Today. And the order of business will be that i will start with an Opening Statement, provide some background, and will yield to mr. Cummings this morning, and other members who wish to be heard, then well turn to our witnesses. Well hear from all of them and then go to questions. Pleased to welcome, again, everyone this morning. Now, this is one of a number, we have actually held fourth in a series of full Committee Oversight hearings on amtrak and u. S. Passenger rail policy in the United States. We actually have two more scheduled. One will be on thursday, december 3, and that will focus on high speed and inner city Passenger Rail grant program. And then well have the final hearing on this important subject. Thursday, the 13th of december, and that will be on the northeast corridor. Ironically yesterday i was back in new york city actually looking at some of the flood and storm damage. Many of the transportation infrastructure facilities were adversely impacted, huge amount of damage. They have incredible new york city is resilient, and how well they are coming back. I think they got about 95 of their transit operations, rail was particularly hit. Almost all of east side Lower Manhattan tunnels flooded, and just think of the massive effort put forward to get those trains running. They probably move about 20 of all passengers in the world in new york city. And a hit like that was incredible. I understand mayor bloomberg, we met with yesterday, will be in town today, and we had discussions yesterday about fema, which our committee oversees and also transportation and infrastructure that was hurt. That may be the subject of additional scrutiny by the committee, but today, again, we are focused on looking particularly at amtraks Structural Organization. I might also recall that with the last hearing what well be doing on the northeast corridor, our very first hearing was on january 27, 2011, when i became chair of the full committee. We did that in Grand Central terminal where we focused on the future of high speed rail in the northeast corridor, and our last hearing on december 13 well focus on that same and the progress we have made since that hearing. Its kind of interesting how you come about choosing topics for some of these hearings. After reflect a moment, a lot of people when they go home, maybe they go to bed, maybe they count sheep or read a novel. I like to tuck copies of different trade publications at my bedside and was reading in awe. It had to be after august, because this is august, 2012, progressive railroading had a great article which featured the title is at long last, a longer view. It focuses primarily on Passenger Rail service and amtrak. I thought it was quite interesting, particularly quite interesting because it outlined some of the work that amtrak had been doing regarding its reorganization, its structural management, and the responding to some of the previous studies that called for more accountability, more responsibility, and the way amtrak is structured. That led me to say we really need the Committee Really needed to look at where we are in this whole process and where we have been. For just a minute to tell you where we have been, we have had a g. A. O. Study in 2005 that asked for amtrak to develop a Strategic Plan that could clearly link the organizations management to overall corporate goals. Amtrak is a corporation. I was intrigued by a comment that joe boardman, the president and c. E. O. , made in this article when he pledged in the article, and i take his quote from the article, to run this company more as a business and less as a government entity. Quite inspiring goal and something we have been trying to achieve from this committee. He set some of the bar and, again, back to 2005, reviews of amtrak have called for improvement, again, in its organization and management strategy. In 2010, the i. G. Of amtrak released another report and as a result of that 2010 report, in november of 2011 amtrak released their five year Strategic Plan with corporate goals and organization structure, targets that they intend to use to create more transparency and accountability. And thats what well focus a great deal on today is where they are in that process, how they have come along. Well hear from the head of amtrak, mr. Boardman, well hear from the Inspector General, and well also hear from a representative of workers and labor and see how they assess that progress. The plan, the Strategic Plan thats now under way hopefully well hear to be fully implemented by next year, well get exact update, again, from mr. Boardman and others. The plan that was devised takes amtrak and organizes it into six business lines, a Vice President or manager of business, and well see how that has come to pass and how that organization is reorganization is proceeding. And the purpose of that is to establish performance goals that are outlined in the Strategic Plan so that profits and losses can be addressed, and also accounted for. Past amtrak managers have not, unfortunately, been held accountable for whats happened in their departments, and thats not my evaluation, its the evaluation of several of these studies. Also in the past, there have been amtrak attempted reorganizations without clear goals, unfortunately. I hope to better understand amtraks Strategic Plans, its corporate goals, and specific progress on its reorganization. And also learn how it will improve performance, accountability, and cost savings. I approach this hearing with a very open mind. Amtraks Strategic Plan is very important. I know it requires a transformative approach from what they have done in the past. The not just a rearranging chairs on the deck of the titanic. We want to make certain that there is a positive progress. From a fiscal standpoint and everybodys focused on the fiscal cliff and sometimes people give me a hard time for focusing on amtrak, but we have this past year put 1. 4 billion into amtrak and government subsidies. Almost half a billion in operating subsidies and close to 1 billion in some of the capital improvements. Over the years thats that commitments remained pretty much the same. We do have a responsibility with taxpayer dollars to make certain that this operation, which is highly subsidized, and we did do a hearing on that one of the past three, four hearings we did, maybe they can put that on the board, is the comparison of federal subsidies, the average cost of my ticket coming back from new york, government subsidized the average cost of 46. 33. Fortunately, and i read through the report pretty carefully, amtrak has made some progress in acela, so the loss isnt that great for acela, but this is the average ticket subsidy simply by taking the 29 million passengers or 28 if it was last year and dividing it by the underwriting subsidy. Other modes of city buses, 10 cents, mass transit, 95 cents, aviation, 4. 28. And that was highlighted in a hearing that we previous hearing that we did. We are trying to bring that subsidization for the system down. Let me say in closing, i went through the Inspector Generals report last night and i do want to hear at least the report that hes giving, im not sure how much of this hell address, but seven of the nine Board Members, we had some reorganization of the board of directors, we now have seven of the nine Board Members onboard. I also want to know about key personnel. We talked about hiring Vice President s and managers over some of these sectors, and that, as mentioned in the Inspector Generals report. And finally, that the comment that the Inspector General made that the company is clearly in the early stages of implementing many of these restructuring initiatives, and he further said that recent work shows the sustaining effectively implementing these initiatives has the potential to significantly reduce amtraks reliance on federal support. And thats the goal of this. Its not just to beat up amtrak, although sometimes we do become very harsh critics when money is lost or we see lack of progress in some areas. But our goal is to reduce the federal reliance reliance on federal support and thats one of the objectives of this hearing, in addition to finding the specifics on the progress of their Structural Organization and reorganization. Ill introduce our witnesses shortly, but let me yield to mr. Cummings who is serving as Ranking Member at this point. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. It is certainly my pleasure to be here. I want to thank you for calling this hearing. Mr. Chairman, quite often our federal employees had unseen, unnoticed, unappreciated, and unapplauded. In my capacity as the Ranking Member of the oversight and government reform committee, i hear so much criticism of our federal employees and Government Employees in general, and i want to take a moment here before i even start to thank joyce rose for her 25 years of Public Service on behalf of this committee and on behalf of this side of the aisle. I know all of us feel this way. [applause] this is joyces more than likely it is her last hearing, and she has always worked fairly with all of our members and with our staff on this side, she has done everything in her power to make sure that not only the congress is served well, but that the country is served well. And so i we hate to lose her, but we know as someone said to me, joyce, and i listened to this in a sermon by p. D. Jakes not too long ago. He said his son came to him, his son is a singer and he was about to go off to college, and his son said, daddy, im not sure this is a thing for me. Singers may not make a lot of money. It may not be the right thing for me. And his father went up to him and he said, son, if its not the thing, its the thing that will lead you to the thing. And so this has been this Transportation Committee has been a part of your journey. And we hope that it has been one that has been most meaningful. And we really thank god for allowing your destiny to lead you to us and for our destiny to lead us to you. So we wish you well in your new endeavors as the president , thats quite went from staff person to president of operation lifesaver, which has the Important Mission of educating the public on grade crossing safety. May god bless you and thank you so much for your service. Of course. [applause] if gentleman will yield for just a second. Again theres probably no higher tribute than to have the other side of the aisle lead with the praise of your service to the committee, to the congress, and to the country. Mr. Cummings and i know that you cannot be successful in our position without great staff. And certainly you have worked long and hard, 12 years for the committee, 25 years in congress. A quarter of a century of commitment to Public Service. I dont think theres anyone that deals with the rail or transit issues in the nation that doesnt know of joyce rose and her commitment to helping everyone. We hadnt passed a Passenger Rail reauthorization in 11 years. I was the Ranking Member and joyce worked with myself, mr. Oberstar, and we had great cooperation from both sides of the aisle. We passed the legislation called priia, Passenger Rail investment. Authorization for Passenger Rail, which is right now the guideline we go by and the authorization. If it wasnt for her dedication, commitment, and incredible knowledge. I just think of the knowledge that will be lost when she leaves her position, we couldnt have achieved that. So, joyce, on behalf of the majority side, which we have had the privilege to have you working with us, and again from mr. Cummings and the minority side, we are just eternally grateful. And we are paying a little special tribute to you today. And thank you again for your service. God bless you. I thank you for scheduling todays hearing. Following the release in 2005 by the g. A. O. Of a report entitled amtrak management systemic problems require actions to improve efficiency effectiveness, accountability that was the name of the report, i was asked by then Ranking Member oberstar to serve as the lead democrat on the special working group convened by this committee to evaluate that reports findings and make recommendations on subsequent action. Certainly amtrak was facing challenges at that time, but among other observations, the democratic members of the working group noted in our view that amtrak, quote, faces difficulties in implementing long range Strategic Plans because of great uncertainty regarding its federal funding each year, end of quote. During that era, amtrak faced repeated proposals to cut or eliminate the federal funding provided to it. Obviously that made it difficult for amtraks leadership to focus solely on operating the company or on developing longterm goals and performance benchmarks. We hear a lot in the congress about uncertainty. So subsequently, under chairman oberstars leadership, congress enacted the Passenger Rail investment improvement act and recommitted to the value of the service amtrak provides. This commitment was expanded by president obama in the comments to the american recovery and reinvestment act, which provided funding to begin many of the Capital Projects that had been tabled due to years of inadequate federal funding. It is clear that the investments we have made in amtrak are supported by the traveling public. Fiscal year 2012, amtrak achieved the highest ridership levels in its history. Thats major news. Major. More than 31 million passengers took amtrak in this fiscal year and the service appears poised to continue to grow. Against this record of success, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle believe amtrak needs to get back on track as the title of this hearing suggests. It is only because they have, once again, been doing all they could do to try to derail the service. In fact, the republican president ial platform called explicitly for amtraks elimination. Fortunately that misguided platform was resoundingly rejected by the American People who have instead supported the president s call to move forward by implementing policies that will expand investments in our nation and support our continued economic recovery. This company must stay on track and focus on its core mission of serving our nations mobility needs as safely, securely, and efficiently as possible. Im very encouraged by the actions mr. Boardman has taken to develop a Strategic Plan and to introduce an organizational structure that supports the implementation of that plan and increases accountability at all levels of the organization. I might note that when the chairman was talking about subsidies, mr. Boardman, i dont think it included amtraks Commuter Rail passengers. The actual subsidy is about 5 per passenger, and i would ask in your Opening Statement you address that so we will be clear on what that subsidy is. I dont want any confusion about that, because i dont want people watching this think it is something it is not. That said, while we must conduct a thorough oversight over amtrak as over all entities receiving federal funding, our committee has now held seven hearings at the full and subcommittee levels in the 112th congress on amtrak, and today we are convening to examine a Strategic Plan that has not even been economy implemented. Appropriate oversight does not require micromanagement of all facets of an entitys operations, thus while i look forward to the testimony of todays witnesses, i hope we will use this hearing to identify ways we can support the continued success of amtrak, enable it to grow, to meet the increased passenger demands. We should also seek ways to support continued implementation of the reforms mr. Boardman has proposed, and give him and his Leadership Team the space they need to fully implement their plans rather than requiring them to return to the hill every few weeks. So with that, mr. Chairman, i yield back and i want to thank you for yielding. I thank the gentleman. Are there others who anyone on this side . First of all id like to thank chairman mica and Ranking Members brown and cummings for holding this hearing today which focuses on its noted that amtrak has a record of 30. 2 million passengers. Traveling on amtrak and full year 2011. We would have seen head lines like amtrak has record of low ridership. Instead amtraks ridership is booming this year with 11 consecutive monthly rider ship records. In each month of this fiscal year, amtrak has posted the highest total ever for that particular month with the final month of september also expected to be a new record. A 25 cut in funding and even more alarming not having a vision for highspeed rail network. These actions are detrimental to the transportation opportunities for all americans. The alternative to build more roads by more cars and consume more oil should not be our only solution. In fact, according to d. O. T. , in comparison, in 1958 through 2012, the United States has invested 1. 4 trillion in our nations highways, 538 billion in aviation, 266 billion in transit, and yet amtrak, which was created in 1971, has received a small fraction of that funding at 41 billion. When you consider that and compare it to the oil and gas industry, which received 44