Major train accidents occurring earlier this year have prompted Congress to readdress the issue of passenger rail safety. Funding for Amtrak has long been controversial, with many Republicans wanting to privatize the system and many Democrats arguing that the United States has fallen behind other countries, such as Germany and Japan, by not making a greater investment in rail travel. The last time Congress reauthorized funding for Amtrak was through passage of the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which required the Nation’s busiest railroad operators to implement a technology called positive train control (PTC) and to have it in…