Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for appearing here today, and for your written submission as well.
Mr. Brehl, you said you were a track monkey. I was a major assembler on the assembly line at Chrysler, so I appreciate a working man.
First of all, let me just say thank you for your approach. I appreciate the balance in it, giving credit where credit is due, raising this to the level where it belongs: it's a public safety issue, it's not a partisan issue, right? I think all members of the committee are very serious-minded about coming to some agreement.
Notwithstanding that, there may be some differences. On non-punitive reporting, as I recall it, with respect to the Aeronautics Act, we did have three-party consensus on that. It actually got through committee, after being filibustered by one of the parties, and then was hoisted in the House, leaving us with no opportunity to pass the bill. It had to be done through regulation. We'll see whether or not we succeed with respect to rail safety in addressing that issue as well.
I have a press release from back in June that was issued. You talked about how the legislation was “the right thing to do”. What are some of the elements—no pun intended—where we're on the right track? If you can just elaborate briefly on those, we'll use that as a starting point, and then I have a few subsequent questions.
