Statement of The Honorable James L. Oberstar
October 14, 2009
I am pleased to be here today to discuss high-speed rail in the United States. This is truly an exciting time for passenger rail enthusiasts, and as I travel across the country to various States, I hear the excitement from people who support this Committee’s efforts to bring high-speed rail to the U.S.
I recall a time not so long ago when rail spectators used to literally line the tracks and watch the Milwaukee Road’s streamlined Hiawathas pass through communities. The Twin Cities Hiawatha ran from Chicago through Milwaukee to St. Paul and Minneapolis in 1947, and was one of the first steam locomotive trains capable of exceeding 100 miles per hour. It is now part of Amtrak’s Empire Builder route. The Milwaukee’s main competitors were the Burlington’s Zephyr trains and the Chicago and North Western’s Twin Cities 400. The Zephyr trains, unlike the Hiawathas, were diesel-powered. On May 26, 1934, the Pioneer Zephyr set a speed record for travel between Denver and Chicago when it made a 1,015-mile non-stop “Dawn-to-Dusk” run in 13 hours 5 minutes at an average speed of 77 miles per hour. For one section of the run it reached a speed of 112.5 miles per hour, just short of the then U.S. land speed record of 115 miles per hour.
The 400, later named the Twin Cities 400, was so named for traveling 400 miles between Chicago and St. Paul in 400 minutes. At its inception in 1935, Time magazine dubbed the 400, “the fastest train scheduled on the American continent, fastest in all the world on a stretch over 200 miles.” You couldn’t drive 400 miles in 400 minutes – it was that fast.
Unfortunately, over the years, numerous railroad bankruptcies ended much of this service, but today we are on the verge of a new rail renaissance. At the end of the 110th Congress, we enacted the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act (PRIIA), Public Law 110-432, which laid the foundation for the $8 billion included in the Recovery Act for high-speed rail. As the President stated in his Vision for High-Speed Rail, that $8 billion was a down payment on a more permanent high-speed rail program.
The Surface Transportation Authorization Act, which I unveiled in June, makes the President’s vision a reality by providing $50 billion over six years for high-speed rail corridor development. It also provides funding for planning high-speed rail projects and for research, development, and demonstration of high-speed rail. As we have heard there is a clear need for a $50 billion program: The Federal Railroad Administration has received requests totaling $57 billion from States for approximately $8 billion that is available.
The fact is that over the past 50 years, the federal government has invested nearly $1.3 trillion in our nation’s highways and over $473 billion in aviation. However, only since 1970, when Congress created Amtrak did we begin a grant program for passenger rail. Since that time we have invested just $53 billion dollars in passenger rail – that is only a small fraction of what European and Asian countries have invested. Without question, the United States lags significantly behind the rest of the world when it comes to high-speed rail. Earlier this year, China announced a plan to expand its high-speed rail system to a network of over 16,000 miles by the year 2020. In this year alone, China has poured over $50 billion into this system. In addition, Spain plans to spend more than $100 billion over the next decade to reach 6,200 miles of track and build Europe’s biggest high-speed rail network. The project which is estimated to create tens of thousands of jobs will put nearly everyone in Spain within 30 miles of a train station.
It is time for a serious and long-term commitment from the United States to move forward its vision of high-speed rail. This is an historic opportunity to create jobs, develop a domestic manufacturing base – which is something the Chairwoman highlighted at a highly-attended roundtable just a few months ago – and provide an environmentally friendly and competitive transportation alternative to the traveling public.
With this extraordinary opportunity, we know that development of high-speed rail in the U.S. will not be without challenges. However, with the coordination and help of the states, local governments, and private entities – we can create partnerships to advance this agenda and begin building a true higher-speed passenger rail system in this country. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses.
Statement Of The Honorable Corrine Brown, Chairwoman
Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials
“High-Speed Rail in the United States: Opportunities and Challenges”
October 14, 2009
The Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on high-speed rail in the United States. The dream of high-speed rail in America is finally coming true. In 2007, this subcommittee held a hearing to listen to the experiences of international operators and other countries in developing high-speed rail. Their advice was to invest, get a high-speed rail line operating, and once everyone saw it working they would want it for their area: Build it and they will come!
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 laid that foundation. It included $8 billion for high-speed rail and $1.3 billion for Amtrak. The Fiscal Year 2010 Transportation Appropriations bill that passed the House included an additional $4 billion. And the surface transportation bill being developed by this Committee includes another $50 billion for development of high-speed rail corridors over the next six years.
Since enactment of the Recovery Act, interest in high-speed rail has been phenomenal. The Federal Railroad Administration has received numerous applications from the states for development of high-speed and intercity passenger rail projects. These include 45 applications from 24 states totaling approximately $50 billion. They also received 214 applications from 34 states totaling $7 billion for corridor planning and smaller projects.
These numerous requests clearly indicate a very strong and growing interest in high-speed rail in the United States. They also make clear that the federal government needs to invest in high-speed rail in order to make the President and this Congress’ vision a reality, and we need to find a dedicated source of funding to do it. The private sector, including international operators, and foreign governments like Spain, Japan, and China aren’t going to help us if they don’t see a true commitment from the federal government to make high-speed rail a priority.
Beijing will spend $50 billion on high-speed rail this year alone, and the central government plans to spend another $250 billion over the next decade. By 2020, China will have laid nearly 16,000 miles of high-speed track capable of carrying the fastest trains in the world. So far, the construction of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed route alone has created about 110,000 jobs and is playing an enormous role in China's economic recovery.
I know that the U.S. faces major challenges that aren't faced by China's central government. But it shows that one of our main international competitors is making high-speed rail a key component of their economic development and recovery.
Finally, I believe that one great opportunity that will come from this new funding will be the ability to establish a domestic manufacturing base for high-speed rail right here in the United States. Since 1998, the U.S. has lost nearly six million manufacturing jobs. We should seize this opportunity and find ways to incentivize production right here in America. We can work on replacing many of the manufacturing jobs that have disappeared in this country with well paying jobs building new locomotive and passenger rail cars to be used in America and sold to other countries throughout the world.
With sustained funding for high-speed rail and a strong commitment from the federal government and our state partners, I am convinced that the United States can once again build passenger rail rolling stock that is the envy of the world. With that, I want to welcome today’s panelists and thank them for joining us. I look forward to hearing their testimony.
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