[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 21438-21439]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         PASSENGER RAIL SYSTEM

  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I rise first to commend the three Senators 
who have just completed their colloquy. They have been discussing an 
accomplishment this year that results from bipartisan efforts. I too 
would like to speak about a bipartisan effort that I have been engaged 
in with the Senator from New Jersey, who joins me on the floor today, 
which would be the passenger rail portion of the Transportation bill 
which the President has already signed.
  So I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from New Jersey and I be 
allowed to engage in a colloquy concerning this legislation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I am so pleased to have worked with 
Senator Booker on the rail portion and on the entire Transportation 
bill. I am pleased it has passed the House and Senate and been signed 
into law by the President--a major accomplishment.
  I would note that predecessors of ours from our States were part of 
the last major effort for a comprehensive rail bill. My predecessor, 
Trent Lott, along with the late Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, were 
the authors of the Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act, which was 
introduced in 2007, and much work on it was done before Senator Lott 
resigned at the end of 2007. It was actually passed in 2008. So I think 
it is quite appropriate that Senator Booker and I would be allowed to 
follow in their footsteps and participate in this legislation, which 
deals with making our rail system safer in the United States and more 
efficient and puts greater attention on planning and efficiency. I know 
that Senator Booker shares my enthusiasm for the accomplishment that 
this Congress has made in that regard.
  Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I would first say thank you. I do share 
that enthusiasm. I appreciate the way the Senator began his remarks. 
This is a tradition of bipartisanship that goes beyond the Senator and 
me, but I want to say this about Senator Wicker because I am new to the 
Senate. I am here about 25 months now. But this last full year when I 
have been working on this passenger rail bill as the ranking member of 
that subcommittee, I have found him to be tough, to be balanced, to be 
strong and thoughtful about what is best for America, thinking about 
our country first, thinking about his great State, our country, how we 
are going to create jobs and how we are going to improve in an 
increasingly globally competitive environment. It has been an honor to 
work with him. I think what we accomplished together is extraordinary, 
and it is going to have a profound impact.
  This bill makes critical investments in our rail infrastructure. It 
makes important safety reforms, and it helps to move our country 
forward, literally and figuratively.
  Rail efficiency and safety is critical to our national success. It is 
a priority. This idea of protecting Americans is a priority of both 
Senator Wicker and me, and it is critical that we have rail safety, 
especially as we go forward. I have seen, unfortunately, in the past 
some very challenging accidents.
  For me and my constituents in New Jersey, rail is incredibly 
important. We are part of the Northeast Corridor, which is probably the 
busiest rail corridor in the country. It is one of the most productive 
regions of our Nation, and, unfortunately, it has an inadequate 
infrastructure. More people use rail than fly in that corridor. The 
challenge is that the corridor itself has become a choke hold right 
around the New York-New Jersey region. One of the reasons is because 
the Hudson River crossing--the busiest river crossing in the United 
States of America--has tunnels that are inadequate and ineffective at 
this point. These tunnels were built back in 1910. Nobody in this

[[Page 21439]]

body remembers those years, personally, but the tunnel began 
construction 1 year after the famous flights at Kitty Hawk were just 
getting off the ground in air travel. These tunnels were completed less 
than a decade before the start of the First World War.
  So today, these tunnels are in horrible condition. The whole region 
is suffering as a result of it. I hear time and again from constituents 
about the urgency for investment in rail. Residents now, because of the 
delays, because of the challenges with New Jersey Transit, have to 
leave earlier for work, miss time with their families, miss dropping 
off their kids at school, lose out on productivity. The productivity 
losses in this region amount to hundreds of millions of dollars. So 
this is an urgent cause for us. That is why I was so grateful, really 
celebrating the fact that we have a partnership in the Senate that can 
actually get something done when it comes to rail travel.
  For us in this region, we know the challenges. We have tunnels under 
the Hudson River that are clearly in a state of significant decay and 
disrepair that some engineers say have less than a decade on them. One 
single day of missing access to those tunnels for that artery could 
hurt our regional economy by about $100 million for one single day in 
wasted productivity.
  So this spring Senator Wicker and I joined together to introduce this 
legislation, the Railroad Enhancement and Efficiency Act. That bill is 
making critical investments. The bill very critically would allow the 
Northeast Corridor to reinvest its profits into that region, which is 
going to be significant for helping to give us a 21st century 
competitive infrastructure. That is something I cannot understate the 
urgency of. The bill adds critical safety provisions that will help 
with positive train control.
  Earlier, as was mentioned by Senator Wicker, the Chamber passed the 
Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act, or FAST Act, a 5-year, 
$305 billion transportation compromise bill that, for the first time, 
includes the rail provisions that I am proud to say were in our 
Railroad Enhancement and Efficiency Act.
  So this bill that passed the Senate will enable critical projects, 
such as the Hudson Tunnel plan. It is going to achieve incredible 
safety for our communities. I just want to again thank Senator Wicker 
for his noble service. I am sure he and I would both like to thank 
Senators Thune and Nelson, the ranking members on the overall 
committee, who worked to ensure that our bill was part of the massive 
highway transportation bill. There is our long-term economic 
competitiveness as a country. We talked about national security. Well, 
our economy fuels our strength at home and abroad. Investing in 
infrastructure, which has a long history of being a bipartisan 
priority, is something on which I am proud to join with Senator Wicker 
and continue that great American tradition of investing in our 
communities, creating more growth, creating more jobs, and creating a 
strong economy, which makes for a strong nation.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, it probably doesn't come as a surprise for 
people to hear a Senator from the northeast be such a strong advocate 
of passenger rail and Amtrak. But I can tell you as this representative 
of Mississippi and a Senator from the southeastern part of the United 
States, we believe in passenger rail, too. It is important to the 
entire national economy, and so it is important to our economy. It is 
also important to the economy in my region of the country.
  I am pleased and excited about the possibility of restoring passenger 
rail to the gulf coast for the first time since Hurricane Katrina. We 
made it work between New Orleans and the Mississippi gulf coast and 
Mobile and Orlando before the storm, and we think we can make it work 
now.
  One provision in the bill establishes a new gulf coast working group, 
which will receive a $500,000 grant specifically for the purpose of 
returning rail to the area. Another provision creates a grant program 
that can assist applicants like the Southern Rail Commission and has 
worked to restore passenger rail to the gulf coast.
  In addition, I am an advocate of competition, so I am pleased to see 
that this new legislation opens up the possibility of having private 
rail carriers competing for up to three of Amtrak's long-distance 
routes. I think in this way we can achieve cost savings, better 
performance, and good worker protections.
  In closing, let me say that we are glad the law has been passed and 
signed. It seems from this angle that it was so inevitable, but I can 
tell you and I think Members of the floor on the Senate who are 
listening to this colloquy would have to admit that this didn't have to 
happen. As a matter of fact, it could easily have fallen off the rails 
or fallen off the tracks.
  On a bipartisan basis, people on this side of the aisle and on 
Senator Booker's side of the aisle did not allow the distractions and 
the naysayers to prevail. We insisted that if we kept working, we could 
get this entire package done on a bipartisan basis.
  I wish to salute Republican Members in the majority who put this 
forward from a committee standpoint, but I also want to salute my 
Democratic brothers and sisters who said: Yes, we can do this, and we 
ought to do it not as Republicans and Democrats but as Americans for 
the American economy. My hat is off to my partner in this effort and to 
everyone on both sides of the aisle for making this a reality.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I want to say in conclusion that there is 
that story about the little engine that could and that did not give up 
and worked through trials and tribulations. Senator Wicker represented 
the values in that story. I am grateful to have worked with him on this 
project, and I look forward to working with him again to move our 
country forward.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.

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