Funding for Mass Transit
FUNDING FOR MASS TRANSIT -- (House of Representatives - July 14, 2005)
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Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff came before our Committee on Homeland Security with his second review of the agency. It was an impressive review. Of course, the promise lies in the implementation, but he has done a competent job there.
Astonishingly, though, Madam Speaker, he mentioned not one word about London or about the vulnerability of rail and public transportation in the United States, even though we are barely 10 days out of London. There was, as we stood here this morning, a moment in solidarity with those who died in London.
Madam Speaker, WMATA, our own Metro system here, is considerably ahead of most of the country. In fact, WMATA is designated as the lead agency for emergency coordination for the entire region's transit and commuter rail. We are ahead of most of the country, after Oklahoma City began to take real action that most still have not begun to take. In June, 19 million people rode WMATA. That breaks all of its records. Many of those were constituents of the Members of this House and the Senate, because 20 million visitors come annually to the District of Columbia.
WMATA indicates that its most pressing needs are current WMD detection equipment, decontamination equipment and testing, surveillance systems, antiterror equipment for transit police, video cameras for buses. Remember, this is one of the best prepared systems in the country.
Yet, Madam Speaker, yesterday, Democratic Leader Pelosi, Ranking Member Thompson of the Committee on Homeland Security, and other Democratic leaders stood with me as I reintroduced the Secure Trains Act, an act I first introduced more than a year ago, simply to bring the country somewhere approaching where we have now, for some time, been in aviation, having gotten there for aviation after the fact.
We are breaking the post-9/11 promise that we would never be caught flat-footed again. In fact, the President's 2006 budget eliminated dedicated mass transportation funding all together. I trust that we will put it back, or something back, before we go on August recess. Ninety percent of the funds that we have allocated have been for aviation security. Yet 9 billion passenger trips are made annually on rail and on public transportation. What are we thinking?
This bill, a modest $3.8 billion for the basics: cameras, communications systems, explosive detection, security upgrades on tracks and tunnels. Is this too much to ask? More than 4 years after 9/11, is this too much to ask, following more than 50 dead in London, almost 200 dead in Madrid, hundreds injured when you tally them both together?
Mr. Chertoff allowed as how $8.6 billion was ``available for transit operators'' under one of the homeland security programs. What he was talking about, Madam Speaker, is that a local jurisdiction can use transit for transit security money, money that we have allocated for first responders. I do not believe we mean transit security to be the stepchild of homeland security when that is where the people are. Far more people than ever consider getting on an airplane, and we are borrowing from first responders who are screaming that they do not have enough funds in order to skim off money for rail transportation, after Madrid, after London, and after a terrible accident involving HAZMAT in South Carolina, which could just as easily have been a terrorist event.
I beg the House, before we go on August recess, to do our duty, keep our post-9/11 promise to do what is necessary for passenger rail, light rail, ferries, buses, the vehicles, the public transportation that our people get on every day to go to and from work. There is still time to do it. I do not think we would want to go home when every single Member will have a question like this: What have you done for our subways? What have you done for our buses? We do not need to go home and say ``nothing,'' Madam Speaker.
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