"Rail Service Crisis Looms as Congress Looks To Modify Safety Law"

"WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama’s nominee to lead the nation’s rail safety agency told lawmakers Thursday that the agency would hold railroads to a year-end deadline to install collision-avoidance technology even if it meant that freight and passengers could be left stranded.

Congress set a Dec. 31, 2015, deadline for railroads to implement positive train control back in 2008. The Government Accountability Office reported Wednesday that few companies would actually make the deadline. That conclusion was no surprise: The GAO had warned Congress of it in another report two years ago.

While lawmakers sought guidance from Sarah Feinberg, the Federal Railroad Administration’s acting administrator, on what she thought they should do about it, she told them that whether and how to extend the deadline was up to them.

'We will enforce the law as of the deadline,' she told members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation."

Curtis Tate reports for the McClatchy Washington Bureau September 17, 2015.