[Senate Hearing 107-311] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] S. Hrg. 107-311 RIDING THE RAILS: HOW SECURE IS OUR PASSENGER AND TRANSIT INFRASTRUCTURE? ======================================================================= HEARING before the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ DECEMBER 13, 2001 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs 78-047 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 2002 ____________________________________________________________________________ For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpr.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800 Fax: (202) 512�092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402�090001 COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman CARL LEVIN, Michigan FRED THOMPSON, Tennessee DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TED STEVENS, Alaska RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio MAX CLELAND, Georgia PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah MARK DAYTON, Minnesota JIM BUNNING, Kentucky Joyce A. Rechtschaffen, Staff Director and Counsel Lawrence B. Novey, Counsel Kiersten Todt Coon, Professional Staff Member Hannah S. Sistare, Minority Staff Director and Counsel Ellen B. Brown, Minority Senior Counsel Morgan P. Muchnick, Minority Professional Staff Member Darla D. Cassell, Chief Clerk C O N T E N T S ------ Opening statements: Page Senator Lieberman............................................ 1 Senator Durbin............................................... 3 Senator Voinovich............................................ 11 Senator Cleland.............................................. 16 Senator Carper............................................... 39 Prepared statement: Senator Bunning.............................................. 49 WITNESSES Thursday, December 13, 2001 Hon. Jennifer L. Dorn, Administrator, Federal Transit Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation.............. 5 Richard A. White, General Manager, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.............................................. 18 Jeffrey A. Warsh, Executive Director, New Jersey Transit Corporation.................................................... 21 Ernest R. Frazier, Sr., Esquire, Chief of Police and Senior Vice President of System Security and Safety, Amtrak................ 25 Dorothy W. Dugger, Deputy General Manager, San Franscisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART)............................. 27 Hon. Trixie Johnson, Research Director, Mineta Transportation Institute...................................................... 31 Alphabetical List of Witnesses Dorn, Hon. Jennifer L.: Testimony.................................................... 5 Prepared statement........................................... 50 Dugger, Dorothy W.: Testimony.................................................... 27 Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 84 Frazier, Ernest R., Sr.: Testimony.................................................... 25 Prepared statement........................................... 79 Johnson, Hon. Trixie: Testimony.................................................... 31 Prepared statement with an attachment........................ 91 Warsh, Jeffrey A.: Testimony.................................................... 21 Prepared statement........................................... 73 White, Richard A.: Testimony.................................................... 18 Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 58 Appendix MTI Report 01-14 entitled ``Protecting Public Surface Transportation Against Terrorism and Serious Crime: An Executive Overview,'' October 2001 by Brian M. Jenkins (submitted by Ms. Johnson)..................................... 95 RIDING THE RAILS: HOW SECURE IS OUR PASSENGER AND TRANSIT INFRASTRUCTURE? ---------- THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2001 U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, in room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. Present: Senators Lieberman, Durbin, Cleland, Carper, and Voinovich. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN Chairman Lieberman. Good morning, and welcome to our hearing on the question of ``Riding the Rails: How Secure is our Passenger and Transit Infrastructure?'' This is the latest in a series of hearings being conducted by the Governmental Affairs Committee which are intended to examine the Federal Government's ability to protect our citizens from terrorist attacks here at home. Since September 11, the Committee has actually held almost a dozen hearings on homeland security, each time looking at a different piece of the whole picture. We have examined the security of our airports, our shipping ports, and our water ports. We have looked at how the Postal Service responded to anthrax sent through the mail. Just 2 days ago, we took a look at how we might strengthen the relationship between Federal, State, and local governments regarding homeland defense because of the important role those other levels of government have in this new responsibility. Throughout all of this, we have tried to determine how the Federal Government can better organize itself to quickly and effectively respond to acts of terror and proactively prevent future threats. This extensive examination has enlightened us, I think, to the different needs and concerns of a variety of sectors, but it has also revealed some common threats. Almost to a witness, the Committee has heard indications of poor coordination between different levels and layers of government, and we have heard frequent complaints about the failure to share information among layers of government. Today we are going to explore the ability of our rail and transit systems to protect their passengers and infrastructure, and I believe from the testimony that I have seen of some of the witnesses that there are some common themes that will be raised once again. Attention has naturally been paid to airport security by Congress, with obvious good reason, because the attacks against us on September 11 occurred through the aviation system. But there has not been comparable attention to rail security, and preventively and proactively, it seems to me we have to do exactly that. Trains and the transit system can be targets of terrorists. They travel in a predictable path at predictable times. Every year, America's public transportation infrastructure, by which I mean subway, light rail, commuter rail service, as well as bus and ferry, and inter-city rail, carries 9 billion passengers. Let me repeat that. Nine billion passengers use our transit systems as compared to 700 million air travelers annually. So we have a lot more people in this country depending on transit systems and their security. Transit systems have in fact experienced the highest growth rate of any transportation mode over the past 5 years. So today we are going to ask what have we done and what can we do to secure them? The enormous number of people who ride the rails begin to explain why transit systems must be better protected. The fact is that our transportation system actually plays an important role in not only moving people and goods but in the security of the Nation. After September 11, for example, Amtrak helped bring emergency supplies to New York, provided passage for families of the World Trade Center victims, and helped transport mail around the country. Here in the Washington Metropolitan Area, half of the Metro stations serve Federal facilities, so they are important to the ongoing operation of the Federal Government; and one-third of the riders of the Metro system here in Washington are Federal employees. By moving people to and from their jobs, therefore, these transit systems keep our country going. Passenger and transit rails are also essential components of any evacuation from a disaster site, as again was the case on September 11 in New York City, where trains unloaded passengers and then returned as close as they could to Ground Zero to move stranded people out of harm's way, and here in Washington, where the Metro carried Washington area workers away from the Pentagon and the Capitol to the safety of their homes. Unfortunately, terror is not a new threat for transit systems. The Department of Transportation reported in 1997 that in the previous 6 years, public transportation had been the target of 20 to 35 percent of terrorist attacks worldwide. In this country, we have thus far been relatively spared and fortunate. However in this country, an unknown saboteur derailed Amtrax's Sunset Limited in Arizona in October 1995, killing one person and injuring 100. And in a very different way, the 1993 shootings aboard the Long Island Railroad also opened our eyes to transit system susceptibility to violence, because they are a gathering place for people. The most devastating attack worldwide on transit systems, of course, was launched against Tokyo subway commuters in March 1995, when terrorists released sarin gas during the morning rush hour, killing 12 people and making thousands of others sick. The next year, another attack on the Tokyo subway was thwarted when a package of hydrogen cyanide gas was discovered in a station restroom. Bombs have also exploded in train stations in Italy, in the Paris metro, and bombs have also, of course, sadly, been exploding on buses in Israel, including in recent days. With this history, several transit systems have adopted plans to prevent and respond to a terrorist attack, including improving their ties with local, State, and Federal law enforcement agencies, awareness training, and revised emergency procedures. In fact, well before September 11, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority implemented a range of anti-terrorism measures, such as chemical-detecting sensors and annual terrorism training for transit police officers. Since September 11, the Boston Transit Authority, for example, has created a four-member task force that is at work on ways to improve the ability of that transit system to protect the safety of their subway and bus riders. But we have to ask if these fragmented efforts are enough. We have to ask what the Federal role should be in overseeing and stimulating action to protect the security of our Nation's transit systems. Transit security cannot be sidetracked while other homeland defense concerns claim our time and resources. We have to now bring as much talent and focus, as many tools and training and technology, and ultimately, as much financial support, to the challenge of providing transit security as we do for the security of other elements of our critical infrastructure. And again I say that because of the enormous number of people who use our transit systems, the fact that they travel in predictable places at predictable times, and the extent to which our country and our economy depend on the smooth functioning of our transit system. I hope that today's hearing will help us answer some of these questions, learn what the Federal Government and others in the transit systems are doing and that, working together, with the private sector as well as governmental actors here, we can take steps to protect America's transit and rail passengers. Senator Durbin. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DURBIN Senator Durbin. Thank you, Chairman Lieberman, and thank you to the witnesses and everyone who has gathered here today. I want to thank you for holding this hearing. It is certainly appropriate. If you had scheduled this hearing before September 11, it would have been an interesting and valid topic for us to talk about; but after September 11, it has become a very personal concern to all of us as we try to imagine the next attack and where it might occur. I think this hearing is going to try to examine an area of American life that so many people--as Senator Lieberman said, 9 billion people a year using mass transit and over 22 million a year using Amtrak--just take for granted as part of their daily routine. I think this has become a major issue when it comes to our Nation's homeland defense, and I am glad that the Federal Transit Administrator, Jennifer Dorn, will be testifying today about how the Federal Government is working with local transit systems like the CTA, Metro, and MetroLink in Illinois, on important security issues. I have a special concern about Amtrak, and I have met with George Warrington and the people from Amtrak. It is an important element of transportation in my State, and I believe that Congress has been remiss in not providing resource to Amtrak to deal with security needs to the level that is necessary. I think they have a good plan to make Amtrak safer, and I think they need our help, and I don't believe we should postpone that; we should do it as quickly as possible, or frankly, run the risk of some terrible consequences. I would ask that my whole statement be made part of the record, but I would like to address very briefly the issue of mass transit and a conversation that the Democratic Senators recently had with a guest at a luncheon. The guest was Dr. Fauci from the National Institutes of Health, and he gave us an example that has stuck with me. He came to make the acquaintance of a man who was involved in preparing the bioterrorist weapons for the Soviets during the Cold War. This man is now a friend of ours and talks quite openly about what they were doing, and one of the things that they were preparing was anthrax. They wanted to know the best way to disperse anthrax to kill as many people as possible. So they developed a mutant strain of anthrax which was not lethal but had all the other properties of the anthrax spores, and this individual said they figured the best place to disperse it would be the Moscow subway system. So they went to the ventilator at the Moscow subway system on one end and put their detection devices at the other end and fed the anthrax spores into the ventilation system of the Moscow subway. He asked the Senators present how long do you think it took for those anthrax spores to make it from one end of the Moscow subway system to the other. The answer was 2 hours--2 hours. When you consider the physics of travel in a subway and a tunnel and a train sucking air and all of its contents through the tunnel, you can understand what an inviting target subways and mass transit can be for any terrorist or bioterrorist. It was a fact that I have not forgotten, obviously, and am repeating it to you today. I hope that as we think about our responsibility in public life here, dealing with making transit and travel safe across America, that we understand, as the President and the Attorney General have warned us time and again, that this Nation is on alert. That is why this hearing is so timely, and I hope that our resolve to deal with it will be just as timely. [The prepared statement of Senator Durbin follows:] PREPARED OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DURBIN Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding today's hearing to examine the security of America's passenger and transit rail infrastructure. Rail infrastructure and security are critical components of homeland defense as our country continues to move forward following the tragic events of September 11. I want to welcome the Federal Transit Administrator, Jennifer Dorn, I look forward to her testimony about how the Federal Government is working with local transit systems, like CTA, Metra, and Metro Link in Illinois, on important security issues. This morning, I'd like to focus my attention on Amtrak. My home State of Illinois benefits greatly, both directly and indirectly, from Amtrak jobs and service. An average of 48 Amtrak trains run each day from 30 Illinois communities. Ridership in the State exceeded 2.9 million during 2000. In 1999, Amtrak employed more than 2,000 Illinois residents. And Chicago's Union Station is the nation's fourth busiest with more than 2.2 million annual boardings. America learned on September 11 the importance of passenger rail service to our nation's transportation system. Despite many years of inadequate funding and a lack of capital investment, Amtrak answered the nation's call when terrorist attacks paralyzed the aviation industry. Ridership grew by 40 percent in the first week alone for long distance trips. Even today, more than 3 months after the attacks, Amtrak ridership is up system-wide. Despite Amtrak's ability to adjust to the post-September 11 service demands, the fact remains that Amtrak is not prepared to provide the security and safety necessary to operate under the looming threat of further terrorist attacks. As a result, the Commerce Committee has reported legislation to help Amtrak meet the financial costs of providing security to passengers. S. 1550 would provide $1.77 billion for police hiring and training, surveillance equipment, canine-assisted security units, bridge and track upgrades and station improvements. I strongly support this legislation, and am pleased to be an original cosponsor. Just a few weeks ago, the Congress overwhelmingly passed legislation to strengthen aviation security. But September 11 also taught us that we cannot ignore rail travel, and we cannot ignore rail security. S. 1550 takes a big step forward. The Federal Government spends $33 billion each year on highways and $12 billion on air travel. Yet train travel only receives $500 million annually. Before September 11, Amtrak was $3 billion in debt and facing a 2003 deadline to achieve financial independence. Congress has sent conflicting messages to Amtrak--we want it to operate like a business, but we demand service to our States and local communities. While the Federal investment in intercity passenger rail represents less than 1 percent of all Federal spending on transportation, I am hopeful that Congress will do more for passenger transportation and security. In closing, our commitment to every American should be to make our national transportation system as safe as humanly possible. I hope Congress will act quickly to secure vital rail infrastructure, enhance Amtrak trains and in stations, and ensure that Amtrak is prepared to handle the increase in ridership that has occurred as a direct result of September 11 attacks. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Senator Durbin. I remember that conversation with Dr. Fauci, and it was chilling. But, I appreciate your recalling it, because it is exactly why we are holding the hearing today. There is a way in which the Committee hesitates to raise these questions. But, if we do not raise them, we are going to make ourselves vulnerable to the possibility that we may look back and ask why didn't we raise them, and why didn't we do what was necessary to protect ourselves from terrorist attacks. So thanks very much for your opening statement, Senator Durbin, and for being here. We are very pleased that the Hon. Jennifer Dorn, Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration, is with us today, and we look forward to your testimony now. TESTIMONY OF HON. JENNIFER L. DORN,\1\ ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL TRANSIT ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Ms. Dorn. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Senator Durbin. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Dorn appears in the Appendix on page 50. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for providing this important opportunity to discuss safety and security in our Nation's public transit systems and, as the Chairman mentioned, the significant and high-profile attention that is being paid to the aviation area. I want to assure you, as I believe my colleagues who will appear after me will tell you, of the incredible level of attention and cooperation that has occurred particularly since the events of September 11. We may not have reached the millennium in terms of how we can work and talk together, but even though it is not in a high-profile way--and in some ways, that is not a bad thing--I just want to let you know that from the Federal Government's perspective and I think from my partners in State, local, and private industry, we have been doing our due diligence as much as possible. I certainly share Secretary Mineta's strong commitment that the Department has no higher priority than keeping our communities safe and moving, and the Department is taking responsible and aggressive action to do just that. In order to respond to the new level of security threats within days of the September 11 tragedy, Secretary Mineta created the National Infrastructure Security Committee, or NISC, as we refer to it, and that mission is to execute preemptive, preventive, protective and recovery efforts for critical elements of the U.S. national transportation system, among which, of course, are many of our public transportation assets. And FTA has worked vigilantly with NISC, the States and transit agencies to identify these high-value critical assets and high-consequence transportation operations and structures in order to protect the people who are traveling, as well as their current protection strategies and any gaps which may exist. I would just like to mention with respect to our work with the Office of Homeland Security, that kind of coordination and integration takes place on a daily basis at every level in the Department. The Secretary meets almost daily with his counterparts on homeland security as does the deputy, as do the staff level as well, and I think you will see unprecedented levels of cooperation in contrast to maybe what has happened in the past, where there is competition and turf battles. I think everybody is really focused. That does not mean that we will not face problems, but it has been inspiring to work in that kind of environment. Secretary Mineta and I recently had the opportunity to hold a teleconference with the leaders of the Nation's 14 subway systems, and I know you will not be surprised to learn that these systems remain on high alert and are doing all that they can to deter attacks and prepare to respond. They have stepped up employee training and awareness, put more police in stations and on trains, joined local task forces to combat terrorism, and hardened vulnerable areas in their systems. Have we done all that we possibly could do? No, but in the confines of the open system in which we operate, I think we have taken prudent measures, and we are always eager to find others. You will also be pleased to know that the industry has expressed a strong desire to work closely with FTA and other Federal agencies and welcome a collaborative approach to security enhancement, as we do. I know that has been your emphasis, Mr. Chairman, that at all levels, we must work together and leverage one against the other to solve the problem, and I have seen that level of cooperation to date with the public transportation system, and that has made me proud. As we consider a variety of measures to improve security in our Nation's transportation system, I do believe that we must keep in mind two fundamental points--first, that our actions must carefully balance three things--the need for security, the need for personal mobility, and the need to maintain economic vitality. So we cannot do one without the other, and I believe that we need to keep those in mind. The second piece that I think is important to keep in mind is that the Nation's public transportation systems are geographically dispersed within communities, that they are diverse in the way they deliver the services, and most of all, they are designed to meet the unique features and needs of the areas they serve, and that is the wonder of our locally-based public transportation system. It is also a problem in this environment. Among my colleagues in aviation security, there is a saying recently developed that ``If you have seen one airport, you have seen one airport,'' and that is also true of our Nation's transit systems. So that makes the problem-solving very unique. Every transit system has different components--tunnels, bridges, open rights-of-way, and different intersections with other means of transportation, connecting with airports as some do, train stations, highways, and some of our systems are 100 years old, and coping with design features that could never have been anticipated, the criminal let alone the terrorist threats of today, and others are brand new, built using security-minded design concepts and state-of-the-art technology. The risk mitigation strategies for such diverse systems will, of course, be different, so that one size does not fit all, and that is a danger in any administration that is federalized when we are trying to mandate things, that it has to accommodate to the uniqueness of this system. With those points in mind, then, let me very briefly discuss the steps that FTA has taken and is taking to enhance the security of the Nation's public transportation system. As you may be aware, FTA delivered nearly 1,000 security toolkits across the Nation to transit agencies at the beginning of October. These kits provided in one place the resource guides, the planning tools, the training opportunities, and sample public awareness publications to help agencies as they continue to enhance their security awareness and emergency response capabilities. We gathered these from industry, from FTA, and from other agencies, that have these training courses and so on, available. We thought it was important that every transit agency had in one place the opportunities of which they could take advantage. We are also stepping up our ongoing efforts to help transit agencies evaluate the threat and vulnerabilities to their systems in light of the new terrorist reality. Beginning December 17 and continuing over the next 90 days, FTA will deploy expert security assessment teams to the 30 largest transit agencies. I believe this is a terribly important effort both locally and nationally. The teams will use proven threat and vulnerability assessment methodologies. We have experts from the transit arena, from the intelligence community, and from many other arenas that have security skills, and they will assess the security gaps in the agencies' high-consequence assets and make specific recommendations to reduce the risks. I would like to note that a number of our transit agencies have already done this in a pre-September 11 environment. This is meant to be a complementary method, not a ``Gotcha,'' but to work with them and understand how you have a system to assess the security, what are the gaps, and then move forward. The second important piece of that security assessment is that the teams will assess the agencies' emergency response plans and the coordination of their emergency efforts with associated fire, police, and other emergency response agencies. The next important thing we are doing is that with funding from the emergency supplemental now pending in Congress, we will be providing assistance to these transit agencies as they refine their emergency response plans in light of their system assessments. So we want to go the next step, not just to understand what may be the gaps, but also to address the plans that will help to execute against those gaps, and then assess the heightened terrorist threats. These plans serve as the blueprints for action in the wake of an attack and articulate who will take the specific steps necessary for emergency response. Third, FTA will provide support to local transit agencies to conduct full-scale emergency drills to test those emergency response plans. In my visits with New York and Washington transit officials and many others across the country since September 11, they emphasized how important it was that they had conducted regular emergency drills, not just fire drills, to keep skills sharp, update response plans, to work together across agencies that have not typically worked together--that is, fire and emergency medical response organizations and counterparts in police, fire, etc. Although regular drills are routinely recommended by security experts in FTA and elsewhere, there is nothing like hearing advice from people who have lived it, as we have done through the benefit of the lessons learned from New York and Washington. Finally, we will be offering additional security training and workshops throughout the country. We intend to expand our free security and emergency response training to incorporate new security strategies and tactics and to give more local transit employees the opportunity to attend response training. The first eight of these workshops are scheduled in early 2002 and will include transit managers, fire and police and municipal emergency operations management personnel, and I hope that we could work with this Committee on some marketing efforts to encourage that those be well-attended. In addition to this work with local transit agencies, we have worked with the public transit industry and are devoting an additional $2 million of research funding to security- related transit research under the auspices of the Transit Cooperative Research Program. One important research project which I am certain Mr. White will address in his testimony is being undertaken regarding synthesis of available security technology to deploy in a transit environment, Project Protect, a chemical detection device. In summary, Mr. Chairman, FTA is confident that our major transit systems have taken appropriate measures to harden security since September 11. We must continue to be vigilant and be smarter and better about this, so we have not reached the millennium in terms of our efforts, and we recognize that. Given the inherently open nature of our public transportation system, it is frankly more important to concentrate on the mitigation rather than the prevention. That is the reality. You cannot put a scanner at every subway stop, and you cannot inspect every package, and we recognize that. We are proud of a system that has been created over the decades which is open, accessible, and part of the community, and in order to respond to these terrorist threats, I think our emphasis really needs to be on mitigating the risks and emergency response. Thank you very much. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much to you, Ms. Dorn, for an excellent statement. I particularly appreciate the proactive steps that you are taking, the teams that are going out, the plans that you are requiring. Emergency drills are very important. We had the head of emergency management in New York here the other day, and I think they feel in New York that one of the reasons they were able to respond to the tragedy on September 11 so effectively is that they actually had exercises that did not, of course, deal with the Trade Center attack but dealt with a wide enough area that they were ready to deal with it. Let me come to something you said at the end which is a very difficult question, and that is whether we mitigate or prevent when it comes to transit systems. And I will introduce my question by saying that a member of my family was recently on a train and was struck, because we all have in mind the increased security as we go on planes, for instance--we are checked; we go through screening devices; our baggage is now opened, and so on, and then we get on the plane. On the trains--well, you tell me, and I will ask others--it tends not to be so. So she felt insecure, even though she loves to use the trains. I wonder about that, because our whole approach to post- September 11 has been to first try to prevent, not only by the war against terrorism to try to destroy the terrorists before they can attack us, but then also to raise our guard so that the targets will be harder, and the terrorists will go for more vulnerable targets. Shouldn't we therefore also be concentrating on prevention when it comes to the transit systems? Ms. Dorn. Oh, absolutely. I totally agree with you that we do not and have not ignored the prevention aspect, but the types of mitigating efforts that are in other transportation systems--for example, in aviation, where there is a single point of egress and access--it is just not possible because you have so many stops and so on. There are very important measures---- Chairman Lieberman. I agree, that is a problem, and that is a difference. Ms. Dorn. And there are things nevertheless that we have learned that transit systems have taken in the wake of this tragedy, best practices that have been shared about employee training, for example, in order to give the public confidence that they are aware and know and see and are the eyes and ears as much as possible. Employee training is absolutely imperative so that they can be on the lookout for passengers that have aberrant behavior or something of that type. And they can give the confidence to the riding public. For example, I recall a discussion with the Miami transit folks, and the day after they had an anthrax problem, they sent employees, not only the operators, but other employees, out on the trains, and they advertised it on television and said, ``If you have any questions, we will all be on the train.'' That sort of generation of public confidence is important not just for PR, but because we rely on public transportation, and we must continue to do that. We have also taken steps, varying depending on the geographic area--for example, in Boston, they have made the determination that it is appropriate to have waste cans that are bomb-proof, so they have spent money on that piece. All of the transit agencies ``have taken a look at have we hardened our construction sites?'' All those activities are a series of systems. No single effort can make the prevention absolutely certain, but they are terribly important. And we also have to recognize that we have to prioritize. What may be a priority in one system in order to mitigate threats may not be a priority because of the nature of that system in another area. Chairman Lieberman. I understand that it is difficult, and I am going to ask the folks on the next panel who are involved in the management of transit systems about that. I understand, for instance, that at some train stops, there are no stations so that people can basically get out of their cars and walk in. How do you check them and their baggage, and is it possible to create a system that does that? My bias would be just as a passenger that I would like to feel to the extent possible that people who are on the train with me have gone through some kind of security and perhaps their baggage has as well. But I am going to take that up with the next panel. This has been such a year that I sometimes lose my sense of timing, but I think it was earlier this year that the accident occurred in the tunnel in downtown Baltimore, with a freight train carrying toxic material. And as I recall it, commuter rails and public transportation were disrupted for a period of days because of the proximity of those commuter rails to the freight rails and tunnel and obviously because of the toxicity of the clouds and smoke, let alone the fact that it was such an extraordinary event that it took quite a while to clear that tunnel. If you are able--and I do not know whether you were involved in this at all or in the oversight of it--I wonder whether you know if there was an emergency response plan in place to deal with that, was it ineffective, and more generally, what lessons did we learn from that event that can help us today as we deal with the more specific terrorist threat? Ms. Dorn. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I did not have specific responsibility with the FTA, but in reading the reports and discussing with my colleagues who do, it is my understanding that there was an emergency response plan in place and that there had been drills taking place, and in spite of the situation, I think it was handled as well as possible. It does demonstrate, however, the real importance of a community having not only an emergency response plan but also a mobility plan that makes sense so that if something happens to a tunnel that is shared by freight and commuters and others, there are alternatives and you have plans in place to respond to such emergencies. One of the issues that has been raised by the transit agency officials universally is the need to have that timely dissemination of pertinent intelligence information, and that can and should happen at the local level, but I think there are also ways to encourage that. There is a level of frustration, I think, on the part of transit agency managers that when they hear that, oh, yes, we are on alert, is there anything more specific that the intelligence community and the police community can share with them so that there are gradations of that, because this whole sustainability effort of being able to make sure--you cannot keep everyone on the highest level of alert for an extended period of time, so it does make sense to have the gradations of those. So that is something that I think we need to work together on from the Federal level to encourage the responsiveness of the intelligence community, locally, and there is no substitute for knocking on your colleagues' doors, whether it is the mayor's emergency response center, to make sure there is a coordination which is vital there. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Ms. Dorn. My time is just about up. Senator Voinovich. Senator Voinovich. Mr. Chairman, how much time do we have? Chairman Lieberman. Eight minutes, but please make yourself at home. Senator Voinovich. Thank you. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH First, Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for the series of hearings that you have had on the issue of security. I think all of these issues are of worthy consideration, and the hearings have generated dozens of recommendations, and I am sure we are going to be hearing some this morning about what we should be doing with transit. One thing that I think we need to look at is the aggregate cost the government is going to face to go forward with a lot of these recommendations that we have heard about. As you well know, we have now spent all of the Social Security surplus and are now borrowing money, so we need to be working harder and smarter and doing more with less. So I would really be interested in hearing from Ms. Dorn and the other witnesses today about where we should spend money to get the biggest return for our dollar. There are some major issues, for example, in the City of Columbus, where they are talking about rerouting freight trains out of the city and using the tracks for light rail to help with transit but also to alleviate the concern that people have of moving hazardous waste through the neighborhoods and through the downtown area. I was interested in your comment about intelligence, and one of the things I discussed with the Chairman yesterday was that it seems to me that we ought to look at that whole area of intelligence and whether the intelligence agencies have the personnel to get the job done and also about how they are sharing information with people across the country who might be in jeopardy and be able to prevent things if they have the right information. I would like to remind the Committee that when former Secretary of Defense Schlesinger testified before this Committee earlier this year, he indicated that ``It is the Commission's view that fixing the personnel problem is a precondition for fixing virtually everything else that needs repair in the institutional edifice of U.S. national security policy,'' and now we are talking about our security right here in the United States. So I would be interested in your observations about that. But I will say this to you. I am very impressed with what you have done already. I think it is very impressive. The other thing I want to say is that I am very impressed with the fact that you are not coming in and saying, ``We are from Washington, and this is what you should do'' and that you have been impressed with the fact that State and local agencies have been on their toes and, as the Chairman has said, have had trial runs and so forth, and if they had not had that, we would have some more difficult problems today in the country. I would be interested in knowing two things. What are you doing to gather best practices across the country? And, what are you doing to evaluate the cost of these various practices to see where you can get the biggest return for your buck? You have done so much work already, and you have a new security person coming on board, Mr. Magaw, who--and I talked to Secretary Mineta on Monday--by the way happens to be an Ohioan who started with the State Patrol in Ohio and then moved on to the Secret Service and headed up Executive Protection. Chairman Lieberman. That speaks well for him. Mr. Voinovich. Yes, they are Ohio's finest. Anyway, if you could respond to those two questions, and if you cannot get to both, just give me the first one. Ms. Dorn. OK. With your permission, Senator, I would like to just mention briefly what you mentioned about spending priorities. I think that is a very critical question. When we first took a look at this, and where can we most effectively get the most bang for the buck, we realized that because every system is unique, the assessment approach locally, with an expert team, is probably the best way to figure out where it is that we can get the most mitigating kinds of factors and really get returns on our investment. So that Cleveland and other of our top 30 transit agencies will be a party to this assessment in the next 90 days, and that will help us understand not only nationally but, most important, locally, where the money should be spent. Senator Voinovich. Let me ask you this. When you get done with this and you have completed the evaluation, will you make all of those best practices available so that they can look at them in kind of a smorgasbord and see if there may be some ideas out there that somebody else is doing that might be neat that they could adopt? Ms. Dorn. Absolutely. In fact, the best practices piece is already aggressively underway. With our transit partners, we have done a search to figure out what are the best practices in everything from guidelines on anthrax scares to other kinds of things like packages that might be vulnerable. We have collected those and are beginning to distribute them through brochures, through publications, through the training institutes that are being held throughout the country; so we all are doing our level best. We know that we cannot invent it here, and nobody wants to reinvent it, and there have been some very creative strategies. So that is No. 1 on our list, as well as the training piece, because we think that is really important as well. Tell me your second question again, if you would, please. Senator Voinovich. In terms of priority, are you going to try to identify those things that are the least expensive and most effective? Ms. Dorn. Yes, and some of those are what you call the ``soft'' kinds of expenditures, in terms of capital equipment, in terms of cameras and those things can be very important and not particularly expensive, especially when you view them in lieu of having more cops on the beat. Many of the transit agencies are saying that because they do not have the funds at this point to do the capital equipment that in effect what they are doing is having more cops on the beat. That may or may not be the most effective thing, and it certainly is not sustainable at a high level. So there are some capital investments that I believe some are making and others should. Senator Voinovich. Cameras would probably give people confidence if they knew they were there. Part of your problem right now is just to get people to have confidence that they can return to their normal way of doing things. Have you noticed across the country that there are fewer people using public transit today? Ms. Dorn. Actually, that too is a mixed report. What we have found, at least from the top 30, is that one-third have higher ridership, one-third have less ridership than September 11, and one-third are about in the middle. This is just an anecdotal series from the top 30. Only some of those that have decreased ridership have said it is a result of lack of public confidence, that it is due to other issues related to economic issues, etc. So it is very different, and I also wish we had the luxury of time to determine how much in those areas where the ridership is decreased, like the Chairman's relative who said, ``I'm not sure that I want to ride,'' how much of that we can ameliorate by taking certain steps to give public confidence. It is always a fine balance between how much do you want to give public confidence, and the other part is that sometimes, the passengers can be your most effective eyes and ears, particularly on commuter rail, because on commuter rail, you have the traditional numbers and types of passengers, and they know each other, and many of the commuter railroads are beginning to do that by putting things on the seats saying, hey, please be alert, please be vigilant. Those are the kinds of best practices that we would like to share and to evaluate more systematically. Senator Voinovich. My time is up. Chairman Lieberman. Do you have another question? Senator Voinovich. I was just going to say that you have a new person coming on board right now, and I wondered if you had discussed at all what that role would be in regard to what you are already doing. Ms. Dorn. Absolutely. I am very pleased and proud, as you are, about Mr. Magaw taking on that responsibility. And certainly, Senator, as the Congress intended, TSA is making a very focused effort at this point on aviation. However, what is very encouraging to me in my discussions with the TSA officials is that they are cognizant that their organizational structure which is now focused on aviation must eventually be absorbed throughout the modes. So they are not doing anything in a vacuum without consciousness of that. And it is my understanding that TSA has set as a time target June 2002 when they plan to provide integrated security coverage to the U.S. transportation network, covering all modes and geographies. So in the meantime, as we have been advised by the TSA folks, when in doubt, run your agency. And I can tell you that we are not using the rationale that, well, TSA is going to be doing this; we are vigilantly, each of the modes, and my colleagues in highways, rail, etc., are saying we are going about our business in a coordinated fashion as aggressively as possible, and when TSA is ready to take over, we hope and expect that it will be a seamless transition. Senator Voinovich. That is terrific. It is wonderful to know, and the public should know that this person is coming on board, but you have not been waiting for them; you have been out there, getting the job done. Ms. Dorn. No; we cannot wait. Senator Voinovich. I have to tell you that I have been very impressed with your testimony this morning. Thank you very much. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Voinovich. Senator Durbin. Senator Durbin. Administrator Dorn, thank you again for being here, and thank you for coming to Chicago recently; we were happy to be there for a great announcement on the expansion of our CTA, and your agency will play a great role in that as they have in the past. I am trying to step back for a second and make a risk assessment when it comes to transportation, based on what we have done in Congress. Obviously, we have decided that the highest risk is associated with air travel, and we have invested great resources, we have taken on a new Federal responsibility, we are demanding of passengers more scrutiny than any other mode of travel. I think that has a lot to do with September 11 and the involvement of airplanes; it has a lot to do with the vulnerability of an aircraft as opposed to other forms of travel. Then, when you are dealing with the next level, with passenger rail, Amtrak has decided to require valid photo IDs when a person purchases a ticket, and there are other things that we will hear about that they are doing to make their system safer. Then, to the next level, mass transit, using the rails still but with a much larger volume, it is not realistic to use the same standards that we are using either for airlines or for Amtrak. I am trying to ask in the most general terms a philosophical question. Is there a conversation about appropriate risk assessment and realistic security response in terms of not really closing down our open and free society, but increasing confidence in security? Is that conversation going on at a philosophical level? Ms. Dorn. Absolutely, it is. There is no question that the emphasis, as I believe is appropriate, is on the aviation system. But there is a real consciousness that the public transportation system needs to concentrate particularly on the tunnels, the high-traffic transit centers where many people gather, and those other critical assets, either because of the ridership issue or the value of them to our total transportation system. No one has said that the risk in aviation is ``x'' percent, and the risk in public transportation is ``y'' versus Coast Guard, etc.; but the conversation is always assuming every mode has a vulnerability, and we must be as aggressive as possible. I feel that it is too soon to determine what additional resources would be required at every level, and that is why I am pleased that we are moving forward in the assessments. We need to get a better handle on that. The discussions are taking place with OMB and within the Department, but it is not a science, it is an art in some respects. Senator Durbin. We are all doing our best in light of September 11, and I join with Senator Voinovich and thank you for what you have done, as well as Secretary Mineta and the President, in this area. We need to work together. I might just alert my colleagues that one area that I have really picked up an interest in, and it does not directly apply to mass transit, but it does apply to this whole question of security, is the photo ID which is now ubiquitous, which we are all pulling out and showing at airports and many different places, which frankly is a very, very limited tool to deal with security. At best, it matches a photograph with a face and a name that may or may not be a valid name. I am hoping to have a hearing in January on expanding the standards for State driver's licenses and State ID cards so that we have some uniformity and so that mode of identification is really consistent to certain standards across America. That is just an aside that I wanted to mention. Let me ask you just very briefly in closing what have you found to be the most cost-effective examples of enhanced security in mass transit so far? Ms. Dorn. It depends on the system, but I would say establishing relationships across the modes in terms of authorities locally, police, fire, mayor's office, and transit agencies so they are comfortable working together, they have a plan, they have resources to execute against that plan, they have practiced that. I think that is the most important and in some ways the most difficult aspect of this piece. Some of the transit managers who have done this several years ago have said to me, ``Hey, the first 6 months, we all got around the table and defended our turf, and once we got to know each other and trusted each other and got down to business, we developed the partnership that is critical in order to assure as much as possible the safety of the traveling public.'' So that is an investment that is a ``soft'' investment but is absolutely critical. Senator Durbin. ``Soft'' in terms of bringing them together, but let me give you an illustration of where expenses come in. My Governor comes to me and says, ``Senator, in Illinois, we have great police departments, great fire departments, great first responders at all levels--and no communications network--none. We need $20 million as quickly as you can get it to us, because we are strapped with this recession in State revenues, so that we can establish a Statewide communications network which would serve transit and transportation and virtually all other crises that might involve our State.'' So many of us are really hoping that this recognition of the best first step will be followed with the dedication of resources in simple ways to the communications system so that they can be much more effective in that effort. Ms. Dorn. I totally agree with you. In fact, that is one of the very important initial efforts of the TSA, to establish that kind of information network and system, which we would like to be able to translate across the modes. That is an important linkage that even some transit agencies do not yet have within their city, much less at various levels. So it is an important arena, but in order to make those decisions about what kinds of investments, Federal, State, local, I think we need to have more information. Senator Durbin. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Senator Durbin. Senator Cleland. Senator Cleland. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CLELAND May I just say as a member of the Commerce Committee that we have gotten involved in these transportation and security issues, and I have come across a quote by Anthony Kordsman, a terrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies here in Washington. He says that he strongly expects that any future terrorist attack will not employ the same tactics used on September 11. ``The next time they attack,'' he says, ``they will not be using aircraft. The likelihood is they will use a different weapon, something to break up the predictability.'' He went on to say, ``It could be mass transit or it could be public utilities, historic sites, or the media. Tightening security in one area will tend to push terrorists in other directions, but one act of mass terrorism does not predict the next occurrence.'' Mr. Chairman, mass transit was on Mr. Cordesman's list of possible targets, and why not? Almost one-third of terrorist attacks around the world target public transportation. The system is vulnerable with the number of transit stops and stations, the thousands of hazardous material deliveries daily, passengers' easy access to the system, the hundreds of thousands of miles of track to defend. I would just like to say a word about Amtrak. Passenger rail has been the red-headed stepchild of the transportation family for 50 years. The U.S. Government has never done for Amtrak and commuter rail lines what it has done for airports and highways. Since Amtrak was created 30 years ago, the government has invested $35 billion in the system. Contrast that with the fact that we have invested $380 billion in our roads and $160 billion in our airports. To compound the situation, Congress passed a law 4 years ago requiring Amtrak to be operationally sufficient by the end of next year or face liquidation. Now I read in Mr. Frazier's testimony that Amtrak since September 11 has diverted over $12 million from its operating funds to beef up its security. Amtrak has had to use money that it should be using for operating its trains for one reason and one reason only. Congress has not provided Amtrak with any security relief, even though we provided $15 billion to the airline industry and billions more to strengthen our airports and airplanes. Granted, the Senate DOD appropriations bill earmarks $100 million for Amtrak security, but we know that Amtrak needs $3.2 billion for security. Mr. Chairman, Amtrak is vital to America's national transportation system, vital to our economy and to our national defense. For weeks, Senator Hollings, Chairman of the Commerce Committee on which I sit, has been trying to bring the rail and port security bill to the Senate floor. Because of objections from certain members, the fate of that crucial bill is still in limbo. This is unacceptable. For national security reasons, America needs legislation which will provide Amtrak with significant dollars--$1.8 billion--to improve security for the 60,000 passengers it transports each day. We can and we must do better than this. So I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing, and I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses. Thank you very much. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Cleland. I want to ask you one or two wrap-up questions, Ms. Dorn. Your testimony has been very helpful. Except in the case of Amtrak, it seems to me that providing rail transportation is largely a responsibility of State, local, and regional governments, and of course, the private sector. I wonder if, in light of the events of September 11, you think that relationship ought to change at all. Is there need for a larger Federal role in transportation, generally, transit, generally, and/or particularly in transit security questions? Ms. Dorn. Generally, the Federal role, as I understand it, has worked well in terms of allowing--and the belief on a bipartisan basis is that the States and localities really need to decide how their transportation systems will work and that there is a responsibility on the part of the Federal Government to assist, because public transportation and transportation in general, in order to have a viable economy throughout the Nation, must occur. So I think that balance has worked very well. In terms of the security role, I think our minds should be open to the possibility. It is too soon to tell whether there needs to be an additional hook from the Federal perspective, but I think we should be very cautious about it, because the tendency, then, if we do that is that we either provide the unfunded mandate that may or may not fit the need of a locality, or we just move forward in a way that is really not responsive to the uniqueness of the system. So I think we have to be very cautious about that, but I think this administration is open-minded about what security efforts need to be taken in public transportation, and I am eager to work with the Committee in that regard. Chairman Lieberman. I thank you very much for your testimony, and I wish you well in the proactive steps that you are taking. Thank you very much. I will now call forward the second panel, which includes Dorothy Dugger, Deputy General Manager of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District; Ernest R. Frazier, Senior, Esquire, Chief of Police and Senior Vice President of Systems Security and Safety at Amtrak; Trixie Johnson, Research Director of the Mineta Transportation Institute; Jeffrey Warsh, Executive Director of the New Jersey Transit Corporation; and Richard White, General Manager of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Thank you all very much for being here. You are really leaders of transit systems around the country, and your presence here gives us a very good opportunity to understand the security needs of America's transit systems post-September 11, so I appreciate the time and the effort that you made to be here. We are going to begin with Mr. White. Thanks very, very much for being here. Mr. White is General Manager of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. TESTIMONY OF RICHARD A. WHITE,\1\ GENERAL MANAGER, WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY Mr. White. Good morning, Chairman Lieberman and Members of the Committee. Thank you for asking me to testify today. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. White with attachments appears in the Appendix on page 58. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am Richard White, and I am the General Manager of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. I want to thank the Committee for your interest in ensuring the security and protection of our Nation's rail transit systems. I also want to both thank and commend Secretary of Transportation Mineta and Federal Transit Administrator Dorn for their proactive efforts, as you have just heard, in protecting our Nation's transportation infrastructure, including our transit systems. Mr. Chairman, my written statement which I am submitting for the record, details the unique role that WMATA performs in the National Capital Region. Three decades ago when Congress created WMATA to build and operate a rapid transit system for the Nation's Capital, it was recognized that quality rapid transit for the region's residents and visitors was essential to the operations of the Federal Government. I would like to note that WMATA's original enabling legislation, the National Capital Transportation Act, originated in this Committee. Today, approximately 40 percent of the region's residents commute on transit to jobs in the heart of the region's employment center. Half of our 84 stations, as you said, Mr. Chairman, in your opening statement, serve Federal facilities, and about 36 percent of the locally- based Federal work force commute on our Metro system. As the second-largest U.S. rail system and the fifth-largest bus system, we carry more than 1.1 million daily trips. We operate a 103-mile system, 762 railcars, 1,443 buses, 7 rail maintenance facilities, 10 bus garages, and various other smaller satellite facilities throughout the region. Being located in the National Capital Region, we recognize our special role in serving the Federal Government and the Federal City, including providing transit and enhanced security for large crowds, attending special events on the national Mall and elsewhere. On September 11, when we were needed most by the National Capital Region, we were ready and we delivered. Essentially, we assumed a new role and became the primary mode of evacuation for our region, running back-to-back rush hour services as Federal workers and others quickly fled the city, often leaving their cars behind. The role was further defined when we were asked by the Pentagon to open half an hour early at 5 a.m. for a 30-day period to support the Department of Defense as they heightened security clearances and encountered major traffic congestion accessing the Pentagon building. Even before September 11, WMATA had developed and implemented a number of programs and operating procedures to deal with threats to our system in the major areas of prevention and mitigation, preparedness and response, and recovery. We have prepared a System Safety and Security Program Plan, developed operating procedures to guide a variety of responses, established procedures for activating and utilizing our emergency operations command center using an incident command system protocol, and created redundant communication systems. We have been conducting annual counter-terrorism and explosive incident training for police and operations personnel and had a high level of interagency coordination with the many Federal, State, and local law enforcement, fire, and emergency response agencies in the area. We have monthly meetings with our local fire and emergency rescue agencies and active daily contact with our local police departments. We sponsor an annual multi-jurisdictional drill to test training and response readiness of all of our coordinated agencies in the region. Further, we have one of our police officers assigned to the local FBI Office of Counter-Terrorism in order to have access to key intelligence information, to flag possible threats and prevent their occurrences. Access to key intelligence information, in my opinion, is perhaps the most critical thing we can do to help prevent negative occurrences. I appreciate the discussion on the issue of prevention versus response. In the aftermath of the 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway, we have spent considerable resources on emergency preparedness, including developing in conjunction with the Departments of Energy, Transportation, and Justice the first chemical detection system to be used in a transit environment anywhere in the world. WMATA is considered to be one of the safest transit systems in the country in large part because of design features like clear sight lines for video camera surveillance, use of noncombustible materials throughout the system and vehicles, failsafe train control systems, an extensive alarm system covering all of our station facilities, electrical power substations and ventilator shafts, right-of- way fencing and intrusion detection devices, fully-functional and monitored train radios including emergency alarms, and video cameras in all of our rail stations. Some of the new measures taken specifically to enhance the protection of our physical infrastructure include hardening the cab door locks in all 762 of our trains, conducting daily security sweeps of all of our facilities and otherwise ensuring the tight security of the critical elements of our infrastructure such as tunnels, vent and fan shafts, emergency exits, traction power substations and communication rooms. We have provided personal protective gear for our police personnel and soon, for all of our front-line employees. We have removed trash cans and newspaper recycling bins throughout the system and intend to replace them with bomb-resistant containers. We are in the process of installing recorders for our existing rail station video cameras and are installing a fiberoptic connection to link the cameras back to our central control facility for monitoring and response. We are in the process of developing a continuity of operations plan which includes a number of contingency plans, and we have launched an enhanced public awareness and safety campaign. On October 12, we sent a request to the Office of Management and Budget detailing our security needs of $190 million, based on the assessments that we have made to date. A copy of this is attached to my written statement. We have also worked with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, which is our region's coordinating agency for the 17 jurisdictions of local government. Their purview covers the various aspects of public safety and emergency management, health, and various infrastructure protection components such as our transportation, water and energy, and waste and debris management systems. In my opinion, now is the time for the Nation to consider that transit systems truly are a part of the national defense system and to contemplate the value of transit as the evacuation method of choice and possibly necessity during emergency situations. Every mode of transportation is important during emergencies, but transit is able to move people much more quickly and efficiently than congested roads and highways. Given the fact that WMATA is located in the National Capital Region and is so integral to the workings of the Federal Government, there is even a greater need to make sure that we can meet the operational and security challenges that lie ahead. As we saw on September 11, Metro has proven to be an indispensable asset that provides essential services to the Federal Government and its work force. In order for WMATA to fulfill this homeland defense role, we must act to enhance our security capabilities even further, as well as expanding the capacity of our infrastructure. Our rail system was built as a two-track railroad with little redundancy or ability to reroute trains in response to an emergency. We have extremely limited underground storage capacity and must often bring trains from long distances to replace a disabled train. If we need to rely on a large number of buses to transport individuals in the event of an emergency or if a portion of our rail system is incapacitated, we do not have sufficient spare buses for this service. Transit service in New York City was able to be partially restored quickly after September 11 due to the configuration of their system. New York's multiple rail lines and connections give it the ability to reroute trains and provide service after some of its rail lines were incapacitated. To adequately prepare for emergencies, WMATA must connect its rail lines in order to provide alternative paths if a portion of the system is impacted. Both security and capacity must be enhanced at significant additional cost if we are to protect transit riders and be able to serve the region in case of an emergency evacuation. The unparalleled, longstanding Federal-regional partnerships that created WMATA has endured, and we have become a model for the Nation, as Congress originally envisioned. We urge you to consider the vast challenges that WMATA faces as a transit system for the Nation's Capital, as well as how lessons learned in this environment can be used throughout the Nation. We have reached out to various parts of the Federal Government seeking technical assistance and guidance and funding as we move aggressively to enhance the level of protection of riders on America's transit system. We look forward to having a dialogue with this Committee as you examine the Federal Government's role, particularly in the National Capital Region, in ensuring that the Metro system continues to be not only one of the safest transit systems in the world, but also one that is well-prepared to meet the demands of the new millennium. Again, I want to thank the Committee and the Chairman for the opportunity to appear before you today, and I would be pleased to answer any questions after the testimony of others. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. White. That was very interesting testimony, and I look forward to the question period. The next witness is Jeffrey A. Warsh, Executive Director of the New Jersey Transit Corporation. Thank you for being here. TESTIMONY OF JEFFREY A. WARSH,\1\ EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NEW JERSEY TRANSIT CORPORATION Mr. Warsh. Good morning, Chairman Lieberman, Senator Voinovich, and distinguished Members of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Warsh appears in the Appendix on page 73. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- My name is Jeff Warsh, and I am the Executive Director of New Jersey Transit Corporation, the Nation's third largest transit agency and the largest statewide transit provider in the Nation. I want to thank this Committee for all of your efforts to address transit and rail security issues, and I would also like to thank and commend FTA Administrator Dorn, who has done a fantastic job right out of the chute, and Secretary of Transportation, whom I call ``Stormin' Norman'' Mineta, in this new battle on terrorism for their efforts in securing our transportation networks. New Jersey Transit is responsible for the security of more than 223 million riders who use our system each year. Since September 11, the dynamics of keeping our passengers safe and secure have changed dramatically and we believe forever. Not only has the threat we are facing changed, but the actual nature of the commute in and around New York City has been transformed by the terrorist attacks of 3 months ago. New Jersey Transit was dramatically impacted by these events because approximately 40 percent of our New Jersey Transit riders are destined for New York City either on train or on bus. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center, New Jersey Transit worked hand-in-glove with Amtrak to increase security, and we could not have done it without them. Amtrak halted trans-Hudson Tunnel traffic and searched and secured the Hudson River Rail tunnels before reopening them later on September 11. Select train stations were evacuated and secured before reopening. Parking lots below train tracks were cleared of all cars. Roads in close proximity to certain train stations were and still remain blocked to automobile traffic. Amtrak placed guards proximate to the Northeast Corridor tunnels and bridges, our lifeline in New Jersey and on the entire East Coast. Amtrak and New Jersey Transit police have increased patrols with New Jersey Transit police working 12- hour shifts. We distributed a list of major facilities to local police departments to enlist their help in critical asset protection. New Jersey Transit also implemented additional security measures. We contracted with local police departments to supplement our own force, including complying with a Coast Guard order to provide armed police for significant ferry operations that we run all along New Jersey's ``gold coast'' on the Hudson River across from New York City. We saw great increases in the number of bomb threats and anthrax scares all of which proved, thank God, to be unfounded but still put massive strains on our police force. The closure of the PATH tunnels and the imposition of a single-occupancy vehicle ban on Hudson River crossings with 5 hours' notice has meant that many former PATH and automobile commuters are now using New Jersey Transit service through Amtrak's North River tunnels. September 11 shifted 67 percent of the jobs from Lower Manhattan's Financial District to Midtown, which is served by New York Penn Station. In addition, many commuters destined for Lower Manhattan are now taking our train service to Penn Station and transferring to the New York City subway system to Lower Manhattan. With Amtrak's assistance, New Jersey Transit has added two trains to Manhattan and has increased the number of cars on other trains to the maximum number that the platform in New York Penn Station will allow. We have also accelerated the opening of a section of the new concourse at New York Penn Station to deal with the crunch loads on the platforms. With all these commuting changes, approximately 100,000 riders a day now take either New Jersey Transit or Amtrak trains from New Jersey to New York City every day. We have seen close to a 50 percent increase in riders on our Northeast Corridor service through the Amtrak tunnels to New York's Penn Station. This commuting pattern shift only serves to underscore the importance of increased life safety measures in those tunnels. The Congress has expressed its concern regarding Amtrak tunnel life safety in and around New York City. The North River tunnels are approaching 100 years of age. Evacuation routes, fire retardation and ventilation systems in the tunnels must be significantly improved. I am here today to add New Jersey's voice to the chorus. Funding for these improvements is critical. I was pleased to see $100 million appropriated in the Senate's defense appropriation bill for North River tunnel life safety issues. These improvements are more important to New Jersey Transit than to Amtrak, as 75 out of 100 trains each day that pass through the North River tunnels are New Jersey Transit trains. Amtrak needs more funding to make those improvements now more than ever. Beyond improving life safety and security of the Hudson River rail tunnels, New Jersey Transit is concerned with the safety and security of our passengers systemwide. However, I caution this Committee respectfully not to deal with rail and transit security in the same way as airline security. Rail and transit security should be viewed in context. A strong public transportation system is an integral part of the security of our cities because public transportation is essential to evacuating urban centers. On September 11, public transportation systems in New York, New Jersey, Washington, and throughout the country carried hundreds of thousands of passengers and walking wounded out of harm's way. At the same time, airports were shut down, highways were packed with congestion, and all Hudson River crossings were shut down. We were the only thing moving--ferry and rail--that was it. In times of crisis, our transit systems serve as our cities' best emergency escape. Public transportation is also a target, as we have heard continually. Because it is so vital to the evacuation of cities, it must be doubly protected. But the approach to the security of trains and buses must be, by the very nature of its mode, different from those of airports and airlines. Airplanes are much more vulnerable to catastrophic loss than trains. A train cannot be used by a terrorist as a guided missile. Access to train stations and airports is also fundamentally different. Whereas an airport can restrict passengers to a set of checkpoints where security guards have the ability to check passengers and luggage, train stations are and must be by their nature more open and free-flowing. It is a different threat and requires a different approach to security. New Jersey Transit is currently completing a full and complete review of its security needs. This crucial exercise began before September 11, and although that review is not complete, we can make some preliminary observations. Our first line of defense is our people. Our conductors, our bus drivers, our station managers, and especially our transit police officers, all play critical roles in keeping our passengers secure. Greater police presence not only helps deter terrorist activities, it helps us respond to emergencies. We already have National Guard troops at New York Penn Station to supplement police needs, but in the long term, we need more men and women on the beat. In addition, security cameras, bomb-sniffing dog teams, communication equipment, and emergency response equipment are also needed. Certain facility improvements such as permanent security barricades will also make the job of protecting transit assets easier. Many of our personnel, both police and others, need additional training to help them better respond to threats such as biological weapons attacks. But for all the high-tech security wizardry, I cannot stress enough the importance of the men and women of our transit police departments. A security camera is useless unless there is someone to monitor it in the control room. They have made a heroic effort, and we need to continue to support their efforts. I realize that airline security has dominated the news, and I commend this body for your efforts to secure our skies; it is critical. But improved airline security is not enough. We should focus on transportation security as a whole. In that context, the security of transit operations should be a priority. We are an essential part of this Nation's homeland defense in that we provide the means of escape when other modes unfortunately fail. I want to thank this Committee, this Senate, and this Congress for your efforts, and I urge you to do all you can to help New Jersey Transit and transit agencies throughout the Nation to respond to and prepare for the security needs of a new century. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Mr. Warsh, for an excellent statement. Just out of curiosity, earlier on, you made a reference about guards on bridges and tunnels; I think it was Amtrak that you were talking about, weren't you? Mr. Warsh. Yes, Amtrak's bridges and tunnels. Although New Jersey Transit goes through Amtrak's tunnels and bridges, Amtrak takes care of that security, and they will speak for themselves. We also have 20 or 30 rail bridges throughout the State in addition to key tunnels that lead to Hoboken Terminal and in turn lead by ferry and PATH to New York. We protect those tunnels ourselves. Chairman Lieberman. So are you putting in extra measures of protection since September 11 with regard to those? Mr. Warsh. Absolutely. We have posts on both sides of all bridges and tunnels under our jurisdiction. We have posts on all power substations that we have been alerted by the FBI could potentially be targets. Chairman Lieberman. ``Post'' meaning there is a security person there? Mr. Warsh. A New Jersey Transit police officer, armed and ready. Chairman Lieberman. Good. Ernest Frazier is Chief of Police and Senior Vice President for System Security and Safety for Amtrak. Chief Frazier, we are delighted to have you here. Thank you very much. TESTIMONY OF ERNEST R. FRAZIER, SR., ESQUIRE,\1\ CHIEF OF POLICE AND SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR SYSTEM SECURITY AND SAFETY, AMTRAK Mr. Frazier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me here today for this very important discussion. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Frazier appears in the Appendix on page 79. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- As mentioned, I am the Senior Vice President of System Security and Safety for Amtrak's national network. I am also Chief of Police of the Amtrak Police Department, a nationally- accredited police force of 350 officers whose role is to protect Amtrak's customers, employees, and property. We have been the lead agency in assessing Amtrak's security procedures, both before and after the tragedy of September 11. Amtrak has been operating on maximum alert since September 11. Within moments of the attack, we suspended all Amtrak service nationwide to allow for a top-to-bottom security sweep. All trains, tracks, bridges, tunnels, stations and other facilities, including those controlled by others, were inspected within hours, and security personnel remain stationed at all facilities 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Amtrak was able to resume operations within a few hours, gradually increasing the number of trains until a full operating schedule was achieved later that evening. For 3 days, when not a single commercial airliner was operating in the United States, Amtrak kept business people moving and brought stranded family members home. In the weeks following the attack, Amtrak took a number of intermediate steps to increase our security. We implemented a new policy requiring Amtrak guests to present valid photo identification and answer security questions when purchasing tickets or checking baggage. We have created a computer program that automatically cross-checks ticket purchases and reservations, whether they are made at a ticket counter, a QuikTrak machine, or online, against the FBI watchlist on a real-time basis. We have suspended onboard ticket sales in the Northeast Corridor between Washington, New York, and Boston, which means that every guest who boards a Northeast Corridor train will have been reviewed for security purposes. In addition, we have restricted access to our locomotives, conducted emergency drills to deal with a range of contingencies, conducted baggage inspections, revised our system security plan, and strengthened our partnerships with law enforcement agencies at all levels. Looking ahead, we are committed to doing everything necessary and reasonable to improve our security further. Amtrak has created an internal task force with representatives from our police, operations, safety, and engineering departments. The strategic goals of this task force are, first of all, to prevent terrorist attacks from happening, and second, to be prepared for emergencies should they occur. Our counter-terrorism plan is built around the three pillars of deterrence, vulnerability reduction, and emergency preparedness. To deter attacks on our guests and reduce the vulnerability of our facilities and infrastructure, we are increasing police patrols, deploying canine teams at major stations, training and educating our 24,000 Amtrak employees to be more aware of potential threats, conducting increased train and baggage room sweeps, securing our sites through lighting increases and barrier protections, and installing security cameras, access control systems, and hazmat detection and response systems. Moreover, since the majority of the tracks we operate on are owned and operated by the freight railroads, we are working closely with the American Association of Railroads' task forces on physical infrastructure, operational security, and information security. We are also cooperating closely with the American Public Transportation Association and with our commuter and transit agency partners. In the event that an act of terrorism does occur, Amtrak must be ready to deploy its team of emergency responders who are continually drilled to handle crisis situations. But the real focus here is on the fire departments, police departments, and emergency management agencies of the communities where the incident takes place. Amtrak has a program of reaching out to local emergency responders to increase their familiarity not just with Amtrak equipment but with the railroad operating environment as a whole. Mitigating the potential ongoing effect of an incident is just as critical an element of preparedness as responding to the actual incident. Business continuity, operating continuity, rerouting of trains, providing for alternative travel arrangements, accommodating passengers and so forth, requires foresight and planning and should be a substantial part of any preparedness plan. As the passenger rail industry has grown to emphasize intermodalism, Amtrak's operations have become even more intertwined with those of the commuter railroads, airport authorities, bus terminals, and the like. The complexity of operating a system that carried 23.5 million riders in this past fiscal year alone can be a daunting task without a well- thought-out plan. Amtrak is continuing to assess how to keep our system running at as close to full capacity as possible while working through and recovering from any potential terrorist incident. Mr. Chairman, in response to congressional requests, we have submitted a $3.2 billion September 11 response package that includes key elements for security and safety. An additional $1.5 billion would be devoted to bringing railroad tunnels in the New York, Washington, and Baltimore regions up to modern standards for fire and life safety protection. And $515 million is needed to accomplish the deterrence, vulnerability reduction, and emergency response efforts that I have already described. Mr. Chairman, before closing, I would like to point out that while Amtrak has a good record on safety and security, we also face unique challenges. The foremost challenge is the relatively open and intermodal nature of our passenger rail system. For example, on an average week day, New York's Penn Station handles about 30,000 Amtrak passengers; but at least 300,000 additional passengers go through the station on the Long Island Railroad and New Jersey Transit. Thousands more use the station daily to transfer to New York City subways. And Penn Station is not unique. For more than 20 years, transportation policy has encouraged an open, intermodal environment in virtually every train station in the country. In the light of September 11, we at Amtrak are not about to abandon our historic commitment to an open passenger rail system. Rather, our goal is to strike the right balance between providing greater safety and security and maintaining the kind of open, intermodal design that underpins virtually every rail system in the world. I believe that the policies I have just described achieve that delicate but all-important balance. Thank you once again, Mr. Chairman. I will be happy to answer questions. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Chief Frazier. Well done. We are glad to welcome Dorothy Dugger. Good morning. We are pleased that you came across the country to represent the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District. TESTIMONY OF DOROTHY W. DUGGER,\1\ DEPUTY GENERAL MANAGER, SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT DISTRICT (BART) Ms. Dugger. Thank you, and good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Dugger with attachments appears in the Appendix on page 84. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am Dorothy Dugger, Deputy General Manager of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, better known as BART. Thank you for the focus that this hearing provides to the security issues facing our industry, and I join my colleagues on the panel in expressing our appreciation to Secretary Mineta and Administrator Dorn for the leadership they have provided, especially in these challenging times. Let me begin with an observation that has already been made by Administrator Dorn and others but which I think is an important context for our discussion this morning. By definition, rail rapid transit systems are characterized by high and concentrated levels of service and use supported in part by easy, convenient and open access to multiple facilities throughout our systems. Due to the very nature of the very service we provide, many of the security measures that may be available to other modes of transportation simply are not available to us. The security challenges unique to our mode therefore underscore the need to work in partnership with Federal, State, and local agencies, and our industry colleagues to identify and share best practices and information on prevention and mitigation, expedite the development of state-of-the-art detection and monitoring equipment and technology, and of course, secure funding to implement security and capacity enhancements. By way of brief background, BART is a 95-mile, 39-station rapid rail transit system serving four counties straddling the San Francisco Bay. Our work force includes a police department of 185 sworn officers. We function as the backbone of the regional transportation and transit system, carrying 320,000 passengers on a normal weekday. Today during the peak commute hour, BART carries more riders across the Bay into San Francisco than the Bay Bridge carries vehicles. In other words, without BART service, we would need another deck on the Bay Bridge to deliver the morning commute. To deliver this level of service, BART operates trains carrying 700 to 1,000 riders each every 2\1/2\ minutes through the Transbay Tube, one of the most critical assets of our system and a visible icon of the Bay area. Emergency planning has been a hallmark at BART. As new potential threats have emerged, our planning and response protocols have evolved accordingly. A detailed emergency plan is in place which addresses responses to a variety of potential natural disasters and criminal activities. That plan is updated regularly and stresses a coordinated response by all involved personnel, our employees as well as first responders from other agencies using our incident command system. Multi-casualty drills are held biannually to hone first response capabilities and coordination. We conduct multiple orientation tours annually to familiarize other first responders to the layout and safety features of our various station trackway and station facilities, and we hold impromptu in-house drills as well to test and train our field and central control personnel on a variety of scenarios. Following the Tokyo subway sarin attack, we developed an emergency plan to specifically address the potential use of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Our employees have benefitted from federally-sponsored training programs offered by the U.S. Army's Chemical School, the Department of Defense, and FTA First Responder Training Center, as well as other courses dealing with this specialized subject. We have been focused on two areas when dealing with potential terrorist activity--prevention of acts on the system and mitigation of the consequences if an act does occur. Preventive steps have included target hardening and cooperative sharing of information, including intelligence information. Target hardening has included things like increased use of closed-circuit television in our system, installation of improved intrusion alarms, and improved use of crime prevention through environmental design concepts. We have also been involved in several regional groups which facilitate the flow of intelligence information critical in anticipating terrorist events. In the area of mitigation, the need for immediate and appropriate first responder actions to save lives cannot be overstated. This will require early recognition, immediate action to contain the scene, and gathering the necessary resources to provide the needed aid, which will not be available from a single source. As discussed, to make certain this occurs smoothly requires planning, training, and practice. The terrorist attacks of September 11 revealed a new dimension to the potential for criminal acts of terror. Accordingly, we have initiated additional steps to further enhance the safety and security of our system, with an emphasis on high-profile key locations. We are conducting a comprehensive update of our system threat and vulnerability analysis to make sure that no area is overlooked and that limited resources are productively maximized, and we look forward to the assistance that Administrator Dorn discussed this morning. We have increased employee visibility, especially our uniformed police presence. We have conducted sweeps of trains at selected key locations to check for suspicious packages or activities. We have removed trash receptacles at underground platforms, closed restrooms, and monitor our elevators manually. Chairman Lieberman. Excuse me. Do you mean that you select trains at random and sweep them? Is that a sweep of passengers or the train itself? Ms. Dugger. Just the train itself; at key locations as they enter a key tunnel or the Transbay Tube, a police officer will walk quickly through the 10-car train. Chairman Lieberman. OK. Go ahead. Ms. Dugger. We continue to stress that counter-terrorism is not just a responsibility of our police. Given the pattern of terrorist reconnaissance, of research and rehearsal prior to an act on many occasions, our focus is on interrupting and detecting an action planning process in progress. We have communicated with our front-line employees and our customers as well to encourage their attention and urging them to remain alert to suspicious circumstances and report those to our police. Reflecting the expert theory cited by Senator Cleland earlier this morning, our goal is to become as unattractive a target as possible. With respect to additional targeting hardening, we have installed intrusion alarms at limited key access points. We are testing new tunnel intrusion detection technology. Efforts to protect train control and communication systems are focused on hardening our operations control center. In terms of the Federal Government's role in safeguarding rail transit systems, we share Mr. White's position that public fixed-guideway rapid rail transit systems need to be recognized as an important resource in our domestic national security efforts. We carry large numbers of people, provide mobility throughout large metropolitan areas, and provide lifeline transit service, including evacuation in times of crisis. Given the heightened security we now face, we urge continued Federal support in several critical areas of need for our systems. We urge continued funding to support counter- terrorism measures, the cost of which is simply beyond our local capabilities and limited resources. We have preliminarily identified approximately $70 million in security-related needs, which we have communicated to FTA and to our congressional representatives; I expect that number will probably grow as we complete our current threat assessment activity now under way. These items are attached to my testimony for your information, and I will not detail them here, but most of them--and this goes, we believe, to the best, most cost- effective investment--are one-time capital expenditures designed to improve our monitoring and detection capabilities. By so doing we would not have to depend on a strategy which I think financially and physically is not sustainable over the long haul or as a routine way of doing business, which is reliance on our human resources to provide that monitoring and detection capability. Chairman Lieberman. What kinds of resources would those be? Ms. Dugger. Increasing the use of closed-circuit television capability throughout our system; improved connections of that information real-time back to central police monitoring facilities; electronic keying of our system which, while not as old as some of our colleagues' on the East Coast, we are now 30 years old, and a lot of technology as basic as metal keys as opposed to electronic keys can provide much higher levels of security, particularly to remote field locations of substations, train control rooms, and facilities of that sort; redundancy of our communications systems, which we believe is critical. We are also very much looking forward to the results of the demonstration that Dick White referenced earlier on the new technology that is being tested in WMATA for chemical and biological detection, which is clearly a vulnerability that those of us who operate subway and mass transit systems with high volumes of people and high volumes of service face today. We also encourage continued Federal funding for the training programs that you have heard discussed this morning in my testimony and others. Those have been very helpful, and we have benefitted from that training. And the continued funding that Congress has provided to date to the national labs and other research institutes supported by DOT and FTA have produced, we believe, useful collections of information, whether it be inventories of best practices or research into promising new technologies which will give us better capabilities. We very much appreciate the opportunity to testify today, and I am happy and look forward to the questions and discussion that will follow. Thank you very much. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Ms. Dugger. I appreciate your testimony very much. The four of you have been very, very helpful. We are now delighted to hear from someone with a somewhat different perspective on the problem, Trixie Johnson, who is Research Director of what I suppose we should call ``the Stormin' Norman Mineta Transportation Institute.'' Welcome. TESTIMONY OF HON. TRIXIE JOHNSON,\1\ RESEARCH DIRECTOR, MINETA TRANSPORTATION INSTITUTE Ms. Johnson. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, on behalf of the Mineta Transportation Institute and Brian Jenkins, the head of our counter-terrorism research team, I thank you for focusing on this critical topic and for this opportunity to introduce our work to you. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson with an attachment appears in the Appendix on page 91. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- MTI is a university transportation center. We were created by ISTEA, and we are located at San Jose State University. We began our counter-terrorism work in 1996. The Executive Overview that I have provided to the Committee--this book--covers the first three of our five projects.\1\ Those reports are all posted on our websites. Since it was published in early October, we have also conducted a National Transportation Security Summit here in Washington, DC and have initiated a case study of surface transportation related to the September 11 New York events. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ MTI Report 01-14 entitled ``Protecting Public Surface Transportation Against Terrorism and Serious Crime: An Executive Overview,'' October 2001, by Brian M. Jenkins (submitted by Ms. Johnson) appears in the Appendix on page 95. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some quick points about security and the threat to U.S. passenger rail systems. First, the threat is real. Rail passenger systems, as you have heard, are very attractive targets and, as you have also heard, not all systems are equal. The larger urban systems are much more attractive, but copycats threaten even smaller systems. Second, security and response absolutely require cooperation and coordination among many responsible agencies. If there is one theme of this hearing, it would appear that is the strongest. Third, the right level of security is difficult to determine. The threat is hard to quantify. Cost-benefit analysis cannot be the sole criterion. And the threat to any one individual is minuscule, so basing it on the cost of lives saved is difficult to do. We can say the obvious--that the larger systems will cost more to secure. Fourth, security cannot totally prevent attacks, but it can make them more difficult to execute and can reduce the impacts. Fifth, we can learn from others. MTI's work emphasizes case studies for this reason. We then apply that knowledge in doing terrorism vulnerability assessments, not just for transit systems but for surface transportation features of all kinds. The Tokyo sarin event in 1995, for example, demonstrated dramatically that the train and passengers can spread the agent as far as they are allowed to go. One train in that system traversed the entire system three times before the threat was assessed and the train was stopped. Thus, effective response is measured in minutes. Detection systems, whether they be closed-circuit television or the new, up and coming chemical sensors, are important investments, and the sensors are a particularly good candidate for additional research and development. Sixth, the information about best practices must reach operators. Investing in information transfer and training is important. Finally, I would call your attention to two lists. First, in my written testimony, you will find a list of 10 low-cost measures that every system can do. Second, in the Executive Overview, Appendix A is a best practices checklist culled from our many case studies. That concludes my comments. I will be happy to answer any questions that you might have. And again, thank you for the opportunity to be with you today. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you; very helpful. It strikes me that at least three of you have mentioned the sarin gas episode in Tokyo, not surprisingly. I suppose that was, for want of a fresher term, the wakeup call for transit systems, certainly for subway systems, and that a number of you responded then and began to put in place prevention plans, which probably other parts of critical infrastructure in the United States did not do as much prior to September 11. I am curious--it is relevant but not directly, and something Mr. Warsh said leads me to ask this question. Just to go quickly down the row of the four operators, how has your passenger usage gone up or down since September 11; do you have recent numbers on that? Mr. White. Mr. White. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Our ridership is down slightly. We largely attribute that to the downturn in tourism and to the closing of Reagan National Airport. We have the same number or even an increased number of people who use us daily for commute purposes. However, in the mid-day, evenings, and weekends, our ridership is down a few percent, driven entirely by the reduction in tourism. This region was severely impacted by the closing of the airport, and we are just beginning to recover now. It is the front door into the metropolitan area for many people. Chairman Lieberman. Interesting; not surprising. Mr. Warsh. Mr. Warsh. Overall, we are down in the high single digits, 8 or 9 percent down, for the entire system. But what has occurred in our case is the worst of all combinations--we are down overall, 8 to 9 percent, which means our revenue is down, but we have seen huge influxes of commuters, particularly between Newark and New York, as a result of the changed commuting pattern that I described. When 60 percent of those jobs moved from the Financial District to Midtown, we saw a huge influx to the point where we have 28,000 people a day standing on our trains, and that number went up from 12,000 to 28,000 afterward. So we are overall down as a result of the economy and job dislocation, but where those commuters have changed to has created enormous crowding and security problems. Chairman Lieberman. So the down you think is because of the economy. Mr. Warsh. We saw prior to September 11 that our numbers-- in the last decade, we grew 40 percent on the rail side and about 25 percent on the bus side, 7 percent a year, particularly in rail--prior to September 11, we saw that number at around 1 to 1.5 percent. So we were slowing consistent with the economy slowing, but September 11 accelerated that a little bit. It is the shift of the commuting pattern that is causing us our most serious problems. Chairman Lieberman. Chief Frazier, how about Amtrak? Mr. Frazier. Mr. Chairman, of course, directly after September 11, we had a major spike in ridership particularly in the Northeast Corridor and then throughout the system. It did level off. We had a very good Thanksgiving period, and we think that ridership will continue to move forward. I would mention that, in 1996 in Paris, there was a bombing of a train, and in that particular event, they recovered business-wise in 3 days, but it took over 3 months for the ridership to actually return to the level that it was at prior to that event. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. Ms. Dugger. Ms. Dugger. We have just come off 3 years of phenomenal ridership growth, so we are working from a very high base, with about 30 percent increase in ridership over the last 3 years. We had started to see that trend down well before September, in our belief reflecting the local economy and the economic downturn that we have been experiencing in California. We have stabilized at about October/November ridership levels, which are below last year but not noticeably distinct pre- and post-September 11. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. I was going to ask you as a first question whether you think there is a significant risk of terrorist attack against your systems. I presume from the opening testimony that each of you made that you do take the risk seriously. Does anybody want to add to that? Mr. White. Most definitely, I think we recognize the risk of terrorism, for all the reasons stated by you, Administrator Dorn, and other Members of your Committee. We recognize that we are a target, and I think, as Ms. Dugger put it, we want to make ourselves as unattractive as we can. Terrorists seek to terrorize, and they look for vulnerabilities and weaknesses. They study you and study you and study you, and when they see your weakness, they hit. If they do not see it, they will go to another target. And we are hoping that we, individually, and we, collectively as an industry, show that level of preparation so that they will be deterred. But there is no denying the fact that we recognize that staying on top of it and being prepared and showing that you are prepared is the key issue. Chairman Lieberman. Chief Frazier. Mr. Frazier. Mr. Chairman, transportation, not airlines, is at risk in this country. That is a fact. Chairman Lieberman. That's right. Mr. Frazier. The reality is that all modes of transportation need to be considered in our plans to try to make sure that we have coverage. Those numbers are phenomenal with respect to the people who ride on surface transportation in this country, and it is my belief that as we move forward, we need to look at the technology, the best practices, all the things that we can do, and we need to translate and look very closely at how they can be used in each of our modes of transportation across the board now in order to improve the security. Chairman Lieberman. I agree. I hope that we can act expeditiously and more generously than we have thus far this year to get you as much of that $3.2 billion as you need--which incidentally does include the work on the tunnels--is that right--leading into New York. I know that there was a DOT Inspector General report last year, I believe, which pointed to the vulnerability of those tunnels--which is quite serious-- long before September 11. I have not been over the budget in detail, and I cannot tell you that every dollar that you think you need is as much as every other dollar--but this is real national security now, and it is as important as our defense budget. So I hope we can get together across party lines and make that happen. I was quite interested, Chief, in something you said earlier, which was that post-September 11, you shut down the Amtrak system and did a rapid check including, I believe I heard you say, of your tracks. I am curious--do you have the capacity to do that quickly, because that is one of the things that we all would worry about, of course, that the tracks are all over the place, and how do you maintain their security. Mr. Frazier. Mr. Chairman, we have a plan in place and have had a plan in place for some time, based on accidents. I think the rail industry and passenger rail is very ready to deal with weather-related problems, Hurricane Floyd. Those sorts of things helped us put together contingency plans that were very effective to deal with whatever happens. The events of September 11 caused us to initiate those plans, and as a part of them, our engineering department goes immediately out, and they start inspecting. They walk rails, and we establish people at the portals, as has been mentioned by Mr. Warsh, and those programs just automatically happen. Interestingly, this time, we are having great difficulty sustaining it. That is the problem. We are always ready to go, we are always ready to respond, and we can do that anywhere in the country. But it is difficult now to maintain, as has been mentioned, those guards and those engineering personnel out on the right-of-way every day. Chairman Lieberman. Do you mean financially? Mr. Frazier. Yes, sir. Off-corridor, of course, we depend on freight railroads in this respect, and we depend on our State and local police authorities to help us, and we have reached out to every single watch commander where there is an Amtrak train anywhere in the United States, and we have asked them to visit our stations, visit our infrastructure, and work with us daily. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Chief. My time is up on this round. Senator Voinovich. Senator Voinovich. First of all, it is music to my ears to hear that most of you have been very complimentary to Secretary Mineta and Ms. Dorn for the jobs that they are doing. Second, it is comforting for me to know how much all of you have been doing prior to September 11 to prepare for some type of terrorism, emergency, or whatever. Third, Chief Frazier, you talked about the issue of coordinating with local government people. So often, I think those of us here in Washington take for granted what is being done at the local level, and it is nice to know that you are coordinating with the fire and the police and the EMS and the hazmat people so that you can respond quickly. One thing that impressed me when they had the bombing at the Pentagon was that it was not the Federal Government that was on the line, it was the local police and fire that really took over and had their emergency response people there on board. It is also nice to know that the school that is doing all the research work is named after the Secretary. It gives me some comfort to know that he certainly knows a little bit about transit, or certainly that school would not have been named after him. So I think this document--one of the things we are concerned about is whether we have the best practices out there--I have just looked through it quickly, but it is really good stuff. I do not know whether all of you have looked at it. Was this put together in coordination with the Department of Transportation, Ms. Johnson? Ms. Johnson. Our funding comes from the Department of Transportation, and our research team, of course, does speak with various officials of the Federal Government in preparing their materials. But most of our work has been case studies at localities where events have occurred, and that is essentially a summary of the other documents in the case studies and symposia from the past. Senator Voinovich. A thought that I had listening to you was that it would be interesting, Mr. Chairman, if we had a clearinghouse in the Homeland Security Office. Right now, for example, I would really like to know about the Hart Building, and the last we heard was that the technology was not working as they thought it would work. I talked to a provider yesterday, and they said they would like to provide it, but they need to do some testing. It would be interesting to see--if we could go across the table--things that you in transit need, rail transit, buildings, you name it. I think it would be really worth our while to get into that and identify the areas where we need some real technology and what is out there and what works, so that in the event we do encounter something like we have had, we can move in right away, and it is not hit-and-miss as we have seen. The Chairman asked a question about the role of the Federal Government. It is interesting that in Mr. White's testimony, you were talking about security and capacity. I got the impression that you do not have the flexibility that they have in New York, because they have more tracks and more trains and so forth. So to do what you are suggesting, I would think, would cost a lot of money. What should be the role of the Federal Government, and then, where do you spend the money-- infrastructure, personnel? Ms. Dugger, you talked about technology, and I heard from you that you need $70 million for technology so we can get some of these things in place. How do we best utilize the dollars that we have to get the best return, understanding that there is a limited amount of money available? Any of you may answer that. Mr. White. I will take the first crack. Clearly, technology is essential for multiple reasons, not the least of which is to help relieve us from the need to sustain this effort for quite some time. With this continued state of high alert, it places great strain on an organization to have your employees working 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, over a very lengthy period of time. It is going to wear you out. I think there is a strong role that the Federal Government can play in helping us all to evaluate and make some suggestions on the appropriate technologies that we can be using--intrusion alarms, CCTV, bomb-proof trash cans, and new and modern facial recognition systems that we last used in this country with the Superbowl last year. We talk about open systems and how we have large numbers of people running through our fare systems very quickly; I think it is not too far from now that this technology will evolve to provide us with the capability of being able to utilize facial recognition technologies connected to databases identifying people that we should be tracking. We would then have real-time information when people enter our systems. We heard about with the Moscow experience and how anthrax can be spread from end to end in a remarkably short period of time. The key issue for us is chemical sensors. We are now testing these sensors in coordination with the Departments of Justice, Energy, and Transportation, and with all the major national labs, under the Department of Energy. And we have now, after 13 months, deemed the technology to be workable. It is now technologically feasible---- Senator Voinovich. May I just say that I visited two post offices in Ohio, and they would love to have that information. I said, ``Why can't you put a gizmo in here that would sense what kinds of chemicals are here?'' And what I got from them was that it is just not out there. You are telling me that there is a real breakthrough here. Mr. White. Well, it is because we were fortunate to be selected by the Departments of Defense and Energy to be the test bed of this reapplication of defense technology into the civilian sector. Everybody has been watching this. As I said in my remarks, there is nobody in the world that has it right now, and it has now proven to be workable. We are ready to operationalize this. We only have it installed in one station right now. It is a substantial investment. It is a lot of money. In our case, it is $80 million to protect our underground stations. It is a significant investment, but given the scope of such a threat to the numbers of people who are in our system--we have 80,000 people in our system in 1 hour during the morning and afternoon--imagine what could happen if, as been suggested, something can move through the system as trains moving through the system and dragging a substance along. So you need those kinds of technologies and response procedures in place. It is not too far from now that we believe the capability for biological, as well as chemical detection, will be technologically feasible. The next step is to help secure chemical, and then biological sensors. In my mind, that is probably one of the most significant investments given the risk factors that we are confronting. It is expensive, but to my mind, technology is very key. Chairman Lieberman. Mr. Warsh. Mr. Warsh. Mr. Chairman, with respect to the overarching issue of the role of the Federal Government in mass transit in general, I frankly sing from the same page as your colleague from the great State of Georgia, Senator Cleland. One of the major issues is that even if you look back at the most recent T-21, while mass agencies saw the pie grow to the highest level it had ever been, mass transit still slipped as a percentage of the overall pie compared to our friends on the asphalt and concrete side of the equation; we slipped. When you talk about our problems at New Jersey Transit, and indeed all the commuter rail agencies on the East Coast in Amtrak territory, the Federal Government's starvation of Amtrak from both the capital and the operating side places huge burdens on us as a commuter rail agency. We have put countless billions of dollars into the Federal Government's asset. New Jersey Transit spends a minimum of $25 million a year, and in some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars a year putting money and investment into the Northeast Corridor, because those investments are not sufficient from the Federal Government, and they are our lifeline, not only for New Jersey Transit, but for the State and for the region. When you do see the investments that are placed in the State of New Jersey in particular, our Hudson-Bergen light rail system which has received ISTEA grants and T-21 grants, was built and operational in 40 months, on budget, on time, and was ready on September 11. We saw an 80 percent increase on Hudson- Bergen light rail, the world's newest light rail system, just a spit of water across from the World Trade Center. We received the burn victims. We received the Wall Street refugees. We removed seats from two cars and had materials carried up and down the so-called Jersey City ``gold coast,'' which became Ground Zero literally in a matter of minutes--and without that Federal investment and without the State match from the State of New Jersey, the waterfront would have been bedlam instead of a quickly-organized triage area. So when you ask me what should the Federal Government's role be in mass transit, it is large, and it needs to get significantly larger, with the acknowledgement that we are not only mass transit assets, economic development assets, mobility assets, but national security assets. With that in mind, I would think that it is necessary to expand the role of the Federal Government. Ms. Dugger. Hear, hear. Mr. Frazier. With respect to my position as a chief as it relates to this issue, there are a couple of areas which are very important. First of all, the intelligence issues that have been addressed and are being looked at very thoroughly by Congress and by the Executive Branch are critical things. We need to know what is going on. But another area that I have touched on briefly that I think is just important is that there is an awful lot of existing technology that is in the government now. It is in various Federal departments--it is in DOE, it is in the FBI, it is in DOD--it has different applications and has been developed for different applications. We need to look at that comprehensively, and we need to make that available. We also need to look at research and development dollars in terms of what it is that owners and operators of transportation systems can do reasonably well to improve security from that standpoint. I like to take a dual approach to what we are looking at. Part of the package that Amtrak has put forward is for emergency notification system improvements. That does not just help in terms of security, it helps us to run the railroad. And operators are going to be very much interested in the Federal Government working with us in light of that dual approach to things to try to identify ways for us to do business well and effectively in terms of our mission. Finally, I think that best practices are international and national, and the collection and dissemination of that information is a third area where I would expect there would be a very important role for government to engage in. Ms. Dugger. Very briefly, I would just echo--I think the question was is there a Federal role in mass transit, or is that a local, regional, or State responsibility--I would concur whole-heartedly with Mr. Warsh's comments. If you look at the size of local economies served by the majority of the large rapid rail transit systems, they are an important contributor to our overall national economic health and well-being, and transit plays a critical role in sustaining the mobility and the functioning of those areas. So I concur whole-heartedly; I believe there is a strong Federal role and one that, proportionate to other modes of transportation, should continue to grow as has been the Congress' actions over the last authorization period. We have identified an overall number, Senator, of $70 million, and I believe that number will get larger, not smaller. It does not include the application of a detection system that Mr. White has discussed today, for example; that would similarly be a big number for our system as well. I will also say, however, that there are increments of improvement that can be made, and relatively small infusions of capital funding, with discretion to the local system to apply that most effectively, I think could make a significant improvement to our monitoring and detection capabilities. I concur with my colleague from Amtrak; I think the reality is that we will never be 100 percent failsafe. I do not think we can spend our way to that level of protection by the very nature of our systems, and the needs are huge, but I think that we can make incremental improvements with smaller increments of funding against these total needs that we have identified. Chairman Lieberman. Ms. Johnson, do you want to add anything? Ms. Johnson. They are repeating everything we have learned over several years of study. Chairman Lieberman. That is great. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Voinovich, for good questions and very good answers. There obviously is a major Federal role here to be supportive of you. I do not think any of us are ever going to achieve in life--or in transit--perfect security, but obviously, we have to raise our guard as much as we can. I was quite interested, Mr. White, in what you and others said about the rising role of technology in dealing with some of these problems. In the discussion I had with Ms. Dorn on the first panel on the point of whether we should prevent or mitigate--it seems to me that you are all involved in both, quite appropriately, doing everything you can to prevent and also to mitigate. But I was quite interested in the special problems you have that aviation does not have in applying security--that it may be, for instance, in the application of a facial recognition system as that becomes technologically feasible, that you are going to be able to do a real-time check on people who at some point have to either buy a ticket or pass through a gate or something where you are going to be able to check them quite rapidly. That is going to be very important. Senator Carper, thanks for being here. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER Senator Carper. Mr. Chairman, thanks very much for holding the hearing. To our witnesses, this has been exceptionally good and very helpful testimony, and we appreciate your being here. Who among you is from the Washington, DC area? Mr. White. I am, Senator. Senator Carper. And who is from New Jersey? Mr. Warsh. That would be me, Senator. Senator Carper. And from California? Ms. Johnson. I am from California, Senator. Senator Carper. Is anyone from the first State to ratify the Constitution? [Laughter.] Mr. Frazier. I am, Senator. I live in Middletown, Delaware. Senator Carper. Middletown, Delaware, just down the road. Chairman Lieberman. Did you know that, Senator Carper? Senator Carper. I was tipped off, I must say. Welcome to all of you, and Chief Frazier, we are delighted that you are here. Reflecting back on what some of you have said in your testimony and what my colleagues have said as well, I want to start off with one of the last comments. Someone said we will never be 100 percent failsafe, and we will never be 100 percent secure. My suspicion is that most of you run operations where you have an operating deficit, and the Federal Government makes up for that operating deficit. You do not pay out of the fare box for the costs of running your operations that you incur. How do you go about establishing priorities with the dollars that are available to enhance security? In each of your operations, how do you say, ``We had one dollar, and this is where we spent it; we had another dollar, and this where we spent it''? How do you set those priorities? Mr. White. Mr. White. Yes, Senator. First, on the operating side, unfortunately, we no longer get money from the Federal Government for operating expenses, except for very limited preventive capital maintenance purposes. We do fortunately get capital investment resources from the Federal Government. So it is difficult to prioritize our capital investment resources. Clearly, I think one of the problems that we all are now experiencing is that given the placement of this on our list of concerns, and given all the other investment requirements that we have, it is certainly presenting some great difficulties for us as we try to decide whether we repair and replace that asset that is now 25 years old to make sure that our system remains reliable, or do we now need to start investing these same dollars that we have been receiving for these other purposes. I think the big challenge has been finding money to fit this priority within the confines of the existing program. What we have done--and it is a bit of a fluid situation-- through risk assessments that we have conducted, both ourselves and with third parties is to try to understand our areas of vulnerability areas. We have attempted to prioritize from A to Z, on a list that at this point totals about $190 million, where we would put our first dollars. We have done that by looking at our vulnerabilities and understanding where the highest impact of dollar one would go. I would echo Ms. Dugger's comment that the extent to which we are able to benefit from supplemental investment that might come from the Federal Government, it is important to allow us discretion and not tie our hands by saying it should go for this or that particular purpose. It is very, very useful to us to have flexibility, because I do believe that we are closest to the situation and best able to understand where the priorities should be. That is how we approach it, Senator. Senator Carper. Thank you. Mr. Warsh, how do you do it? Mr. Warsh. The way we rank it--and we are not a subway system; with the exception of a small section of the Newark subway we tend to be above grounds, so that our costs to provide the best security we can provide are significantly lower than the subterranean systems, and rightfully so. We are looking about a $30 to $40 million increase in our security needs, and the way we break that down in terms of priorities is that we need manpower. We have broader jurisdiction, the New Jersey Transit Police, than our New Jersey State Police do; they have 3,000 men and women in uniform, and we have 111. We have jurisdiction not only Statewide, but as well as in New York City and in Philadelphia, where our buses and trains also go. So we are now at the point where we are moving to an authorized strength of 141; we are hiring 30 police officers now, and we have just received a report from the Bratton Group--the former New York City Transit Authority police chief has his own consulting firm with the Krohl folks--indicating that we would need to substantially beef up our police force beyond that, including SWAT capability, and so on. So we are focusing on manpower in addition to the normal technological advances that we make. But I would like to make one important point. We believe that the least expensive investment we can make is to in essence deputize our passengers, to have them take control of their own lives and their own destiny, to take a look around to see if anything looks suspicious. The conductor is in charge of the train, and we go through basic education. It is not the engineer, the person who is driving the train; that conductor is in charge of that train. You find the man or the woman in the hat and tell them that something does not look right, whether it is anthrax scare or some other kind of security issue. We have entered into a public relations campaign where there is literally an Uncle Sam poster saying, ``You have got to remove your garbage for your own safety.'' It is critical, whether it is in the Mineta Institute or just common sense, when people walk down the aisle of that train or bus, if everything is clear, then you know that there is nothing suspicious; when there is a pile of innocent newspapers, is it an innocent pile of newspapers, or is there some kind of a problem beneath it? And it all starts with people simply removing garbage. So in addition to planning and expense, we are in essence deputizing our passengers--take control of your own life, take control of your own space. Senator Carper. Thank you. Chief Frazier, the question for Amtrak is especially relevant. Last Friday night, until about one o'clock Saturday morning, we were debating the Department of Defense appropriations bill, and we included in that bill moneys for homeland defense. Included there was a very modest down payment for homeland defense with respect to Amtrak; I think $100 million was included in the legislation. That compares to a request from the chairman of the authorizing committee, Senator Hollings, who had requested $3.2 billion. At Amtrak, how do you go about deciding how to invest $100 million for greater security with a needs list that obviously goes beyond that? Mr. Frazier. Senator, you are absolutely right. In fact, on October 17, at the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, we did receive a unanimous vote for $1.77 billion in safety and security improvements throughout Amtrak; however, to date, this measure has not seen floor consideration. We have spent $12 million to date on security because we just simply the made the decision--the right decision as the national railroad--that we have to protect our passengers and employees. Safety and security are the No. 1 priorities of Amtrak, and they are not negotiable. Obviously, additional dedication of our very scarce resources to security will continue to have an adverse effect on our other operations, our train operations. We are forecast at this time to spend somewhere around $50 million on security just to stay at this intermediate level where we are. This recognizes that the U.S. Government has issued three general alerts advising law enforcement agencies to stay at their highest level. In truth, because of our business in transportation, Senator, we have not relaxed security at all since September 11, and that is where that money will come up-- every time that alert goes out, we have officers who are working 12-hour shifts--and I spend a lot of time along with senior staff trying to figure out just how much they can do so we can keep up with what is going on. So it is particularly trying and difficult when you intersperse the security issues and the significance of them to the national rail system on top of the self-sufficiency issues and the fact that we are of scant resources, as my colleague has adequately and very effectively put, at Amtrak. This is making it much, much worse every day. How would we spend the money? There are actions and countermeasures. We would first look to deal with ratcheting up and down based on the threat level. That is why, as I mentioned earlier, the intelligence is very important to us. Based on the threat level, we may do certain things, and that is the kind of concept that we have deployed at this point. So that puts a measure--it is not just, OK, we are going to go out and put up Jersey barriers, and we are going to put all police officers on 12-hour shifts, and we are going to keep that going and keep it going. These security alerts are extremely critical to our making good, solid decisions as relates to how we spend money as we ratchet up and down in terms of our security preparedness at any given time. I agree as well that initially, our effort needs to be to increase the number of officers who are on our platforms and on our trains. That was a new program that was initiated immediately after September 11. Amtrak police officers began riding certain trains on the Northeast Corridor. We certainly do not have enough officers, enough special agents on trains, to be able to do that everywhere, but we would certainly think that in light of the issues that relate to baggage control and in light of the screening process and the ability for a law enforcement officer to do things in conjunction with that daily, that is a way for us to make some major improvements. We would also, and have in fact, initiated already an effort to increase our canine division. At airports throughout the United States, there are canine detection systems--a dog and a handler--that are a critical part of that function of screening passengers, and in fact, they are being depended on preliminarily in many ways while the technology and the big, new machines are being put into those airports. That needs to be transferred. We need to put more of these very flexible animals along with handlers who can detect problems in our baggage areas and of course, in the main areas of our concourses throughout our major stations. So we are prioritizing in those areas right now. Meanwhile, we are working in fact with FAA on trace detection and experimenting with that. We have some x-ray machines, and we are experimenting with those, and we are also looking at technology, and hopefully, we will be able to learn more about that as the days go on. Senator Carper. I have a follow-up question, but I want to go right to Ms. Dugger and ask her to tell us again--how do you determine how to spend that next dollar for security? Ms. Dugger. We do things very similarly to my colleagues whom you have already heard from this morning. At this point, there are no additional dollars coming into our coffers tied specifically to security, so our first prioritization with the available dollars is do we spend them on security or do we spend them on replacing aging equipment which is also essential to providing safe and secure service to our customers day in and day out. That is the first level of balance and prioritization. In our business, I find that it is some of each; we are not at the point where we are able to meet 100 percent of our needs in any given area, so it is a constant balancing and prioritization, as you said. Within the security investments and the funds that are available for that, again, our basic starting point is a vulnerabilities assessment, where is our greatest vulnerability, where do we have the least resources to protect against that vulnerability. In our case, some of those locations are physical access points, to put vulnerable portions of our system underground--tunnels, Transbay Tube-- where we do not have employees and customers going through those areas and being able to provide eyes and ears, as an example. We are also looking very hard--and I have said it a couple of times this morning--at places where one-time, limited capital investments such as in closed-circuit television monitoring, can free up police officers, human resources who, in our system, like everyone else you have heard from, have been operating on 12-hour shifts, 6 days a week, and even if we could afford that--our overtime budget has doubled since September 11 for our police department--even if we could afford that financially, our people cannot sustain that as a way of doing business, and I think that what we are recognizing is that we have entered a new environment in which to do business. So that looking at sustainable, long-term, ongoing, increased levels of security and monitoring is the reality. Those are some of the considerations that we bring to bear. Senator Carper. Thanks very much. Mr. Chairman, I have more than used my time. I wanted to ask a specific question about tunnels and tunnel safety. Will we have a second round? Chairman Lieberman. Go right ahead now. It is an important question. It has been touched on a bit previously, but go right ahead. We have some time. Senator Carper. Thank you very much. In the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak controls the Northeast Corridor rails from Washington to Boston, and in that area, there are tunnels under Washington, DC, there are tunnels under Baltimore and, as we know, into New York. Could you talk with us, Chief Frazier, about who owns and operates those tunnels, a little bit about the age of those tunnels, and what security concerns you might have with those tunnels? Mr. Frazier. Senator, they are Amtrak's responsibility. We are and have been for some period of time working to try to make, first of all, life safety improvements to those tunnels. This starts with the fact that they are approaching, as has been mentioned by my colleague, 100 years of age. Ventilation is an issue. Egress out of the tunnel during an emergency and getting first responders into the tunnel is an issue. It is something that we really need to fix and have needed to fix for some period of time. The security complexity of it adds another dimension, of course. It adds a dimension that we need to do things around the portals of those tunnels to prevent the introduction of-- the difference between safety and security is the commission of an intentional act. That is really the difference. The consequences are often the same. But the reality is that security costs a lot more because you are trying to thwart a thinking human being with criminal intent; you are trying to thwart that individual's effort to do something. These tunnels represent a major issue for us. Bridges represent another major issue for us because of the ramifications. In New York, they are underneath the water in some respects, some of those tunnels. So you just have to worry substantially about what you are doing there. CCTV, as has been mentioned previously; we have police and engineering people around-the-clock, and they have been there since September 11. Senator Carper. In the tunnels themselves? Mr. Frazier. Yes. They have actually been on both ends of the tunnel at egress points. Since September 11, there has been 24/7 staffing in this example, in the New York and New Jersey area, by Amtrak and by NJT and by the MTA police up in New York City. Senator Carper. What entities use the tunnels in New York, or going into New York, what entities use the tunnels around Baltimore, and also in Washington, DC? Mr. Frazier. Starting in New York, of course, Long Island Railroad and NJT, Metro North, and Amtrak are the users of those tunnel systems. In fact, there has been for some period of time a joint control and dispatch center that exists and coordinates very expansive utilization of tunnels by commuter traffic and by transit trains. Down in Baltimore, of course, Amtrak uses those tunnels along with MARC, and we at Amtrak as well are operators of the MARC service. And of course, in Washington, it is Amtrak that uses this First Avenue tunnel, along with the VRE Railroad, our commuter partner, a service that we also run with respect to them. Senator Carper. Mr. Chairman, thanks very much. And again to our panelists--especially the one from the first State--welcome, and thank you for your testimony and for your service. Chairman Lieberman. Senator Carper has a justifiable degree of chauvinistic pride. He is a great advocate for Amtrak, too, Chief, as you know. A final question to come back to the beginning, and I think it is a question that the average person would ask, although I think you have done very well at covering the various points of vulnerability and what you are doing about them. Short of the kinds of technological breakthroughs that might feature facial recognition, and acknowledging that in the case of Amtrak, for instance, you are now asking for valid ID and not allowing passengers to buy a ticket on the train--by the way, I am very appreciative that you have a real-time hook- up database between law enforcement and the purchase of the ticket---- What, if anything, can we do--can you do--to check passengers and what they are carrying as they come onto your trains? Just as the passengers are and can be the greatest defenders of security on a train, obviously, other passengers-- a very small minority of them--can be the source of the troubles. Mr. White. Mr. White. Mr. Chairman, our focus is primarily on unattended packages to make sure that not only our police department but all of our front-line operations personnel are trained and retrained on what to look for. Typically, what the pattern will be if someone is trying to do something to you with something in their package, they are going to leave it somewhere for it to do whatever purpose they set out to do. I think the issue is a need for heightened awareness and being on the alert for unattended packages. I think we need to distinguish between an unattended package and a suspicious package vis-a-vis privacy issues. Our focus is on making sure that all of our front-line employees, everyone from the janitor to the station agent to the police officer to the train operator, are looking for unattended packages. Also, engaging our customers, as Mr. Warsh said, engaging your customer in the process is critical. For example, what we have seen with respect to ensuring our own heightened awareness and that of our customers--for the first 8 months of this year, we had 113 reports come in from either our own employees or outside parties about suspicious packages, bomb threats, or unknown substances; so that is one every 2 to 3 days. Since September 11, we have 567 reports, which is 6 a day. Fortunately, none of those resulted in a consequential action. But, the fact that people had heightened awareness, both our employees and our customers, and engaged, shows that they value ensuring their own safe space, as Mr. Warsh said. I think that is very, very important, to ensure that we have our employees and our customers fully engaged and on the alert for unattended packages and suspicious activities. We need to actively engage them in reporting on those incidents so we can aggressively follow up. Chairman Lieberman. Let me ask you this question, although I have a sense of what the answer will be--and people have asked it of me--why don't we all have to go through a security check device as we enter a train--a metal detector, for instance. Mr. White. You might get different answers depending upon which of us you ask that question, from Amtrak to a commuter railroad operator. I am giving you an answer from an operator of an urban transit heavy-rail subway system. The amount of people that we are funneling through the system with train headways that are 2 to 3 minutes---- Chairman Lieberman. It would really slow it up. Mr. White. We are a rapid transit system, and by definition we are rapidly moving large numbers of people through our system with tremendous service levels. To have those kinds of restrictions on access will just totally back up your system. Chairman Lieberman. Mr. Warsh. Mr. Warsh. Well, we are a commuter rail system, so we do not have the 2-minute headways, so to speak, but during the peak of the peak, during that peak period from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., particularly in the Northeast Corridor, whether it is a Northeast Corridor train or a North Jersey Coastline train which takes the same path, or what we call our midtown direct train, literally every 3 minutes during the peak, there is another commuter train coming through that packs 2,000 people onto that train. We flat out just do not have the ability to do that and still run a railroad. The point was made earlier that as the airports become very hardened targets, we become much more vulnerable, and that is true. What is also occurring is that there is a change in perception; as people are experiencing this much-heightened level of security at airports and feel good about it, the same people--and we just opened an airport connection on the Northeast Corridor--are asking, ``How is it that it takes me 20 minutes to get through security to get on that airplane, and I can just walk right onto your train?'' My response is that the normal travel time from, say, High Bridge to Newark is an hour and 15 minutes; if we set up those checks, your travel time would be 14 hours. So we are either open or we are shut. But we can make ourselves as a target harder and harder, and we are doing that, but we will never be at the point where we will be able to do checks per person; even randomly, it causes us other issues. Chairman Lieberman. That is the reality, and this is the tradeoff, so you look for other ways, obviously, to create security. Maybe at some point, technology will allow you to do it. Have you thought on NJT about putting into practice some of the steps that Chief Frazier has mentioned about Amtrak--I do not know if it is feasible--like an ID at the point of purchase of tickets, or in connection with law enforcement? Mr. Warsh. The vast majority of tickets purchased on New Jersey Transit, and I would say on most commuter rail lines, are monthly tickets; the vast majority of our folks are monthly. We are considering various ways in which we can determine the identity of that person, and then, we are dealing with the person regularly, month in, month out. As far as checking photo ID to the person, then we are back to the same situation that we were before. Chairman Lieberman. Are they buying tickets at the window, or are they buying over the telephone or the internet? Mr. Warsh. We have a program called MailTik, and about 60 percent of our commuter passengers purchase at some point in the third or fourth week of the previous month their monthly ticket. That is how it is done. We are moving now toward e-mail, toward e-commerce, so that you will not even have to deal with a letter going back and forth, so we will have to deal with fewer letters--and you know what I am talking about--and not only does it lower our administrative costs, but it increases security for everyone involved in the transaction. Chairman Lieberman. Chief Frazier. Mr. Frazier. I think it starts, Mr. Chairman, with an assessment of goals. Is the goal prevention only? Is the goal deterrence as a part of what you are doing? At Amtrak, of course, we want to prevent bad things from happening, and we have been working very hard at that. But the next level down is deterrence, and deterrence says basically that if you can do some things some of the time to make the criminal mind not want to enter your properties to do something wrong, to engage in crime, then you have added your measure of security. So from our level, we are looking at opportunity, in fact, to do some random checks of bags. In fact, Greyhound is doing some random checks of bags at 30 of their major facilities in the country; they are doing a wanding technique. Every Amtrak police officer for the last 2 years has had a weapons detection wand on his belt. So we have been at that sort of thing for some period of time. I commented about the canine teams--we would hope to be able to deploy them to randomly do some checking of stations, facilities--their flexibility allows us to do that--baggage rooms. I suspect that at the bottom of it all, even with all your techniques and your actions and countermeasures that you take to improve security, you have to recognize that you are not going to get it all. So we would hope to be able to deploy, as I have mentioned, some police officers. Unattended packages have been mentioned. We have had the same experience, and it has been awful. We are just dealing with them, and we try to deal with them whether they are hidden, whether they are obvious. Those things make a difference in the way we handle those sorts of things. And our employees have stepped up substantially, and we continue to work to train them with programs that will cause them to do inspections, cause them when something is not right in the English model--if something is not right, employees take certain steps. We are doing those sorts of things. That is the planning that goes into trying to make sure. They are kind of behind-the-scenes in some respect, but they are going on every day, and security is improving as a result of that. Chairman Lieberman. Good. Ms. Dugger, do you want to add anything? Ms. Dugger. I fear that by the time you get to this end of the table---- Chairman Lieberman. I should have started at your end first. Ms. Dugger. Not at all. I think the good news is that we are all working in a similar vein and with similar access to information and strategy so that there are not big surprises when you get to the fourth property you talk to. I guess I would add that I think any attempt, again, for rapid rail urban transit systems where we are running 2\1/2\- minute headways and handling thousands of people through our stations, it is worse than attempting to provide that kind of level of individual inspection--it goes beyond slowing things down. I believe that our stations do not have the physical capacity---- Chairman Lieberman. It would really stop the system. Ms. Dugger. And I think people would make alternate choices and abandon the system. Eighty percent of our customers report to us that they have a perfectly acceptable alternative method available to them to make the trip that they choose to make on BART. We have a very attractive profile of customers of choice; they are typically making short trips. Our average fare is $2.20. We get the same questions, however, from the public-- ``Why don't I have to pass through an inspection?''--yet at the very same time, as we close restrooms to reduce the opportunity for unobserved packages being left, based on past experience, where receptacles and even bathroom paneling have been used to secrete devices that might expel their damage over a long period of time, unobserved--at the very same time that we were closing bathrooms on our system to prevent that risk and provide security for our customers, I cannot tell you the number of letters of complaint and calls and so forth that we got for reducing that level of service. So that is one very banal example of the tensions that we hear about from our customers, who on the one hand are asking for security, on the other, not being very tolerant of the inconvenience that that entails. Chairman Lieberman. Right; and speed. Ms. Dugger. So in the interim, perhaps we cannot provide positive identification without new technology developments, but we can continue to try to reduce anonymity and make ourselves, again, an unattractive target. If we could guarantee or assure that every person knew that when they walked through our system, their image was going to be available to us, if not to intercept them in advance, at least to identify them, again, that is one kind of step. So, reducing the opportunities for secreting devices, hardening up our system, and increasing our capability and attentiveness to identifying materials that are suspicious or activities that are suspicious, I think is the balance given the tools we have available to us today. Chairman Lieberman. Well said. Sometime we will come back and do a hearing on how you have raised your ridership on BART 30 percent in recent years--that is another question. Ms. Dugger. Brilliant management. Chairman Lieberman. Obviously. [Laughter.] That is it--no need for a hearing. Ms. Johnson. Senator, I just wanted to add one point, and I guess it is a bright spot in the testimony, that if you do some of these security measures, there are some collateral benefits. Most particularly systems that installed the CCTV systems have discovered a drop in general crime and in particular vandalism and graffiti, which cost urban systems--all systems--a considerable amount of money. So there might even be a very small financial offset by reduced graffiti and vandalism. Chairman Lieberman. Well said. It has been an excellent hearing, reassuring in many ways, also realistic in the sense that, to repeat, we are never going to achieve total security, I think, particularly if we want to move people quickly through transit systems. But there are obviously some things that can be done, which you are doing, to harden the targets, to deter those who would do the systems and the passengers on them damage. The great hope is technology, and in addition to the specific responsibility that the Federal Government has to support you as you meet the increased cost of security, it does seem to me that there is a special role here for us to do whatever we can to accelerate the movement of technology-- related to security--to maintain the convenience and speed of the systems that you are overseeing, but also to upgrade the security. May I say that the four systems that you serve are fortunate to have you, and the institute you serve, Ms. Johnson, is fortunate to have you. You have been a very impressive and helpful group of witnesses. The Committee will now absorb what you have said. I think we will specifically try to be helpful on the appropriations front as we go forward in this new, post-September 11 era of American history, but we are going to think about other ways in which we as an oversight committee can be supportive of the important work that you do. I thank you very much. The hearing is adjourned. [Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] A P P E N D I X ---------- PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR JIM BUNNING Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Every day, millions of Americans board planes and trains, travel in cars on this country's roads, across bridges and through tunnels, and some even take ferry boats to and from work. In the past, we have taken the relative safety of these modes of transportation for granted. However, the events of September 11th illustrated just how vulnerable we are and how horrific the consequences can be when someone exploits these weaknesses. I hope that never again will we take the security of our transportation systems for granted. This Committee has held many hearings on improving different elements of our security. Just last week we looked at the weaknesses of our Nation's ports. We have also held hearings on airport security, along with the security of our mail system and the ability of our local governments to respond to a terrorist attack. Today, we are looking at the safety of our passenger and transit infrastructure. It's not hard to imagine a scenario where many people are killed or injured if a terrorist used a train or a metro system as a weapon-- whether by using a bomb or using a chemical or biological weapon. The consequences could be devastating, not only to those individuals directly affected by the attack. But it could dramatically weaken the confidence Americans have in their government's ability to protect them as they travel around the country or even travel to their local grocery store or to work. If we have learned anything from the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, it is that we must be prepared for anything. Over the next couple of months, we will have to make some fundamental changes about how we think about all modes of transportation, and what we need to do to protect our citizens. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on this topic today, and gaining their perspective on this important issue. Thank you. 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