BLUMENTHAL WORKING ON RAIL LEGISLATION -
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), newly installed as the chair of the Commerce Committee's surface transportation subcommittee, told POLITICO he plans to introduce a rail bill sometime this year that will look at both safety issues and attracting investment. "This subcommittee has a historic opportunity to move our railroads into the 21st century," he said. Blumenthal said he wants to look at creating a railroad trust fund or an infrastructure bank, but he isn't only looking at more spending. Some of the incidents that have plagued Metro-North, he said, "involve clearly inept leadership."
Blumenthal doesn't have a specific timeline for introducing a bill and said he wants to allow NTSB and FRA investigations of the Metro-North crashes to proceed so the results can inform his bill. But he does aim to introduce legislation in the next few months. He also said the hearing taking place this morning would be the first in a series looking to hold both the railroads and federal regulators accountable. While House Railroads subcommittee chair Jeff Denham has been working on a bill for months, Blumenthal's hearing is the first public step the Senate has taken towards legislation.
While we should all be pleased that Congress is trying to do SOMETHING, I daresay that the railroads would tell Sen. Blumenthal that they have already moved into the 21st century and they'd be happy to show him how.
Looking at his on-line bio, I doubt that--other than perhaps riding Amtrak on the NEC--he has had much contact with railroads, so a show-and-tell by the railroads for the Senator might have some salubrious effects.
Sadly, if he's like most of his Congressional colleagues, he'll be too busy bringing the railroads into the 21st century to learn from them what really needs fixing.
