Christine Quinn: “I rise in support of the Rail Passenger Disaster Family Assistance Act, a commonsense bipartisan bill to address a gap…”

“I rise in support of the Rail Passenger Disaster Family Assistance Act, a commonsense bipartisan bill to address a gap in our current transportation laws. The bill is substantially identical to H.R. 2681 approved by the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in the full House, I might add, in our last 106th Congress, but never acted upon by the other body in the Senate. I am pleased that this is the first piece of legislation from our committee under our new chairman, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young). As chairman of the newly formed Subcommittee on Railroads, I strongly support the bill, and urge our colleagues to do the same. Members may recall that several years ago after some terrible, terrible incidents, most notably the 1996 ValuJet and TWA crashes, the families of crash victims were poorly treated by the carriers, the media, and by some lawyers. The Congress responded by enacting an aviation law that placed the National Transportation Safety Board and suitable private charitable organizations in charge of coordinating efforts to protect the privacy of crash victims' families, and to assure that they receive the most current information possible from the carrier.”