpetrated upon them.
  I hope a vehicle comes through the floor of the Senate where we can 
attach this. Senator Kerry, while he was chairman of the committee and 
now Senator Menendez, who is now the chairman, and Ranking Member 
Corker have all embraced our concept of seeing to it that we fight to 
see that recompense is finally made to those hostages who were captured 
from 1979 to 1981.
  We have a great and compassionate country, and we owe them and their 
families every effort to see that the nation of Iran compensates them 
and they are in some way paid back for the terrible tragedy that was 
perpetrated upon them.

[[Page 5465]]

  But first and foremost, Iran needs to know that this U.S. Senator, 
and I think every U.S. Senator, realizes the affront to the American 
people and the insult to the United Nations that Iran is perpetrating 
by making this appointment as Ambassador of their country today.
  I yield back the remainder of my time, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                 Amtrak

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about one of the 
most recent American transportation success stories--Amtrak's Northeast 
corridor--and how Congress can help it grow.
  First, however, I would like to thank two great leaders on the Senate 
Appropriations Committee. First, our chair, Barbara Mikulski--she is 
from the Northeast corridor. I often stop by in Baltimore as I take the 
train from New York to Washington. She has been a staunch defender of 
Amtrak from the day she got here. And Patty Murray who is chairman of 
the transportation subcommittee. She is not from the Northeast corridor 
but, of course, cares very much about Amtrak across the Nation and has 
been a defender of those of us who care about Amtrak and depend on 
Amtrak in the Northeast, as well as throughout the whole country. In 
tough budget times, these two folks have stood up for Amtrak from one 
end of the Nation to the other, and we very much appreciate that.
  Now, as the committees begin their work on the fiscal year 2015 
appropriations, my colleagues and I are here to urge something that 
will benefit millions of riders on the Northeast corridor, which runs 
from Boston to Washington, DC.
  We are mindful of the fact we depend on national support for Amtrak. 
Even though the Northeast corridor is far and away the most used and 
the most profitable of the Amtrak lines, we are one Amtrak. We 
understand how important Amtrak is, even if it doesn't serve as many 
passengers in sparsely populated States, and of course in more 
populated areas on the west coast and the Midwest and the South.
  Having said that, I want to point out that I strongly believe in the 
long-distance service provided by Amtrak. It connects rural communities 
and other economic hubs by rail. People want it and like this service. 
In upstate New York, in the Buffalo to Albany corridor, it is clearly 
not as used as in the Northeast corridor, but we know how much we 
depend on Amtrak there. In the other 49 States people depend on it as 
well.
  Since 1971, Amtrak, in the Northeast and throughout the country, has 
been a Federal responsibility, and it should continue to be. So the 
proposal we are advocating today is one of fairness to both ends of the 
national passenger rail system. What we are saying is simple. Accept 
Amtrak's new budget framework, which would allow the NEC to reinvest 
profits while continuing to provide long-distance service.
  First, let me explain the backdrop. Amtrak's Northeast corridor has 
become a profit-generating operation that carries passengers in an 
economically critical region home to over 50 million people. Some of 
the facts on our region: It generates $1 out of $5 of GDP. One out of 
every three Fortune 100 companies has its headquarters located there. 
One out of every five jobs in the United States is located in the 
Northeast corridor. So you wouldn't be surprised that over the past 
decade ridership along the Northeast corridor has been growing.
  Between the years of 2001 and 2011, Amtrak's share of the air-rail 
travel market has increased from 37 percent to 75 percent for trips 
between New York and Washington and 20 percent to 54 percent from New 
York to Boston. Look at those increases. You wouldn't believe it. It is 
counterintuitive almost, but three-quarters of the people who make the 
decision to travel between Washington, DC, and New York, and don't use 
a car or a bus but would rather use a plane or train, use the train. 
Even a majority now on the slightly longer route to Boston use the 
train.
  It is a testament to the region and to Amtrak that every day 750,000 
people travel over portions of the Northeast corridor main line. That 
is nearly half of all railroad commuters nationally. It is a total of 
260,000 trips a year. Look at all the different commuter railroads that 
run over Amtrak's Northeast corridor structure. Here they are: Mass 
Bay, Shoreline East, Metro North in my city of New York, and in my 
metropolitan area of New York, Long Island Railroad, New Jersey 
Transit, SEPTA--Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation--Maryland Area 
Regional Commuter, and Virginia.
  Two of the biggest commuter railroads in the country operate on 
Amtrak's structure, and those are in the metropolitan area that the 
Presiding Officer and I share. They are Metro North and the Long Island 
Railroad. Hundreds of thousands of people use these railroads every 
day.
  So the Northeast corridor is one of the most important arteries in 
the beating heart of our economy, and I am happy to report that 
business is booming. NEC revenues currently exceed operating costs by 
more than $300 million a year. So one would think, finally, we have the 
means to update the aging infrastructure that Amtrak and our commuter 
rail system depend upon. Unfortunately, the growth of the Northeast 
corridor and the profits it has produced are not going back into the 
system. Instead, over the last 10 years, NEC revenues have been used to 
cover the costs of the State-supported and long-distance services 
across the rest of the national railroad.
  We understand in the Northeast why that has happened, again because 
we depend on support throughout the country and we need to bring the 
whole country together. But it is happening at the same time the 
Federal contributions to Amtrak in the form of operating grants have 
declined. In fact, operating grants to Amtrak are lower now by almost 
half than they were under a Republican Congress and President George 
Bush. Here are the numbers. You can see them: $1 billion in 2003, and 
they stay about the same. But operating as a percentage of the total 
went from 50 percent to 24 percent.
  That is not necessarily a bad thing. For the past few years, some of 
my Republican colleagues have urged Amtrak to become more efficient and 
rely on Federal operating grants. Amtrak has done just that. In 2013, 
Amtrak set an annual ridership record of 31.6 million and a ticket 
revenue record of $2.1 billion.
  The reason my colleagues and I are speaking today is to make it very 
clear that weaning Amtrak off of Federal operating grants shouldn't 
come at the expense of the capital costs in the Northeast corridor. The 
Amtrak operating grant request for 2015 is $700 million--a fraction of 
the overall budget, and lower than the 2005 funding level under George 
Bush. The total request is for $1.62 billion, a modest request over 
last year's $1.4 billion. This would allow all long-distance service 
mandated by Congress to continue and, importantly, it would allow $300 
million a year to come back into the Northeast corridor's 
infrastructure. That is real money--money that, if continued over time, 
can service loans to build new tunnels and bridges and fix up the 
tracks and stations which we desperately need. It is an old, old 
system.
  Think of some of the immediate projects Amtrak may have to forgo if 
they do not receive the full request: the replacement of structural 
columns underneath Philadelphia's beautiful 30th Street Station; 
overhauling the Acela, which is very profitable, and usually, we know, 
very full, to improve Amtrak's on-time performance; and extremely 
important--because if they collapse the whole Northeast corridor 
collapses and their transportation mechanism collapses causing real 
harm to the economy--reconstruction of the decaying infrastructure in 
the East River tunnels.
  This last project is particularly important--the East River tunnels, 
that

[[Page 5466]]

is--for several reasons. It shows the massive benefits of this plan for 
people who use railroads that they rely on. The trains carry hundreds 
of thousands of passengers back and forth every day and are in a major 
state of disrepair. The proposal will allow Amtrak to invest more--way 
more--in these vital East River tunnels, making them more reliable and 
improving travel for Long Island Railroad riders and NEC passengers 
every day. A collateral benefit for all commuting New Yorkers is that 
there are Penn Station improvements--the most heavily used 
transportation hub in the country. The plan would fund many of these 
key improvements and make them happen quicker.
  The status quo is unacceptable. The current Federal funding 
requirements leave the NEC's infrastructure vulnerable to a bigger, 
costlier, and far more damaging failure than we have ever seen.
  The long-term need to increase capacity and make needed repairs to 
our bridges and tunnels could not be clearer. Several important 
segments, such as Hudson River tunnels, are growing at a record level. 
By 2030--look at that--the need will be even greater. These are 
segments which will exceed capacity by 2030--lots of them.
  In my State of New York we see the economic cost of devastating 
events such as Hurricane Sandy, which flooded Hudson River tunnels and 
shut down the Northeast corridor for days. According to new estimates, 
a 1-day disruption along the Northeast corridor could cost the economy 
$100 million.
  So I would ask my colleagues--both Democrats and Republicans--from 
States along the Northeast corridor and from around the rest of the 
country to support an increase in Federal investment in our rail 
infrastructure. I know we can get bipartisan support because there has 
been bipartisan support in the past. Senators in this body on both 
sides of the aisle supported operating grant levels requested by Amtrak 
in the past. In the longer term, we know we need to authorize a 
dedicated intercity passenger rail fund that provides robust investment 
in this infrastructure.
  In the meantime, our Nation can no longer afford to let a railroad 
that carries half of Amtrak's trains and 80 percent of the Nation's 
rail commuters fall apart at the seams. Allowing the NEC to keep the 
cash it generates will help benefit and support those same profit-
making activities, helping to create a virtual cycle of reinvestment. I 
hope that sounds like something my colleagues across the aisle could 
support.
  If we want an interstate commuter network in the next century, we 
must begin by fixing and improving the infrastructure from the 
beginning of the last century. That was the mission of our good friend, 
my dear friend, the late Frank Lautenberg. He was a tireless and 
passionate advocate for improving our Nation's infrastructure--
especially our railways--because he knew it would better the State's 
economy and indeed our country's economy. We can honor his legacy by 
carrying on that mission.
  I ask my colleagues to recognize this great leader as they have in 
the past. Give the Northeast corridor the funds and flexibility to reap 
the benefits of its recent growth while still providing service around 
the rest of the country.
  With that, I would like to turn to my friend the junior Senator from 
Connecticut to ask him to talk about the importance of the Northeast 
corridor for his State and especially the relationship Amtrak has with 
commuter railroads.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Mr. President, and I thank the Senator from 
New York for bringing us all together this evening to talk about the 
really vital economic importance of the Northeast corridor to States 
such as Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New York.
  This is a pivotal moment for the Northeast corridor. We have a region 
that is growing with respect to the number of people who are using the 
rail but an infrastructure that is dramatically aging.
  It is important to remember the connection between investment in rail 
and the emergence of this Nation's economic greatness. The rail line 
that means the most to us in Connecticut was chartered in 1844. It was 
the New York and New Haven Railroad, and it was initially built to 
connect New York to Boston, going through New Haven and going through 
Connecticut. Later on, it had a spur going through Long Island and then 
a spur connecting down to Providence. It was built at a time of massive 
rail expansion all across the country.
  In the last 25 years of the 1800s, where a lot of this expansion 
happened after the initial investment in places such as New York and 
Connecticut and Boston, the expansion of rail led to a tenfold increase 
in economic output for this Nation. It allowed for enormous social and 
economic mobility because if you didn't like the circumstances where 
you were today, tomorrow you could be halfway across the country 
because of a train. It allowed for the gradual evaporation of a lot of 
the divisions that were created because of the Civil War. As people got 
to know other parts of the country and could move more freely back and 
forth, they began to understand what this Nation was really about. One 
historian, John Hankey, has noted that the railroads essentially 
transitioned our lexicology about the United States from referring to 
``these United States'' to ``this United States.'' It is a small 
difference, but it suggests the way in which the rail lines allowed for 
this country to connect.
  Nowhere has this expansion of rail mattered more than in the 
Northeast corridor. We have the highest concentration of population, 
the highest concentration of commerce, the highest concentration of 
ports of shipping, and the highest concentration of rail lines. Not 
only do we have Amtrak running up and down the spine of the Northeast 
corridor, we have 10 commuter railroads, including Metro North, a line 
Mr. Blumenthal--the Presiding Officer--and I are very proud of.
  We have 260 million passengers today who are using the Northeast 
corridor. That number is expected to grow in 2030 to 412 million. Just 
think about that. We are talking about a time period of only 16 years. 
We are going to go from 260 million passengers today to 412 million 
passengers in 2030. If you ride a train from Bridgeport to Stanford or 
from Stanford to Grand Central on any given Monday morning or any given 
Thursday afternoon, you are going to fail to understand how that line 
is going to be able to absorb an increase from 260 million passengers 
to 412 million passengers. We simply don't have the capacity today to 
be able to absorb that increase.
  We have 1,000 bridges and tunnels along the Northeast corridor that 
are badly in need of repair. Some of them are 100 years old. The 
estimates are that over the next 20 years we have to spend $50 billion 
along the Northeast corridor simply to maintain a state of good repair. 
I wish this were a cheaper exercise, but it is not.
  In Connecticut alone, we have to replace a bridge in Cos Cob that is 
going to cost $830 million. The Norwalk Bridge has to be rehabbed for 
$250 million. The Saugatuck River Bridge in Westport has to be rehabbed 
as well for $300 million. The Devon Bridge replacement project is going 
to be $750 million. We have to upgrade communication and signals all 
along the New Haven Line; that is $400 million. We have an old aging 
catenary--the electric lines above the supply power to the trains--that 
is going to be $600 million as well.
  In Connecticut it is our lifeblood, meaning we are nothing if not for 
the economic power that is driven by those trains. About a decade ago 
an economic report came out on Connecticut that really shook the State 
to its core. It talked about the great economic potential Connecticut 
has as we sit right between the enormous job-creating hubs of New York 
City and Boston. But it warned us that if we don't get serious about 
unclogging the arteries out of Connecticut into Connecticut, that, in 
the words of the report, ``Connecticut

[[Page 5467]]

risks becoming an economic cul-de-sac.'' That is a pretty scary 
premise, the idea that we could be so close to all of this economic 
activity, but simply because people cannot get to Connecticut or get 
out of Connecticut because of these aging rail lines, we are going to 
ultimately be left behind.
  So what we are really here to talk about is just a principle of basic 
fairness. The Northeast corridor makes money. It is the only section of 
rail in the Nation that does make money simply because of volume and 
because of efficient management. The profit equals about $300 million a 
year. We are not asking for the Northeast corridor to get any more than 
we are owed; we simply want that $300 million, as Amtrak has proposed, 
to be reinvested in the line.
  From the Cos Cob Bridge to the Sagatuck River Bridge, we are going to 
have to make these upgrades at some point. If we don't, ultimately they 
are going to fall down. We have seen not only in the Northeast corridor 
but across the country the consequences of allowing our infrastructure 
to atrophy to the point of crisis and collapse. So why don't we make 
those investments today? Why don't we make those investments at a 
moment when people need to go to work, when the repairs are as cost-
efficient as they are going to get, and when the line itself in the 
Northeast is generating $300 million extra a year that right now is 
going to other parts of the country?
  I agree with Senator Schumer. We support a national Amtrak. We 
strongly support a robust inner-city connection linking major cities, 
major urban areas with rail all across the country. Just in our small 
region, we have half of the trips of the entire country. So we think it 
is not too much to ask that to the extent we are profitable, we get to 
reinvest that money into an infrastructure that is older than any other 
piece of infrastructure in the entire country.
  I would say this: It is not just about fairness for the States that 
make up the Northeast corridor. The economic power of the Northeast 
spreads itself out all across the country. The corporations that are 
located in Manhattan and Stanford and Newark employ people in Nebraska 
and in California, in South Dakota and Texas. So our pitch to our 
colleagues outside of the Northeast is not just that it seems to be the 
right and fair thing to do for all of this profit that is being made 
through the ticket fares passengers in the Northeast are paying to stay 
in the Northeast, but the benefit that comes from a well-constructed, 
efficiently run Northeast corridor accrues to the entire country.
  I am really pleased Senator Schumer brought us down to the floor 
today to talk about how important reinvesting this $300 million is to 
the Northeast corridor. In my State, with Metro North generating 
literally hundreds of millions of dollars in economic benefit to our 
section of the country, if we don't recapture this income, if we aren't 
able to make these repairs that I listed, then, as that economic report 
suggests, we really do risk our State of Connecticut ultimately 
becoming an economic cul-de-sac.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schumer). The Senator from Connecticut is 
recognized.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Mr. President. I am honored to follow the 
Presiding Officer, my good friend Senator Schumer of New York, and my 
colleague and friend Senator Murphy of Connecticut to talk about an 
issue that really affects quality of life, our pocketbooks, and our 
environment.
  But first I wish to join my colleague from New York in paying tribute 
to one of the great transportation advocates, indeed one of the great 
public servants of our time, Senator Frank Lautenberg, who preceded me 
as chairman of a critical subcommittee on the commerce committee which 
has authority and jurisdiction over surface transportation.
  I am tremendously honored to have followed him in that role, and my 
mission and ambition is to be as effective and eloquent and ardent as 
he was in this cause. It is a cause that brings us together as a 
nation, as my colleague from New York has so eloquently said. We are 
better when we come together as a nation and the railroads provide 
arteries carrying the lifeblood of our economy. Not only is the train 
used for commuters going to work and riders going to visit relatives 
and enjoying tourism, traveling, vacations, and other benefits of this 
great Nation, but it also transports the freight that is critical to 
carry goods and services.
  We know the infrastructure is aging all across the country. We are, 
in effect, transporting goods and services, products and people, 
commuters and riders in the 21st century using 20th century equipment, 
tracks, and other infrastructure. We are talking, indeed, about the 
economic lifeblood of our Nation, which has linked us coast to coast, 
north to south, and east to west in ways that are not only economically 
material and tangible but also emotionally and psychologically vital to 
our present and our future.
  These economic benefits will not continue. They are not an accident 
of history. They are the result of purposeful invention and investing, 
and we are challenged as a nation as to whether we will continue to 
invest to ensure that our railroads carry our freight and our people to 
places they must go if we are to have economic growth and jobs in this 
Nation. No one knows this fact better than those who live on the 
Northeast corridor. It is among the busiest. In fact, the Metro-North 
line is the busiest in the Nation. It has bridges and tracks that are 
more than 100 years old, and tragically we have seen the consequences 
of lack of proper maintenance, management, and inspection of our 
infrastructure.
  My colleague from New York has been a relentless and tireless 
advocate for improving rail service along the Northeast corridor and 
most particularly in the area of our region of New York, Connecticut, 
and New Jersey.
  The derailment in Bridgeport was a recent tragedy that resulted in 
the loss of lives and caused injuries as well as power outages which 
disrupted travel for as much as 13 days. These disruptions should lead 
to a new era of leadership at Metro-North, and hopefully it will.
  Good management is the key to making this railroad work better than 
it has and making it safer and more reliable. Good management is vital, 
but money, along with management, is absolutely necessary. In fact, 
good management requires investing, and that is why we are here today--
not to talk about money for the sake of dollars and cents but the 
investment it means in the track, the bridges, the cars, and other 
equipment vital to make this railroad safer and more reliable.
  We know some of this investment is small in amount. The Senator from 
New York and I have championed the idea of cameras facing inward and 
outward. Compared to the overall costs of investments, that one is 
relatively new. Likewise, alerters placed in cabs that operate the 
railroad cost relatively little, but other expenditures are much more 
substantial, and one of the problems is that money has been going into 
the system--money taken from the riders and users in the New Jersey, 
Connecticut, and New York area along the Northeast corridor has gone to 
the system as a whole.
  As I mentioned at the beginning, far from begrudging the national 
system this kind of investment, we support it, but we need our fair 
share, which is necessary to make the investment that is critical to 
bridges such as Saugatuck, the Connecticut River, and the Norwalk 
River. These bridges contain movable components. They are important for 
marine traffic as well as rail. They are frequently opened and closed. 
They experience more stress than normal, and the resulting corrosion 
requires trains to use reduced speed. Repair and eventual replacement 
of many of these bridges will be crucial for keeping train traffic safe 
and reliable not only along the Northeast corridor but also freight and 
riders traveling from New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey to other 
parts of the east coast and indeed across the country.

[[Page 5468]]

  It is a national investment, not just a Northeast investment. It is 
an investment we must make as a whole or our infrastructure will 
crumble and continue to erode.
  I am proud to join my colleagues to urge that Amtrak's full funding 
request for fiscal year 2015 be granted. This amount will allow the 
Northeast corridor's operating revenue to be reinvested back where it 
is needed most--the Northeast corridor--and will simultaneously provide 
much needed Federal support for rail networks in the rest of the 
country.
  A fair share is what the Northeast corridor needs and deserves. A 
fair share is what we are advocating. As my colleagues have explained, 
the support we offer and advocate for this Northeast corridor is a 
benefit to the whole country, and it is consistent with national 
support for railway travel which eliminates congestion on roads, raises 
the quality of our air, makes for safer travel, and maybe equally, if 
not more importantly, creates jobs.
  This investment will help create jobs and drive economic growth in 
the jobs it creates directly and the jobs it enables along the route of 
travel.
  I thank my colleagues for joining me in this effort, and I know, in 
particular, that there is a bridge in New Jersey--a movable swing 
bridge along the Hackensack River between Kearny and Secaucus, NJ. I 
believe it is called the Portal Bridge. That Portal Bridge is a key 
linchpin in the Northeast corridor. Having a functional Portal Bridge 
is essential to me as a resident of Connecticut. When I go from 
Washington to New York and then to Connecticut, we are one country. We 
are united by that railroad, and that Portal Bridge is a key linchpin 
in the Northeast corridor. It is as important to me as it is to my 
colleague from New Jersey who has been--similar to Senator Lautenberg--
a tireless advocate for rail transportation, and he has done model work 
on improving rail transportation in this country.
  I am happy to yield for the senior Senator from New Jersey, Mr. 
Menendez.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague from 
Connecticut for his engagement and for recognizing our former 
colleague, Senator Lautenberg, whose passion for public transportation 
was unmatched in this body. He understood the nexus of why it was 
important not just to our State of New Jersey and the Northeast but to 
the country.
  My colleague from Connecticut is correct, that Portal Bridge--it is 
called the Portal Bridge because it is a bridge that is a portal to the 
entire Northeast corridor and carries passengers over a movable swing 
bridge across the Hackensack River between Kearny and Secaucus, NJ. It 
is a portal into and out of Manhattan. It is one of the busiest 
sections of the corridor with hundreds of passengers and commuter 
trains crossing it every day.
  You would think that given its importance to the Northeast and the 
millions who live in that region, it would be a state-of-the-art, 
reliable, world-class bridge that we would be willing to invest in, 
making it the best possible bridge. Unfortunately, the reality is quite 
different.
  The Portal Bridge was built in 1910. It is over 100 years old and 
deteriorating--causing significant delays for Amtrak riders in New 
Jersey and throughout the system. Because of the low clearance over the 
Hackensack River, the bridge opens to allow ships to pass, thereby 
creating delays for rail passengers and then more delays come when the 
bridge doesn't lock into place because it is too old and doesn't work 
properly.
  We have delay after delay all because we are unwilling to invest in 
our infrastructure, and that is simply unacceptable. When the bridge 
doesn't close, trains throughout the Northeast corridor are delayed 
while Amtrak workers scramble to fix it. Further adding to the problems 
are speed restrictions that have been in place on the bridge since 
1996. These restrictions have been essential to allow trains to cross 
safely, hardly a comforting thought for riders traveling on the 
corridor.
  The Northeast corridor is the Nation's busiest rail line and serves 
700,000 people every day. The line supports eight commuter railroads 
every day, carrying over 200,000 New Jersey transit passengers. So 
failure to invest in a modern, state-of-the-art system does a 
disservice to all of us--certainly to the commuters. It is an economic 
hindrance in a region that supports 20 percent of the entire Nation's 
GDP.
  There are other reasons to consider the importance of these 
investments and one is our economy and jobs. These intercity rail 
systems ultimately create an opportunity for people to get to 
employment and to reach out to find employment and find better 
employment.
  It is also about companies that send their sales force up and down 
the Northeast corridor in a thorough and effective and efficient way. 
It is about those who might visit one of the great health institutions 
along the Northeast corridor for a health challenge they face. It is 
about tourism from anywhere--from the sights of New York or New Jersey 
or along the entire route, crossroads of the revolution, all the way to 
the Nation's Capital of Washington, DC. It is about visiting a loved 
one and having a way to do it that allows them to be able to afford to 
do so.
  In the aftermath of September 11, we learned that a multiplicity of 
transportation modes was critical to security questions because on that 
fateful day when every trans-Hudson crossing closed down--the bridges 
closed down, the tunnels closed down, the ability to do intercity rail 
closed down--the one element that was open was a different form of 
transportation, and that was ferries. Imagine, in a different context, 
if you don't have intercity rail to move people away from a location in 
which there was a September 11-like event that, in fact, the 
consequences that would flow.
  We learned after September 11 that transportation is more than about 
getting from one place to another, more than about sending a sales 
force, more than even about the quality of life and the environment by 
having more people on an efficient system, it is also another dimension 
of security in a post-September 11 world. We must do better.
  As far as the Amtrak budget proposal, I am pleased that Amtrak's 
fiscal year 2015 budget request takes a step in the right direction to 
improve its record of good repair and reliability in the Northeast 
corridor. In spite of the challenges of aging infrastructure, Amtrak in 
the Northeast corridor is a profitable rail line, generating over $300 
million each year. Yet, under the current structure, Amtrak has been 
unable to invest those profits back into essential projects such as the 
Portal Bridge, which is ultimately the portal by which all of Amtrak's 
rail lines to the Northeast have to go through. These profits have 
instead been used elsewhere on Amtrak's system, subsidized long-
distance services that were traditionally a core Federal 
responsibility.
  For too long Congress has failed to meet its responsibility on these 
routes, relying on the riders of the Northeast corridor to subsidize 
other parts of the rail network. Riders on the Northeast corridor 
deserve to have profits generated along the line reinvested--not used 
as a substitute for insufficient Federal investment. Amtrak's new 
proposal will allow it to keep revenue generated by the corridor in the 
corridor--a commonsense solution and a successful business model for 
the Northeast.
  At the same time, Amtrak proposes full funding for lines outside of 
the Northeast corridor, making this a win-win proposal for America's 
rail system.
  Finally, making these investments now will help us prevent large-
scale failures that could cripple our region in the future. 
Unfortunately, we in New Jersey know all too well the consequences of a 
significant transportation failure. When Hurricane Sandy crashed ashore 
in October of 2012, our transportation systems were inundated with 
water and severely damaged. We saw firsthand what happens when the 
transit and rail networks we often take for granted are rendered 
unusable. Residents were stranded--cut off from

[[Page 5469]]

their loved ones and their livelihoods. Sandy showed us just how much 
our region depends on its rail and transit networks.
  As New Jersey and its networks work to rebuild, we must take every 
opportunity to strengthen our infrastructure and prevent future 
failures of our transportation system. Current Federal funding 
requirements leave the Northeast corridor vulnerable by preventing us 
from reinvesting in critical projects.
  Amtrak's budget proposal is a straightforward solution, by keeping 
and allowing the Northeast to keep and reinvest its own profits. At the 
same time, the proposal would maintain funding for other rail lines to 
ensure a valuable, viable national network. The bottom line: This is a 
proposal whose time has clearly come.
  So it is time that we as a Congress say enough is enough; 100-year-
old infrastructure is simply unacceptable. It is time to make the 
investments that will support our economy and our quality of life and, 
I would add, our security. It is time to live up to our Federal 
commitments and fully fund our rail network.
  I certainly wish to join my other colleagues in thanking our 
colleague from New York Senator Schumer for leading this important 
discussion about the future of Amtrak. I urge my colleagues to support 
this budget proposal, to fully fund Amtrak's operating and capital 
costs nationwide, and to take the long overdue step of allowing 
Northeast corridor profits to be reinvested into our critical 
infrastructure.
  Now let me turn this over to my colleague Senator Booker who, until 
he came to the Senate, was the mayor of the State's largest city by 
which all of these different modes of transportation came together and 
through which the Northeast corridor has a major station. He saw, as it 
related to his own community, the realities of what the rail passenger 
system meant for consumers, what it meant for businesses, and what it 
meant for our security.
  I yield the floor for the distinguished Senator from New Jersey.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The junior Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, Senator Menendez is absolutely correct. 
When I was mayor of New Jersey's largest city, we sat upon a critical 
transportation superstructure--a key node in the larger region. I wish 
to thank my senior Senator, whom I relied upon then for being the 
champion he is for infrastructure investment, for the critical nature 
of the rail lines that crisscross our region, and really being a 
promoter of jobs, of business growth, of security, and of the health of 
this critical system. It is very good to have my senior Senator make 
such important remarks. I wish to pick up from there. It is a little 
uncomfortable not having the Presiding Officer on the floor with me, 
but I will continue nonetheless.
  I wish to thank all of my colleagues who have already spoken from 
neighboring States about this absolutely vital transportation corridor. 
If this were a country of its own, this corridor, from Washington to 
Boston--this area--we would be the fifth largest economy in the world. 
This region continues to grow, with more than 12 million residents 
projected by 2040.
  In New Jersey, our tracks and tunnels are simply no longer able to 
meet the growing demand of our Amtrak and commuter rail lines. New 
Jersey commuters--passengers up and down the Northeast corridor--are 
profoundly frustrated by overcrowded trains and by delay after delay 
after delay. It inhibits their transportation. It inhibits their 
productivity. It inhibits their ability to be successful because of 
those delays. Our underfunded passenger rail network forces too many of 
our residents to then drive, where they end up stuck in traffic, 
contributing more greatly to smog and pollution, and really making it 
even more dangerous for them on our already overly congested highways.
  Amtrak needs the ability to reinvest the growing profit from the 
Northeast corridor back into the critical Northeast corridor 
infrastructure. This much needed budget request would allow Amtrak to 
invest $300 million of their profits back into this region and would 
allow Amtrak to make overdue updates and repairs. This would create 
jobs at this incredibly important time in our economic present. It 
would create jobs and allow our busy commuter lines to travel more 
safely and more reliably.
  We need this economic growth. We need to alleviate the problems with 
this infrastructure. We need to make the daily lives of tens of 
thousands of people better.
  One of the most important steps we can take to alleviate this 
congestion and delays in New Jersey and throughout this region is to 
make this investment. But I also say another critical aspect of making 
those investments is to make a strategic investment in the Gateway 
project. Amtrak's 2015 budget request seeks to continue investing in 
needed preliminary work on the Gateway project. The Gateway project is 
Amtrak's most important initiative--a project that is going to generate 
benefits throughout the Northeast region that will have a multiplier 
effect throughout our economy, enabling growth, enabling job creation, 
improving the quality of life, and helping one of the most prosperous 
regions on the globe continue to grow.
  Currently, there are just two tunnels connecting New Jersey to New 
York via rail. These tunnels are currently operating at full capacity, 
with roughly 24 trains at peak hours carrying over 70,000 riders daily, 
with no space for additional riders during rush hour. In order to 
execute repairs and safety checks on these 100-year-old tunnels, Amtrak 
is required to shut down the entire tunnel and suspend half the trips 
in and out of the city. This causes so much of a burden. This is an 
unnecessary burden. This is a threat to the safety of thousands of New 
Jersey Transit and Amtrak passengers.
  Ridership demand in and out of Manhattan is actually predicted to 
double in the coming decades--double. It is critical for the economic 
health of our region to accommodate this increase and ensure that 
urgently needed growth and the safety and security of so many 
Americans. The Gateway project itself would build two new rail tunnels 
from New Jersey to New York City and expand Penn Station in New York to 
handle all of this additional capacity. This project alone would create 
thousands and thousands of jobs. It would reduce commuter times and 
make traveling by rail more flexible and, very importantly to resident 
after resident who has reached out to me, it would make it more 
reliable. This critical investment will drive economic growth 
throughout that entire region.
  Upon completion, the Gateway project would allow Amtrak to run 8 more 
trains during peak hours and allow New Jersey Transit to run 13 more 
trains. This is a significant capacity increase that would take 
thousands of cars off the roads every single day. It would increase 
revenue for Amtrak and New Jersey Transit. It would allow intercity and 
commuting passengers shorter and easier trips up and down the Northeast 
and in and out of Manhattan, and it would improve significantly the air 
quality of our region, alleviating the respiratory challenges so many 
people unnecessarily face because of commuter car pollution.
  In short, all of these reasons point to something critical: It would 
make it easier for our region to be prosperous, for businesses to grow, 
and American opportunity to increase. It is essential that Congress 
join with Amtrak in advancing this important regional project and 
support Amtrak's overall mission to deliver reliable, efficient 
passenger rail service across the United States. For Amtrak to be 
successful in the long term, Congress needs to become a more reliable 
investment partner and fund multiyear Amtrak budgets, to have 
predictability in that funding, making it again multiyear. Our current 
approach of lurching from annual budget to annual budget does not allow 
for Amtrak to flourish and serve our citizens as it could and as it 
should. We need a level of predictability to make these kinds of 
investments. Support for the Amtrak fiscal year 2015 budget request 
would be a step in the right direction.
  I urge my colleagues to appreciate this critical understanding that 
we are

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a people who thrive through connectivity, whether it is virtual 
connectivity on the Internet or even human connectivity; that we need 
to, in environments such as this, one to another, work together. 
Indeed, it is the words of Martin Luther King, written in a jail cell 
in Birmingham, AL, in 1963, in the spring of that year, almost 50 years 
ago--he wrote in profound manner, and I paraphrase it: We are all 
caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a common garment 
of destiny. It was an elevation and understanding of the power of human 
connection, that we share one destiny, and that when we exalt our 
connections, prosperity grows, equality grows, opportunity grows. What 
King talked about in a spiritual way lives also in the physical: 
Country, from its transcontinental railroads, a country that united 
itself in early innovations and AM/FM dials; all the ways we as a 
nation have made more robust connectivity. It has spurned industry, it 
has spawned industry, and it has made jobs multiply and multiply--
economic growth connecting American to American. Right now, in this 
critical time, we must continue.
  I hope my colleagues will join me in making sure we support the 
Amtrak budget. I know from personal experience the challenges and the 
trials and the dangers from the status quo. It is time for us to 
advance. It is time for us to come to together, to invest in America, 
to expand opportunity, and make real, in a physical way, those 
deepening connections we have, one to another.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor and I note the absence of 
a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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