(The following appeared on the Los Angeles Times website on March 18, 2011.)
REPORTING FROM WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sometimes in the din of Capitol Hill, it takes a personal story to grab the attention of lawmakers and spotlight an issue.
Such was the case Thursday when 15-year-old Mackenzie Souser, whose father died in the 2008 Chatsworth train crash, tearfully said at a congressional hearing: “I am simply not a normal teenager anymore without my dad.”
“I struggle every day with the fact that my dad, who was the sole breadwinner for our family, isn’t coming home from work ever again,” she told a House panel, putting a human face on the debate over victims’ compensation.
She was invited to testify by her congressman, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), who is seeking to pressure Veolia Transportation to voluntarily pay beyond a $200-million federal cap for death and injury claims in a passenger train crash.
The teenager’s father, Doyle, 56, was among 25 people killed and 135 injured when a Metrolink train collided head-on with a freight train. One of the deadliest rail crashes in California history occurred when a text-messaging Metrolink engineer failed to stop at a red signal, federal investigators said. A Veolia subsidiary employed the engineer.
The hearing came as the American Public Transportation Assn. urged the committee to approve a three-year extension of the 2015 deadline to roll out a high-tech braking system for the nation’s major passenger railroads.
Although Metrolink, the five-county Southern California commuter rail agency, is moving ahead to put a $200-million system in place by the end of next year, Joseph J. Giulietti, executive director of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, told the panel on behalf of the association that rail operators faced “major obstacles” to meeting the deadline “related to both funding and technology.”
Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa), chairman of the House railroads subcommittee, expressed some support for the association’s request, calling the braking system mandate “an example of regulatory overreach.” He said in an interview that the systems were not only costlier than expected but could drain money from other safety programs.
But Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) vowed to push to preserve the mandate. And Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa issued a statement urging Congress to maintain the deadline.
The full story is on the Los Angeles Times website.