(The following editorial by Harry F. Themal was posted on the News Journal website on October 17.)
WILMINGTON, Del. — No one can be sure if and when our country will again sustain destruction. The sheer size of the United States makes it impossible to protect every vulnerable target. The next natural disaster might cause massive upheavals in lives and infrastructure.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is largely responsible for protecting us. Judging by the Federal Emergency Management Agency response to the Gulf Coast hurricanes and the Transportation Security Administration’s concentration on protecting air travel from terrorists, we should all be worried about how safe we would be.
Now there’s a chance to plug at least one major hole in security — the rails — with Delaware’s Rep. Mike Castle leading the way.
It’s obvious to anyone who travels by air that security at some airports is almost at the level of wretched excess; yet periodic tests show that passengers and personnel can still breach the system. It is much more difficult to assure even a modicum of safety on the railroads — but at least we should be trying. The latest federal budget includes $4.6 billion for air travel security and $8 million to protect the rails. And that $8 million is a one-third reduction from the year before.
President Bush and congressional Republican leaders are calling for cuts in nondiscretionary funds to offset the staggering costs of Hurricane Katrina and Rita relief, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the largest budget deficits in U.S. history. You can almost foresee making railroads the target again. After all, this administration wanted to cut off all federal funding for Amtrak passenger service.
The importance of the nation’s rail system, passenger and freight, is proved every day. Every time someone travels by rail, or cargo is transported on tracks, less gets spent on fuel for cars and trucks, and oil resources are conserved. In the event of a disaster, manmade or natural, railroads could bring assistance and evacuate populations. No civilized country can exist without trains, often with government subsidy, a fact that seems to have escaped the White House.
There’s new evidence about the failure of the TSA to plan for rail security and assure adequate financing for it. The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office just released a 70-page study requested in 2003 by Castle and Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, both Republicans. That report vividly shows that the TSA has no comprehensive plan on rail security.
You’d think the agency might have acted boldly after fatal train bombings in Spain, the subway deaths in London, and other real or imagined threats to mass transit other than airlines.
Delaware’s members of Congress, who are daily riders on the railroad, know what’s needed and have been yelling about it for years: more security at train stations, guarding vulnerable targets such as tunnels to New York and Baltimore, more watchfulness by the owners of the rail systems.
Castle will use the GAO report as the basis for the Rail Security and Public Awareness Act he is introducing in the House of Representatives. It would authorize grants for security personnel and technology, mandatory training for railroad workers, public awareness programs, and a demand that the TSA come up with a timeline for developing a comprehensive national rail security policy.
Castle thinks a security system might cost half a billion dollars a year. That’s 60 times what’s now budgeted, but still only about 10 percent of what’s being spent on air safety.
I won’t hold my breath that Congress and the White House will approve this bill, or if it passes that the TSA won’t stall for years to implement the provisions. But it’s long past time to act.
Harry F. Themal has been writing for The News Journal since 1959.