infective and parasitic diseases, tuberculosis was seen 17 times, venereal disease 18 times, and infestations with worms 35 times as often among migrants as among patients in private physicians' offices. The need for increased funds is graphically illustrated by comparing statistics that reveal the per capita expenditures of $12 for health care of migrants, compared with the per capita expenditures of over $200 for health care for the Nation as a whole. Medical and dental services are not the only services that are limited for migrants. Under existing conditions, funds for hospital care are often exhausted by projects before the season is over. Yet project reports show that the use of hospital care by migrants is only about one-fourth that of the general population. Looking into the future, progress must be made in the coverage of migrants by programs for the general population and improvements in migrants' economic status can be anticipated. As medicaid and other health programs assume certain costs and responsibilities now assumed by migrant health grants, and as migrants become economically better able to meet their own health needs, the migrant health program may be able to become increasingly a supplement to other programs. However, for the foreseeable future, the migrant health program must have a separate identity with expanded funds. While extending this program for 2 years in 1968, the joint conferees from the House of Representatives and the Senate agreed "that this program, because of its importance to the health of the American people, should be considered as a permanent and separately identifiable program, subject to periodic congressional review, and authorization of appropriations." Notwithstanding the above-stated reasons for continuing and expanding a separate migrant health program, the Public Health Service in late 1968 instituted a reorganization plan that appears to destroy the separate identity and operations of the migrant health program, and obliterate the separate central and regional office staff of the Migrant Health Unit. The committee, as in 1968, believes that the migrant health program must have a separate identity with permanent staff to administer the program. The committee looks with disfavor upon the 1968 reorganization. CHANGES IN EXISTING Law In compliance with subsection (4) of rule XXIX of the Standing Rules of the Senate, changes in existing law made by the bill, as reported, are shown as follows (existing law proposed to be omitted is enclosed in black brackets, new matter is printed in italic, existing law in which no change is proposed is shown in roman): S. Rept. 91-618 PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE ACT, AS AMENDED TITLE III-GENERAL POWERS AND DUTIES OF SEC. 310. There are hereby authorized to be appropriated not to exceed $7,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1966, $8,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1967, [$9,000,000 each for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1968, and the next fiscal year, and $15,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1970.] $15,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1970, $20,000,000 for fiscal year ending June 30, 1971, $25,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1972, and $30,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1973, to enable the Surgeon General (1) to make grants to public and other nonprofit agencies, institutions, and organizations for paying part of the cost of (i) establishing and operating family health service clinics for domestic agricultural migratory workers and their families, including training persons to provide services in the establishing and operating of such clinics, and (ii) special projects to improve health services for and the health conditions of domestic agricultural migratory workers and their families, including necessary hospital care, and including training persons to provide health services for or otherwise improve the health conditions of such migratory workers and their families, and (2) to encourage and cooperate in programs for the purpose of improving health services for or otherwise improving the health conditions of domestic agricultural migratory workers and their families. For the purposes of assessing and meeting domestic migratory agricultural workers' health needs, developing necessary resources, and involving local citizens in the development and implementation of health care programs authorized by this section, the Secretary must be satisfied, upon the basis of evidence supplied by each applicant, that persons broadly representative of all elements of the population to be served and others in the community knowledgeable about such needs have been given an opportunity to participate in the development of such programs, and will be given an opportunity to participate in the implementation of such programs. О S. Rept. 91-618 91ST CONGRESS 1st Session } SENATE { REPORT No. 91-619 FEDERAL RAILROAD SAFETY ACT OF 1969 AND HAZARDOUS MATERIALS TRANSPORTATION CONTROL ACT OF 1969 DECEMBER 18 (legislative day, DECEMBER 16), 1969.-Ordered to be printed Mr. HARTKE, from the Committee on Commerce, submitted the following REPORT [To accompany S. 1933] The Committee on Commerce, to which was referred the bill (S. 1933) providing for Federal railroad safety, having considered the same, reports favorably thereon with amendments and recommends that the bill as amended do pass. PURPOSE AND NEED The purpose declared in this bill is to promote safety in all areas of railroad operation, to reduce railroad related accidents, and to reduce death and injuries to persons and to reduce damage to property caused by accidents involving any carrier of hazardous materials. The Senate Committee on Commerce, in reporting favorably the comprehensive railroad safety legislation embodied in S. 1933, has determined that the soaring accident rate on the Nation's railroads, coupled with the great potential for disaster when an accident occurs, requires early and effective governmental attention. The committee has also made the judgment that the Federal Government, in its effort to provide for greater safety on the Nation's railroads, should enlist the assistance of those States which have the capability and which are willing to join in the effort. The committee, by its action, also recognized that the railroad industry is the only mode of transportation in the United States which presently is not subject to comprehensive Federal safety regulations. Five full days of hearings were held in 1969 by the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation. Two days of hearings in May 1969, Washington, D.C., led to the creation of the Railroad Safety Task Force by the Secretary of Trans S. Rept. 91-619 portation. In July a field hearing was held in Indianapolis, Ind. The Indianapolis area had been the site of three major railroad train accidents in the past year. In October 1969, the committee held 2 additional days of hearings in Washington, D.C., to consider recommendations by the Railroad Safety Task Force and the administration in addition to the findings obtained from previous hearings. During those hearings approximately 50 witnesses representing almost every conceivable viewpoint relevant to safety on the railroads testified before the subcommittee. Included among the witnesses were the Secretary of Transportation, the Federal Railroad Administration, the Office of Hazardous Materials (in the Department of Transportation), the National Transportation Safety Board, the Department of Interior, the Department of Defense, railroad labor, railroad management, mayors, fire chiefs, chiefs of police, State police, health officials, military firefighters, individual railroad employees, concerned citizens, representatives of rail passengers, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, the chairman of the Product Safety Commission, and private attorneys. The basic thrust of the testimony in a voluminous hearing record is that the unsafe conditions which persist on some railroads are very serious, particularly in view of the fact that with the introduction of higher speed, longer and heavier trains, the increased carriage of deadly and dangerous materials, the possibility of a major catastrophy is ever present. Train accidents have been steadily increasing and so have the dangers flowing from them. The number of such accidents rose from 4,149 in 1961 to 8,028 in 1968, an increase of 93.5 percent since 1961. The number of deaths from all kinds of railroad accidents rose from 2,127 in 1961 to 2,359 in 1968. Not only do the number of deaths from railroad accidents annually exceed the number of deaths in aviation accidents, but also these statistics alone do not provide an accurate picture of the potential for disaster attending the operation of the Nation's railroads. Railroads today, as well as other carriers, are transporting extremely flammable explosives, highly reactive and poisonous substances throughout the Nation's metropolitan areas and countrysides. It has been reported to the committee that there are 25 new dangerous commodities considered for marketing purposes every day. Often, as the committee learned so well during its hearings, the hazardous materials carried are so exotic and represent such an unknown factor that control of fire and contamination resulting from an accident is too often beyond the capability of local authorities. Special firefighting equipment and procedures may be necessary for each of several kinds of materials that are being transported on a single train. Biological and chemical warfare materials including deadly nerve gases have been shipped in the past and may be shipped in the future by the Defense Department on the Nation's railroads. Increased accidents, greater speeds, and more hazardous shipments provide an extremely lethal combination so that with increased frequency, train wrecks threaten whole communities with flame explosions, and contamination by poisonous chemicals. The committee in title II, which is explained more thoroughly hereinafter makes provision to meet this problem. The chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board in testimony before the committee cited a number of accidents which highlighted the derailment and hazardous materials problem. Consider also some recent accidents which highlight the derailment and hazardous material problem. In December 1968, the Safety Board reviewed this problem in its report of the Dunreih, Ind., accident. This was a derailment of one car in a 98-car westbound Pennsylvania Railroad freight train which triggered a general derailment involving a passing 106-car eastbound Pennsylvania freight. Spillage of highly flammable and poisonous cargo, an intense fire, and the explosion of one tank car resulted. The explosion and 10-hour fire destroyed a cannery-Dunreith's major industry-and seven homes. Eighty-seven other homes and businesses were damaged, and the town of about 250 was evacuated for 2 days. Cyanide pollution of area water required health protection measures for months after the accident. Fortunately, there were no fatalities and only a few minor injuries. The Safety Board found that the initial derailment was caused by "the broken rail within the compromise joint where two different sizes of rail were joined." Contributing to it, the Board said, was "inadequate track maintenance which left the joint unsupported and allowed the development of the break in the rail.' The Board directed 10 recommendations to the Penn Central and other American railroads, the Association of American Railroads, the American Railway Engineering Association, the Department of Transportation and its Federal Railroad Administration. We pointed out that for the want of a $50 repair by the railroad this accident could have been prevented---an accident which cost the railroad in excess of $1 million. On March 28, 1969, the Safety Board concluded a 7-day public hearing held in Jackson, Miss., and Washington, D.C., as part of the Board's investigation of a Southern Railway train derailment at Laurel, Miss., on January 25, 1959. The derailment of 15 propane gas tank cars touched off explosions and fire which fatally injured two residents, hospitalized 33 persons, destroyed 60 homes, created widespread property damage, and caused the necessary evacuation of more than 1,000 townspeople. On November 25, 1969 the National Transportation Safety Board issued its report on the Laurel, Miss. accident. The Safety Board found that the cause of the initial derailment in Southern train 154 *** *** was the broken L-3 wheel on the 62d car in the train. Contributing casual factors were the rough machining on the plate of the wheel, the tread-worn hollow condition of the wheel and the sudden lateral loading on the wheel as it crossed the G.M. & O. crossing. Findings of the National Transportation Safety Board add additional weight to the fact that there must be considerable attention given to research and to the cause of railroad train accidents. The Federal Railroad Administrator noted in his testimony that between August 1964 and May 1969 39 communities throughout the United States were evacuated as a result of railroad accidents. Since May, other communities have been evacuated because of threat of explosion and/or contamination of the air or water. |