Mr. HARVEY. It is fair to say, then, that certainly you disagree with this statement by Mr. Lang, is that not correct?

Mr. BLOOM. I disagree with it and particularly as to Pennsylvania, and I think if any of the men connected with the brotherhoods were asked as to the program that Pennsylvania has and the work that the Pennsylvania commission has done in the way of safety, that they would concur with me that Pennsylvania has been an outstanding State in this field.

Mr. HARVEY. Mr. Lang then went on to spell out the areas of local concern which would be retained relative to grade crossings, street control, and so forth.

Then he said under the legislation posed here, "The impact on State programs will be minimal."

Would you agree with that statement that he made?

Mr. BLOOM. No, sir; it certainly is not so.

Mr. HARVEY. The impact would be devastating, would it not?

Mr. BLOOM. The impact so far as Pennsylvania is concerned, would put us out of business except as to grade crossings. Then they could put us out of business there, too.

Mr. HARVEY. He went on to speak, Mr. Lang did, of the new Federal-State relationship which would authorize the Secretary, and I quote again:

To utilize the services of State agencies and to reimburse them for their role in the inspection and surveillance necessary to insure safe railroad operation.

Mr. BLOOM. That is the section that provides that they may enter into agreements with the State. It is rather humiliating for a commission that has any pride and dignity about itself to become an employee of a Federal agency and that is what we would lower ourselves to.

Here is a commission that is duly created and been in existence since 1914, the Public Utility Commission, for some 54 years.

Then we have to give away or they take away from us our jurisdiction and say that we will enter into an agreement to be an employee of a Federal agency to carry out their act and to work for the Federal agency and be reimbursed by a Federal agency.

I think most commissions would have the feeling that rather than do that let the Federal agency handle the whole thing.

Mr. HARVEY. I thank you very much, Mr. Bloom.

I have no further questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Watson.

Mr. WATSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Bloom, we appreciate your testimony. I think it has been very helpful. I was going to ask the same question as the gentleman from Michigan. Why would you suddenly gain the competence as a contractor under the Department of Transportation which allegedly you would not have now?

I wonder why when you are transferred from your regulatory basis that you would suddenly have all of this competence. I think that is another one of the weaknesses and fallacies of this whole bill.

I am concerned about the blanket indictment of State regulatory agencies by this legislation and that is what it is. You failed according to this legislation and according to the testimony of the executive department.

The brotherhood failed, they are not conscious or concerned about safety at all. The carrier has failed and now the Federal Government is going to step in as I recall, with some 30 employees and gradually develop to 69 employees, and they are going to do the job in such a superb manner.

I fail to see where any reasonable person would buy that bill completely.

Do you know, or perhaps Mr. Rodgers would know, how many employees you have over the Nation in the various States, regulatory agencies, directly involved in this particular field?

Mr. RODGERS. Hearings have been held so promptly that we have not had an opportunity to conduct a survey. If it will be of assistance to the committee we will be happy to undertake such a survey and make a report to the committee.

Mr. WATSON. I believe that information would be helpful since all of this is going to discredit all the brotherhoods and all the State agencies and everybody else.

Of course you might find this. If the Federal Government is going to be able to take care of this problem with 39 people and we can do away with all the State agencies. Since the States are pushed for money, might it not be helpful to eliminate all these State regulatory agencies? At least it might help financially.

We might kill more people but it would save money.

I don't want you to comment on that but I think it points up the facetiousness of this thing.

Now you have been in existence since 1889.

Mr. BLOOM. Yes, sir.

Mr. WATSON. I assume all regulatory agencies try to get the best talent in this particular field within their financial limitations.

Mr. BLOOM. We try to recruit the best talent that we can get.

Of course we have to compete with private industry, and State salaries sometimes don't give us a chance.

Mr. WATSON. I agree with you wholeheartedly. At the same time, too, I believe the carriers are interested in this, at least from an economic standpoint, and they would try to get the best expertise. Mr. BLOOM. That is right.

Mr. WATSON. I am sure the brotherhoods are interested in it. Where would all this expertise come from that the Federal Government is going to take up now?

Mr. BLOOM. We have men in our commission that have been with us for 30 and 40 years, that have become very, very proficient in their work, they are experts in their field.

We had a man who retired not very long ago that had 57 years of service with the Public Utility Commission. Now you can't replace people like that.

We have a number of them with many, many years of service.

Mr. WATSON. Yes, sir. But they can't do the job, you haven't done this job. Give us an idea where the Federal Government is going to get these experts to do the job since your men are unable to do it, the carriers have been unable to do it, the brotherhoods can't do it. Where will the Federal expertise come from?

Mr. BLOOM. I would rather Mr. Boyd would answer that question.

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Mr. WATSON. I am delighted to have you here, Mr. Bloom, to have somebody defend the States that have been trying to do something about it.

Yet as is so often true, we feel nowadays the only way to solve the problems is to eliminate the States and all other activities and let the magic Federal wand be waved over everything and our problems will be solved. I appreciate your testimony.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to thank you too, Mr. Bloom, you and your associates, for coming here with a thought-provoking presentation. I recognize Mr. Keith.

Mr. KEITH. I would like to receive any information that you have at the State level on Massachusetts-the adequacy of the job of the Massachusetts Authority comparable to what yours does.

Do you know anything about Massachusetts?

Mr. BLOOM. Not offhand. We are going to to try to get something together for all the States and submit it to your committee. We didn't have time because of the fact that the bill was just introduced a short time ago and we have not been able to compile it.

Mr. KEITH. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. I would like to follow this up briefly. How soon can you get this data?

Mr. RODGERS. We will try to get the questionnaires out this week. Hopefully, we can get the information in possibly 2 weeks.

The CHAIRMAN. That would be helpful to the committee in consideration of the matter on the floor.

Thank you again.

At this time we will hear from Thomas Goodfellow, chairman of the board of directors, Association of American Railroads. I see that you have a fairly short statement, Mr. Goodfellow. You may read the statement.

STATEMENT OF THOMAS M. GOODFELLOW, PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN RAILROADS; ACCOMPANIED BY WILLIAM M. MOLONEY, GENERAL COUNSEL

Mr. GOODFELLOW. I shall not be long. I have asked Mr. Moloney, our general counsel, to sit with me. I have a few things I would like to say in connection with this bill.

My name is Thomas M. Goodfellow. I am president of the Association of American Railroads here in Washington. Before that I was president of the Long Island Railroad. And prior to that I had worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad since graduation from Cornell in 1929. My railroad experience has been in maintenance of equipment, maintenance of way, transportation, and operations.

My purpose in appearing here today is to assure you gentlemen that American railroad management is more deeply concerned than anyone else with all aspects of railroad safety.

By opposing this legislation, we are by no means opposing safety. But we seriously doubt that legislation is the magic wand that can produce safety.

If you examine the railroads' safety record carefully-and if you look at the complete picture rather than at a single statistical tableyou will find our safety record is one of steady and consistent progress.

Based on casualties, which is the true yardstick of safety, we have shown improvement in virtually every statistical category during the last 10 years.

We are proud of our safety record. We feel the steadily improving casualty records testify to the fact that safety is a matter of utmost importance to our railroads.

As long as there is a single casualty, however, there is room for improvement. And in recent months our individual railroads and our association have undertaken a thorough examination of our efforts in the safety field.

Where we have found weaknesses, we have made changes.

Every one of our railroads has a well-planned and well-organized safety program. And we are placing renewed emphasis on implementation of these programs right now.

We have had a great deal of experience in the safety field. Organized programs of industrial safety were pioneered by railroadmen. Our programs are based on sound, time-tested concepts.

Our individual railroads compete for national safety awards each year. This program has recently been broadened to stimulate safetyconsciousness.

There is not a single area of safety in which our railroads are not active and alert. This is not a new activity with us. It has been going on for years, and our record, extending back over 50 years, attests to its effectiveness and to our progressiveness in this field.

In the area of new equipment-and the technical problems new equipment often brings with it-our railroad research center and technical divisions work closely with rail equipment suppliers and individual railroads to promote the highest possible standards of car and track construction and maintenance.

The last few years have seen many important changes in rail equipment, technology, and methods of operation, all of which are a part of progress. But progress is sometimes accompanied by problems.

We have identified and corrected many of these problems almost as soon as they became evident. And we are on our way toward solving and eliminating the others.

We fully agree with the National Transportation Safety Board's April 3 report that "The Primary Responsibility for Improved Railroad Safety Should Rest Upon Management and Labor."

We in management accept this responsibility.

By the same token we will appreciate, most sincerely, all the assistance labor and Government can give us in getting to the roots of our present problems-and in helping us to correct them.

In this way we can most effectively and most quickly achieve the goal we are all seeking--the ultimate in railroad safety.

It is our sincere belief that we can do far more by working together in a spirit of cooperation than by attempting to "legislate safety." The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Goodfellow.

Is this the extent of your statement?

Mr. GOODFELLOW. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to thank you. I agree with you that by cooperating and working together we can do many things that we cannot do if we work on an individual basis.

What the bill says is that we shall somehow set a minimum standard and have the right to enforce it. I believe that in our society when we

say to a man you shall not commit a crime there has to be somebody to enforce it.

Just as we have today on our streets and cities a lack of enforcement somewhere. Something has happened in our land. If there are minimum standards, after consultation with all concerned, that they consider fair and somebody to enforce it, would this be a fair statement or not that it may be for the common good?

Mr. GOODFELLOW. I think, as we have had in the past, Mr. Chairman, we need some minimum standards, but to give the Secretary of Transportation practically the power of life and death over our safety activities, our operational activities, the maintenance of the equipment we buy, we think this will accomplish nothing.

The CHAIRMAN. I agree with you. I agree that private industry ought to be allowed to run its own affairs as much as possible. I am not talking about that.

I am talking about minimum standards that maybe could be prescribed, that every person in this land knows what they are expected to keep to those minimum standards.

Mr. GOODFELLOW. I think we have practically that in the railroad industry today. We can get dozens and dozens of safety books from the different railroads. The safety rules are all the same.

There is an old saying you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. This has been our problem in safety. We can write safety rules. Our biggest problem is to enforce the safety rules and to get people to remember that it is dangerous to do some things and they must keep their wits about them.

This is a matter that I don't think this bill does anything for. That is to help us somehow or other keep our employees working in a safe

manner.

I don't see that the bill is going to help us on that a bit.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to say this again, to repeat what I have said, to have minimum standards promulgated that everyone understands, with a power of enforcement, and somebody must enforce it because I know that in our society, it does not matter where it is, in America or any other place in the world, down through history, unless you have the power, some power of enforcement, there are some who just will not keep the rules and we have to have the rules in our social affairs and everything else to keep to people in line.

I am just talking about some of the essentials that we need perhaps and to have them standardized.

Mr. GOODFELLOW. If you are talking about stopping, looking, and listening at railroad crossings, I think that ought to be a minimum standard.

The CHAIRMAN. That is all I have.

Mr. Springer.

Mr. SPRINGER. Mr. Goodfellow, at the present time, who has all of the enforcement of safety standards by law?

Mr. GOODFELLOW. The Federal Government Department of Transportation has. In the States, of course, various bodies are appointed by the State legislature to take care of that.

Mr. SPRINGER. What would be added by this bill to the powers that the Federal Government already has?

Mr. GOODFELLOW. I have somewhat wondered, myself, whether the Secretary in some way in his bill setting up the Department of Trans