WASHINGTON – The Senate Judiciary Committee today approved and sent to the floor legislation authored by U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) that would close loopholes and toughen penalties for terrorist activities involving mass transportation systems.
“Thirty-two million times a day people board public transportation systems,” Sessions said. “When they board the subway to commute to work, take Amtrak or a cruise ship, they should do so with the comfort of knowing our laws are fully adequate to deter and punish anyone who would attack them.”
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee included Sessions’ proposal in his leadership package of priority legislation for the 109th Congress.
Sessions introduced similar legislation last year, following the terrorist train bombings in Madrid that killed nearly 200 people. Sessions chaired a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his bill last year. At that time the Department of Justice, the Department of Transportation and the Federal Railroad Administration endorsed the proposal.
Sessions’ bill, the Railroad Carriers and Mass Transportation Act of 2005, consolidates and eliminates inconsistencies in two prior laws. One is the Wrecking Trains Statute, enacted in 1948. The second is the Mass Transportation Anti-Terrorism Statute, enacted as part of the USA Patriot Act.
These two laws provide different penalties for the same terrorist acts directed at mass transportation vehicles, leaving prosecutors with the difficult job of determining which statute they should apply when a terrorist is apprehended. For example, if a terrorist disables a train by setting fire to it, and the death of a passenger results, the Wrecking Trains statute authorizes prosecutors to seek the death penalty, while the Mass Transportation Anti-Terrorism Statute provides only for life imprisonment.
Another inconsistency is the Mass Transportation Anti-Terrorism Statute contains a more exhaustive list of prohibited conduct than the Wrecking Trains statute. Sessions’ bill incorporates the more exhaustive list. Among other things, it would criminalize the placing of biological agents on or near a railway, releasing hazardous material on or near a railway and disabling a railroad dispatcher or conductor. It also criminalizes “attempted” terrorist attacks, such as the attack nearly carried out by shoe bomber Richard Reid. Anyone who attempts, threatens or conspires to engage in conduct which would endanger persons on trains or passenger vessels would be fined or imprisoned for up to 20 years.
Sessions’ bill adopts the definitions set forth in the Mass Transportation Statute, including a broad definition of “vehicle.” The term vehicle includes any carriage or contrivance used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation on land, on water or through the air. Further, it defines “dangerous weapon” to specifically include box-cutters and pocket knives.
Sessions’ bill would extend the same protections to railroads, freight trains and passenger vessels that already exist for other mass transportation systems.
"The current wrecking trains statute does not prohibit many types of attacks that are currently covered by this mass transportation statute,” Sessions said. “There is no reason that legislation should prohibit certain terrorist acts on an airplane, but not on a railroad carrier.”
Finally, Sessions’ bill explicitly covers commuter trains, such as Amtrak, and massive freight railroad operations. Freight operations carry huge amounts of cargo across the country every day, and the protection of the economy requires protection of the infrastructure supporting our railroads, Sessions said.
“It is time to put the terrorists on notice that their activities against American citizens will be detected and will result in swift and harsh punishment,” Sessions said. “We have to give law enforcement the ability to prosecute and give the judicial system the ability to pass harsh sentences.”
