Mr. CLAYTOR. I hope we have another hearing on that, Mr. Sikorski. Mr. SIKORSKI. Yes. I want to address the issue of public health. My father, for 40some years, was a maintenance-of-way employee Mr. CLAYTOR. Right. Mr. SIKORSKI [continuing]. And I understand Amtrak has instituted a new nonsmoking policy out of concern for the health of its workers and I applaud you for that. I also understand that a practice that I have found to be abhorrent and god-awful in 1989 in America, that directly impacts the health of employees and the communities and the States through which Amtrak runs, and directly affects people like my dad, the maintenance-of-way employees, is still going on. That is the practice of dumping untreated human waste on the tracks and on the people who are standing alongside the tracks because they don't want to get hit by the train, but they have to stay there and work on those tracks. What kind of progress are you making in this regard? Mr. CLAYTOR. We are in the process of making sure that we have retention toilets on all new cars and we are working on a system which would not permit-one of the problems with retention toilets, which was recommended by the Federal committee that gave us the recommendation on this a few years ago-one of the problems with it is that if they collect in a tank a whole lot of the offal and it- Mr. SIKORSKI. Sewage or worse- Mr. CLAYTOR [continuing]. Then it is all dumped at once. Mr. SIKORSKI. It is human excrement. Mr. CLAYTOR. Excrement is what is there-and then it is dumped all at once, that is a fairly large dump at one time and it could cause real trouble. Now, in the- Mr. SIKORSKI. Dump it where? Mr. CLAYTOR. On the track, on the track, at speed, at high speed. Mr. SIKORSKI. I thought you have a retention toilet Mr. CLAYTOR. I know it is retention-it is retention and then dumped at high speeds so it cannot be dumped in the station or yard. Mr. SIKORSKI. So my dad, a few years ago, or someone like him now can stand out there and get a nice cool breeze at 70 miles an hour from this- Mr. CLAYTOR. Yes. What we are-that type of arrangement was recommended by HEW. Now, what we are trying to do is say-frankly, sir, the oldfashioned system in which only an individual toilet would dump at one time and which, back in-well, 1950's and before, there were thousands of sleeping cars all around the country and there was never any problem of that. Bacteria or-it is very small Mr. SIKORSKI. I think if you had been with my dad, working on the tracks, you might have a different perspective Mr. CLAYTOR. It is the system that has he lutely impossible for us to operate a senger service, and not do this ar possible. Mr. SIKORSKI. Why? Mr. CLAYTOR. Because, for one thing, you can't retain this long enough without having to stop about every few hundreds-a couple hundred miles at most and put it through a treatment plant, dumping it into a treatment plant. That would mean that we would probably have to add 2 or 3 hours to our long-distance trains. The cost would be fantastic. Mr. SIKORSKI. Do you have studies to back this up or are you going from the top of your head? Do other trains do it. Mr. CLAYTOR. NO. Mr. SIKORSKI. No other passenger system in the world retains and dumps at appropriate facilities? Mr. CLAYTOR. They all dump directly. They all dump directly. Mr. CLAYTOR. No, I don't know of any that do. Mr. SIKORSKI. Do you have a study that states that? Mr. CLAYTOR. No, no▬▬ Mr. SIKORSKI. No, you are just Mr. CLAYTOR. I don't know of any that do. Mr. SIKORSKI. Okay. You know, you said, "none of them do," and I said, "Do you have a study," and you say you don't know of any that do. Now, tell me about the HEW study that said you shouldn't be exempted. You want to be covered by State laws for worker compensation. How about State laws for health? Mr. CLAYTOR. Sir? Mr. SIKORSKI. How about State laws for that? Do you want an exemption from the—— Mr. CLAYTOR. We have an exemption. Mr. SIKORSKI. You have an exemption from the Federal Government in 1976, 4 years after you were explicitly not exempted, and the HEW study said you shouldn't be exempted. If you want to go to the States for workers' comp, why don't you go to the States for public health- Mr. CLAYTOR. I think that is quite different. Mr. SIKORSKI. I know you think it is. Why? Mr. CLAYTOR. Because we have to operate in all States and we can't have-if we Mr. SIKORSKI. You can't have a crazy quilt. Mr. CLAYTOR. We can't have a crazy quilt on that. Mr. SIKORSKI. But your employees can for FELA—— Mr. SIKORSKI. It is okay for them because Mr. CLAYTOR. No, the employees would have only one State that would control that- Mr. SIKORSKI. But my father, the employee standing on the track, only had one State at a time when he was standing there to get this stuff sprayed in his face. Tell me the difference again. Mr. CLAYTOR. I am sorry, sir. What my statement is is that, as a practical matter, we cannot operate a passenger service without overwhelming costs that would put us out of business if we tried to do that. Mr. SIKORSKI. You will supply for us- Mr. CLAYTOR. We have the studies on that. Mr. SIKORSKI [continuing]. So I will get them? Mr. CLAYTOR. No, no. When-we have studies on what the cost of converting is and we have the cost data—— Mr. SIKORSKI. Converting to what? Mr. CLAYTOR. To retention and dump only, in effect, in a sewer. Mr. SIKORSKI. I just wonder how many people know that Amtrak is dumping this stuff all over the tracks and all over the employees throughout America. Mr. CLAYTOR. I think everyone does, sir, because the railroads have been doing this for 150 years. It has been standard. There has never been a question raised about it until about 10 years ago. We have a very small service. The passenger trains, heretofore, were running thick and they all had individual direct dump. All. Mr. SIKORSKI. A few years ago, we were treating human waste much differently than we are treating it now. Yet, no one would suggest, and I don't think you would, that we return to the twoholers out in the back yard. There is a reason why we don't have that system and there is a reason why the railroads-Amtrak-shouldn't be doing this dumping as well. Mr. CLAYTOR. It is a question of whether we are going to have long-distance passenger service or not because I think the cost of doing it would put us out of business. Mr. SIKORSKI. Balanced against the human health costs to the people along those- Mr. CLAYTOR. They indicate- Mr. SIKORSKI. Let me finish for a second. Balanced against the human health costs to people along those tracks, the employees who have to work those tracks, the communities and the kids in those communities. Mr. CLAYTOR. There have been-there were deep studies done by the HEW about this and found no human health hazard from this, from dumping. Mr. SIKORSKI. HEW, in 1972—— Mr. CLAYTOR. Who was it? Mr. SIKORSKI [continuing]. Said you should not be exempted, but Mr. CLAYTOR. There was another— Mr. SIKORSKI. You did an analysis of Amtrak service and concluded they should comply with existing regulations. How about Canada? What are they requiring to do right now? Mr. CLAYTOR. I don't know. Mr. SIKORSKI. They issued a show-cause order on November 16, 1988, the National Transportation Agency, to the three major Canadian railroads, Canadian Pacific, National and Viarail and Amtrak that required those carriers to provide by November 30 a listing of rolling stock with toilet facilities that discharge raw or treated waste onto the right-of-way, an itemized estimate of the labor and material costs to prevent that discharge and an acceptable replacement or modification program for installing acceptable toilet facilities. Did you provide that information regarding your trains you operate in Canada? Mr. CLAYTOR. I don't recall if we have supplied that information, but if they-we operate in Canada, and if they asked us to supply it, I am sure we Mr. SIKORSKI. They did ask you. Mr. SULLIVAN. If we supplied that information, then we can supply it to you. We have the same data on capital costs to retrofit our equipment, operating cost to clean out the trains en route for the Amtrak system in this country, sir. We can supply that information, also. Mr. SIKORSKI. I thank you. I usually-I was going to say I usually apply the smell test to some of these public policy issues. In this case, I think it is pretty clear where you should be going, at least doing a better job in protecting those maintenance-of-way people. But I think you get the gist of my concerns. I thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. CLAYTOR. Thank you, sir. Mr. LUKEN. Is there anything further from the panel? Mr. Claytor. If not, Mr. Claytor, representatives of Amtrak, we thank you very much for your contribution to this hearing. Mr. CLAYTOR. Thank you. Mr. LUKEN. The record, by unanimous consent, will be held open to answer the questions that were presented for a period of 30 days. Mr. Mark Lindsey of FRA. STATEMENT OF S. MARK LINDSEY, CHIEF COUNSEL, FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION, ACCOMPANIED BY ARRIGO MONGINI, DEPUTY ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR PASSENGER AND FREIGHT SERVICES Mr. LINDSEY. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. Mr. LUKEN. Mr. Lindsey is recognized. Mr. LINDSEY. Thank you, sir. Mr. LUKEN. We have your testimony on time and it will be received without objection. Mr. LINDSEY. Thank you very much, sir. Mr. LUKEN. Proceed. Mr. LINDSEY. I would ask that you enter it in the record, without having been read, and I would like to summarize it briefly. Mr. LUKEN. Proceed. Mr. LINDSEY. Thank you, sir. I have with me today Arrigo Mongini. Arrigo is the Deputy Associate Administrator for Passenger and Freight, the organization within FRA that oversees the Amtrak program. I would like to begin by noting once more Secretary Skinner's expressed willingness to work with Congress and with Amtrak management on a long-range plan for Amtrak's operating and capital needs, a very different posture than was taken by the Reagan administration, as Mr. Claytor noted. In building America from the Bush administration's perspective, we think it is very important to take a long-term view, instead of living, as Mr. McMillan put it a while earlier, from hand to mouth and year to year. We would like to look at not merely annual investments, but to consider them in the context of a long-term investment strategy. We believe our scarce Federal budget dollars will be better expended that way. To that end, in transportation, we hope that our budgetary investments will be made in a way that will shape a balanced and sustainable transportation system so that our investments are intelligently used and, long term, few or none are wasted. To that end, Secretary Skinner has put great emphasis on putting together an integrated national transportation policy. Within that policy, we believe rail will assume a larger role than most people might assume now. Rail is the mode that has substantial unused capacity. People have spoken a great deal, publicly and in the press, about very expensive alternatives for meeting our transportation needs, such as doubledecking freeways and interstate highways. Everyone knows that building new airports is extremely costly and that there is very little land left for that. But on the railroad system, whether one is talking about transporting passengers or freight, there is a very great deal of unused capacity available. We think that will be taken into account in a systematic way in the integrated national transportation policy that the Department is developing and looks forward to working with Congress on. With respect to Amtrak, that becomes important in terms of a long-range plan for Amtrak to bring Amtrak toward self-sufficiency, which is what we believe should occur, if Amtrak is retained. That requires that Amtrak increase its revenues and continue to control its costs. We wish to support its efforts to do that. We hope that this can help in avoiding capacity constraints in other modes. Amtrak, so far, has operated very effectively as a business under Mr. Claytor's leadership with his management team. We want to encourage them to continue to do that. Once in a while, some would like to see Amtrak operate more like a government agency, and we think that is an unfortunate idea. If it operates as a for-profit business, the likelihood of self-sufficiency is greatly increased, and we commend Mr. Claytor and his management team for doing so and encourage them to do so even more. We believe that such a long-range plan for Amtrak should include, first, legislation which we will discuss with you a little later to eliminate unjustified extra costs that Amtrak now bears so that the direct subsidy of Amtrak is the absolute minimum that has to be discussed. Such a plan should also identify both capital needs and sources for those needs which we hope will be both public and private. Certainly, Amtrak needs new equipment. At the moment, Amtrak has a unique marketing opportunity. As Mr. Claytor reported, the American public has discovered Amtrak in a big way. It is very hard to get on Amtrak trains in much of the country much of the year, at least 6 months of the year, and in parts of the country, sometimes it can take as much as 6 weeks. Personally, I had the experience earlier in the year of trying to go from here down to Florida. I tried 6 weeks ahead and 6 weeks |