[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6751-6752]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         POSITIVE TRAIN CONTROL

  (Ms. HAHN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. HAHN. Mr. Speaker, Americans are still shaken by this week's 
Amtrak derailment that took the lives of seven people and left more 
than 200 injured. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families who 
have suffered a loss.
  The NTSB said that this tragedy could have been prevented if the 
corridor had been outfitted with positive train control technology, 
PTC. All of us in southern California have known the importance of PTC 
since the horrible train accident in Chatsworth in 2008 that killed 25 
people. Congress mandated that year that PTC be installed on all our 
Nation's rail lines.
  Across the country, rail lines are in the process of installing this 
lifesaving technology, but many are behind schedule. There was no PTC 
in place where this recent crash occurred.
  Yesterday, former Republican Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood 
said,

[[Page 6752]]

``The idea that Amtrak doesn't need more money to implement positive 
train control . . . is nonsense.'' And yet yesterday, Republicans in 
the House Appropriations Committee voted to cut the Amtrak budget by 
$252 million.
  This Congress' policy of starving our infrastructure system is 
endangering Americans. Enough is enough.

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