In other words, you will issue a regulation that might have saved his life.

How long has that regulation been in the pipeline, as you----

I thank you all for being here today. And I hope that we can continue this conversation.

Our goal is to get to zero, and stay there.

the experience of Metro-North... provides a national poster railroad in culminating years of neglect and systematic and cultural failure.

The NTSB currently has 56 open recommendations to you. For some of them, the NTSB has given a, quote/unquote, 'unacceptable response,' in fact, on 29 of the recommendations, meaning that the FRA failing to move in the right direction to…

the $5,000 penalty, under those circumstances of neglect, the severity of the consequences, the seriousness of the safety violations, is atrociously inadequate as a measure of what happened here.

We are here at a moment of tremendous promise and peril for our Nation's transportation system.

standards need to be sufficiently high, they need to be enforced rigorously, and that penalties have to provide a deterrent to violation of them.

I continue to believe that there has to be attention to the penalty provisions to make sure that they are commensurate with the kind of neglect and failing that we've seen at Metro-North on occasion to deter that kind of violation of basic…

The recommendations made by the NTSB should have been implemented long ago.

While money is used to finance speech, money is not speech.

Just so we're clear here, these are rules that were authorized and required by the law approved in 2008.

It carries about 90,000 vehicles a day, and it will have a huge impact in creating congestion, from Florida to Maine.

Would you agree with me that the alleged criminality that has been raised so far--I stress 'alleged'--would provide a predicate for FBI investigation?

I have been dismayed and outraged by some of the revelations about the secret records, destruction of records, false statements.

only the FBI has the resources, expertise, and authority to do the kind of prompt and effective investigation that is absolutely vital to restore and sustain the trust and confidence of the American public and our Nation's veterans, our…

Would you agree with me that if there are credible and reliable indications of false statements to Federal officials, destruction of Federal records, obstruction of Federal investigation--all of them have been alleged, and they are…

I hope that perhaps the FBI can do more to make them more useful as sources of data on gun violence.

All of you, I believe, would agree with me that the investigation should be as hard hitting, aggressive, thorough, and prompt as possible.

The failure here is more than just an isolated or aberrant kind of instance or wrongdoing. It involves the system itself and involves potential criminal wrongdoing. There is more than allegations, there is evidence.

Moreover, the Highway Trust Fund (HTF), which supports the country's vast highway and transit network, is expected to go insolvent even sooner.

Can you commit that within 3 weeks, you will have a report for us?

do you not believe as I certainly believe, that there is a responsibility from the IG to complete this report as quickly as possible

Let me ask, will you change your management team given that the background here shows systematic failings...