I look forward to working with my friends in the senate to get that reform bill enacted into law. In closing i look forward for hearing from our witnesses regarding these important issues and i would like to recognize Ranking Member defazio for an opening statement. Thank you, mr. Chairman and thanks for holding this hearing today. I certainly agree with you about the extraordinary importance on the performance of the population of the east coast on the United States on the use of this corridor on a daily basis. In terms of the number of people that use it and the contribution to the economy and what happens when that corridor goes down and i also agree that this committee does have a longterm commitment to amtrak and other infrastructure needs of the United States. Unfortunately, that is not shared by your republican colleagues on the transportation, housing, urban development subcommittee. In fact, on the day of the accident, they cut a 251 million, is it . Or 290 million from the Ca
the reputation of not only mrsat along with everybody involved i m not saying you don t have a point but it would be nice if they gave us information. i don t think you can discount it to that level. where else would it be? that is the big question. john nance is right. i have questions about the range of the aircraft, if it was down at 12,000 feet, might have come short from where they are looking. that is also true. my problem with this is mrsat which is a good company, if they make a claim like that i would like to see the report. that is a simple statement. we still haven t heard the atc communications, the air traffic control communications to the crew. we haven t seen the maintenance records of the airplane. it is a consistent opaque