Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MEEHAN. Madam Chairman, I want to thank my good friend and colleague from Florida for his indulgence and working with me on this amendment.

We have benefited here across the United States in recent times with a boom in energy and moving towards energy self-sufficiency. Much of this has been due to the ability to take advantage of our natural resources, including crude oil, which is increasingly being developed from the Western parts of our country. In fact, more than 33 million barrels of crude oil are shipped by rail each month in the United States, and that is a fifty-fold increase from more than 5 years ago.

Shipments from the Bakken region have brightened the future of oil workers and refineries in my own Seventh District of Pennsylvania, and indeed the entire Philadelphia area, and in fact they have created energy opportunities throughout our Nation.

But now, despite the fact that nearly all of the shipments reach their destinations safely, accidents, sadly, are on the rise. Recent incidents in Ontario, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania call to mind the need for improved safety measures.

Madam Chairman, my amendment seeks to transfer funding from the Office of the Secretary salaries and expense account and puts $3.5 million into the Federal Railroad Administration to fund additional cars to inspect the more than 14,000 miles of crude oil rail routes nationwide.

This funding would also expedite the use of remote automated track inspection capability, which will increase inspection mileage while reducing costs.

For more than 30 years, the FRA's automated track inspection program, called ATIP, has provided accurate track geometry and performance data to assess compliance with the Federal Track Safety Standards.

Collected data is used by the FRA, railroad inspectors, and railroads to ensure that track safety is being maintained. Immediately following ATIP track surveys, the railroads use the data to help locate and correct problems. Often railroads use the ATIP data as a quality assurance check on their own track inspection and maintenance programs.

Madam Chairman, America's energy boom has brightened communities across the country, and as crude oil by rail grows, I want to help protect those communities. My amendment would enable the FRA to increase its ATIP capability to meet this challenge.

Madam Chairman, I thank the chairman and Ranking Member Price for their willingness to work with me on this issue. I urge the amendment's adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source