UPDATE 1-U.S. lawmakers see need to extend rail safety deadline

(New throughout, adds details, comments from hearing and
background)
By David Morgan
WASHINGTON, Sept 17 (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers on Thursday
warned that Congress must act well before year-end to extend a
Dec. 31 deadline for railroads to adopt new safety measures, to
avoid major disruptions to freight and passenger service, but
some said they are uncertain about how to act.
"We cannot wait until the last minute to act," Senate
Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune said at a hearing.
Without congressional action, Thune said, railroads will
probably "begin to cycle traffic off their lines" four to six
weeks prior to Dec. 31, the congressionally mandated deadline
for implementing safety technology known as positive train
control, or PTC.
Most railroads are not expected to meet the deadline, and
major freight handlers have threatened to suspend service rather
than operate outside the law if no extension is granted.

Last month, the Senate approved a bipartisan measure that
would allow the Obama administration to extend the deadline for
up to three years. But it is not clear whether the House of
Representatives will accept that approach.
PTC is a complex communications system that can
automatically slow or stop a train to avoid derailments and
major crashes. Federal safety officials say it would have
prevented the May 12 Amtrak derailment that killed eight people
and injured more than 200 others. But railroads say
implementation efforts have been snarled by high costs,
bureaucratic delays and technical hurdles.
Some lawmakers called on the Federal Railroad Administration
(FRA), the government's chief rail regulator, to provide
guidance on what kind of extension to grant and for how long.
The hearing was held to consider acting FRA Administrator Sarah
Feinberg's nomination to become full-time agency chief.
"I would appreciate a specific recommendation as to the
length of time that might be appropriate. Is it six months? Is
it a year? Is it two years?" Senator Roger Wicker, a Mississippi
Republican, told Feinberg.
Feinberg said FRA hoped to work with individual railroads to
phase in PTC operations rather than face a new blanket deadline.
But she rejected a recommendation from the Government
Accountability Office urging lawmakers to allow regulators to
change deadlines on a case-by-case basis.
"I am anxious about the prospect of entering into
negotiations with 40 different railroads on a case-by-case
basis, which would result in a choose-your-own deadline
back-and- forth," Feinberg said.