Cord Byrd: “The alarms do not stop there, Mr. President. According to the RAND Corporation, between 1998 and 2003, there were 181…”

“The alarms do not stop there, Mr. President. According to the RAND Corporation, between 1998 and 2003, there were 181 terrorist attacks on rail targets worldwide. The Congressional Research Service has reported that passenger rail systems in the United States carry about five times--five times--as many passengers each day as do the airlines. Yet the administration has continuously opposed funding to increase security on our trains, subways, and buses. Public transportation is used nearly 32 million times a day--think of that: 32 million times a day--which is 16 times more than travel on domestic airlines. According to the Government Accountability Office, nearly 6,000 agencies provide transit services by bus, subway, ferry, and light rail to about 14 million Americans each weekday. Amtrak carried an all-time record ridership of 25 million passengers in fiscal year 2004. Are these lives not worth protecting? How about it? What about the dangerous and hazardous materials that are transported by rail? We simply are not doing enough. Without proper security measures in place, these transports are vulnerable to attack or sabotage. Many of these shipments travel to or through major urban areas, such as Washington, DC, and, frankly, only minutes down the road from where we stand today. The Homeland Security Council released a report in July 2004 indicating that a chlorine tanker explosion in an urban area could kill up to 17,500 people.…”