Brendan Smialowski / AFP - Getty Images file

Wayne LaPierre, chief executive officer of the National Rifle Association, speaks during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill on Jan. 30 in Washington, D.C. The NRA spent more on lobbying in the first quarter than it had on any quarter ever.

Gun groups, defense contractors, oil companies and the world’s largest social network increased their spending on lobbying last quarter, bucking an overall downward trend, newly filed congressional disclosures show.

As debate over gun control raged in the Senate, the National Rifle Association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation and Mayors Against Illegal Guns each spent more on federal-level lobbying during the year’s first three months than in any other quarter.

Raytheon, United Technologies and General Dynamics also fired up their lobbying machines from January to March, easily surpassing their spending from the same period one year ago as budget sequestration forced them to face deep cuts to their bottom lines.

Northrop Grumman, at $5.8 million, posted its third-biggest lobbying quarter in company history.

And Facebook’s $2.45 million in first-quarter lobbying expenses obliterated its previous quarterly record — $1.4 million during the final three months of 2012 — as it pressed lawmakers and governmental agencies on a variety of issues, from online advertising and privacy concerns to taxation and supporting visas and permanent residency for highly skilled foreign workers.

But those are exceptions.

About three-fifths of the nation’s 100 top lobbying organizations spent less on lobbying during the year’s first quarter than the first quarter of 2012, a Center for Public Integrity analysis of congressional disclosure reports and Center for Responsive Politics data indicates.

A slight majority of them also spent less on lobbying from January through March than they did from October through December — a period on Capitol Hill marked by an election, then  a congressional recess-induced lull interrupted by a flurry of fiscal cliff activity at the end of the year.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce this quarter retained its perennial perch atop the list of top lobbying spenders, although its collective first-quarter output ($16.8 million, when including affiliates) is dramatically down from recent quarters.

The Chamber spent nearly $26.4 million during last year’s first quarter. During the final quarter of last year, it spent more than $40.6 million, in large part because it ranks among a small group of lobbies that opt to disclose state- and grassroots-level lobbying (and sometimes political organizing) costs alongside federally focused efforts.

Attribute the recent drop-off to 2013 not being an election year, Chamber spokeswoman Blair Latoff Holmes said, noting that the nation’s largest trade group still spent heavily on its policy agenda to “generate stronger, more robust economic growth and create jobs.”

That, according to its disclosures, included lobbying on implementation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law as well as the oversight capabilities of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Google’s lobbying expenditures have been on a torrid pace of late, as the omnipresent Internet company jumped from $1.5 million during the first quarter of 2011 to $5.4 million during the first quarter of 2012. But it throttled back this past quarter, spending less than $3.4 million on a range of topics that include federal regulation of online advertising and consumer privacy.

Among the dozens of other prominent lobbies that spent less during the first quarter than they did during the same period last year: AT&T ($7.1 million to $4.3 million), General Electric ($5.7 million to $5.2 million), the American Hospital Association ($4.5 million to $3.8 million), Verizon Communications ($4.6 million to $3.7 million), Dow Chemical ($3.3 million to $2.7 million), drug maker Pfizer ($3.6 million to $2.9 million) and the American Bankers Association ($2.7 million to $1.6 million).

While many defense contractors experienced lobbying growth early this year, Boeing and Lockheed Martin experienced slight spending declines during the first quarter compared to the same period last year.

Of those that spent more, the National Association of Realtors ($6.1 million to $8.5 million) led all others in overall first quarter spending. But like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Realtors association reports its lobbying activity broadly, and their first quarter spending was significantly down from the final three months of 2012, when it burned through nearly $15.5 million.

Many oil-related companies and associations reported first-quarter lobbying spikes, including ExxonMobil ($4.2 million to $4.8 million), Koch Industries ($2.3 million to $2.6 million), Chevron ($3.2 million to $3.7 million), the American Petroleum Institute ($1.8 million to $2.1 million) and Occidental Petroleum ($1.6 million to $2.1 million).

The American Medical Association, CTIA-The Wireless Association, AARP, Altria, America’s Health Insurance Plans and the National Association of Manufacturers also recorded mild to moderate increases.

While not among the nation’s biggest lobbying spenders, the National Rifle Association spent $810,000 during the first three months of the year to lobby the federal government — the most ever during a first quarter.

Senate Republicans, aided by a few Democrats, have so far blocked passage of all major gun control legislation championed by President Barack Obama and most Democrats.

Meanwhile, Mayors Against Illegal Guns spent a quarter-million dollars from January through March — five times what it typically does.

The organization, led by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Tom Menino, had never spent more than $60,000 during a single quarter to lobby the federal government.

The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit, non-partisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C. For more of its stories on this to go publicintegrity.org.

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Jonathan Newton / Getty Image fi

K Street in Washington, D.C. home to many influential lobbying firms.

Congress’ fiscal cliff fiasco, a flurry of lame duck legislation and election-season politics drove some of the nation’s most powerful lobbying forces to double down on their governmental influence efforts late last year, newly filed reports show.

Such an uptick foreshadows what could be ever-more-aggressive lobbying on federal finances, taxation, energy and social issues like immigration and gun ownership as President Barack Obama enumerated in his inaugural address Monday.

The trend may end a prolonged lobbying spending slowdown largely prompted by Capitol Hill gridlock and a dearth of meaningful legislation receiving consideration during much of 2011 and 2012.

In all, about half of the year’s top 100 lobbying organizations spent more on lobbying in the fourth quarter of last year than in the third quarter. About half also showed an overall increase in spending for 2012, a Center for Public Integrity analysis of congressional disclosure reports and Center for Responsive Politics data indicates.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s year-over-year lobbying spending skyrocketed more than 88 percent, from $66.4 million to more than $125 million, to easily lead all other organizations.

Prominent business and financial lobbies, meanwhile, rank among organizations that spent significantly more during the fourth quarter of 2012 than they did during the third quarter, including the National Association of Realtors ($15.4 million from $9.8 million), the Business Roundtable ($4.8 million from $4 million), JPMorgan Chase and Co. ($3.2 million from $1.4 million) the American Bankers Association ($2.1 million from $1.8 million) and Visa ($1.7 million from $1.1 million), records show.

For the business roundtable, the jump represents an “intensified effort” to influence fiscal cliff negotiations, permanent normalized trade relations with Russia and tax reform, said Tita Freeman, an organization spokesperson.

But percentage-wise, the greatest lobbying spending growth late in 2012 comes from companies representing a variety of industries aghast at the package of automatic tax increases and spending cuts that had been slated for implementation had Congress not struck a last-minute deal to avoid them.

They include information technology behemoth Oracle Corp. ($1.8 million during the 4th quarter from $640,000 during the 3rd quarter), energy giant Southern Co. ($5.1 million from $2.5 million), Duke Energy ($2.3 million from $1.3 million) and Dow Chemical ($2.6 million from $1.6 million), according to congressional records.

Defense contractors Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Co. and General Dynamics also reported moderate increases from the third quarter to the fourth. These and other companies that rely on government contracts stood to potentially lose billions of dollars had automatic federal spending cuts been put in place at the end of 2012.

While not yet among the nation’s biggest-spending lobbying forces, the National Rifle Association and the affiliated NRA Institute for Legislative Action together fueled their 2012 lobbying efforts with about $3 million – more money than during any other single year.

The NRA’s lobbying comes as the association finds itself in the midst of a nationwide conversation, and looming political battle, over gun ownership restrictions following the December massacre of 26 people at a Connecticut elementary school.

The gun rights lobby also faces a host of new and moneyed lobbying opponents this year, most notably organizations led by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, independent. Pro-gun advocates have historically and exponentially outspent gun control interests.

Facebook, for its part, posted its priciest quarter ever — $1.4 million in the fourth quarter — and passed the seven-figure threshold for the first time during a three-month period. The social media company, which didn’t invest a cent in federally reportable lobbying until 2009, spent nearly $4 million in 2012, or about three times the $1.35 million it spent in 2011, and shows no indication its slowing its rapid expansion into the political sphere.

Generally, federal legislation, congressional activities and regulatory action prompt most lobbying spending, although recent dollar-figure spikes are caused, in part, by national elections.

Take the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Realtors.

The two business organizations are among a small group of lobbies that opt to disclose their state- and grassroots-level lobbying (and sometimes political organizing) costs alongside their federally focused efforts.

The pending disclosures do not, however, appear to include the tens of millions of dollars collectively spent on directly attacking or supporting political candidates, primarily through television and radio advertisements, during the 2012 election.

“Our 2012 lobbying figures reflect that it was an election year, where the Chamber engaged in an unprecedented voter education campaign to educate the public about candidates' positions on issues critical to free enterprise, such as health care, regulation, energy production and taxes,” Chamber spokeswoman Blair Latoff Holmes said.

The Realtors also engaged heavy political field organizing efforts, said Jamie Gregory, deputy chief lobbyist for the association, which reported $41.4 million in spending during 2012 in its federal lobbying reports.

That figure trailed only the Chamber and put it ahead of General Electric (General Electric is minority owner of NBCUniversal), the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, American Hospital Association, the Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America, Google, Northrop Grumman, AT&T and the American Medical Association among the nation’s top 10 lobbying spenders last year.

“Accordingly, we expect a drop in spending during 2013, and in 2014, expect it to go back up,” Gregory said.

(Comcast Corp., majority owner of NBCUniversal, spent $14.75 million on lobbying in 2012, a decrease of nearly 25 percent from the previous year, ranking it 15^th on the list.)

Several corporations known to have donated money to Obama’s inauguration committee are also among top lobbying forces of 2012: AT&T spent $17.4 million on federally reportable lobbying last year, followed by Southern Co. ($15.6 million), FedEx Corp. ($11.9 million), Microsoft ($8.1 million), and Coca-Cola ($4.8 million), disclosures show.

The Center for Public Integrity is a non-profit independent investigative news outlet.  To read more of its stories on this topic go to  http://www.publicintegrity.org/politics/consider-source 

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As Republican Mitt Romney works to unify the party faithful behind him, the number of lobbyists raising money to help him secure the White House has soared.

More than five-dozen lobbyist-bundlers have raised at least $14 million for Romney’s election efforts, according to reports submitted Monday. That includes 42 who raised nearly $9 million during the third quarter of 2012.

The third quarter marked the first period of pro-Romney fundraising activity for two-dozen lobbyists, according a review of Federal Election Commission documents by the Center for Public Integrity.

Among them, former Republican Sen. Alfonse D’Amato of New York, who raised $238,200; John Castellani, president and CEO of pharmaceutical trade group PhRMA, who raised $61,000; Brian P. Miller of oil and gas giant BP America, who raised $36,550; and Joseph Seidel of Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-largest bank.

Two lobbyists each collected more than $1 million for the election efforts of the former Massachusetts governor from July through September, records show. Bill Graves, the president and CEO of the American Trucking Association, and attorney David Beightol of D.C.-based firm Dutko Grayling both raised about $1.1 million.

To date, Graves has now raised more than $1.6 million — more than any of the other 62 lobbyists whose names have been disclosed in federal filings.

Romney, unlike President Barack Obama, has not voluntarily released a list of bundlers — elite political fundraisers who turn to relatives, friends and business associates to raise large sums and then deliver the funds in a “bundle” to the candidate. They are often given perks and special access — both on the campaign trail and once politicians are elected.

But thanks to a 2007 law passed in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal, all federal candidates are required to report information about the lobbyists who bundle money for their campaigns.

Obama, who, as president, has taken a tough stance against lobbyists in his rhetoric and policies, has not taken money from lobbyist-bundlers, according to records. He has voluntarily disclosed the names of everyone who has raised at least $50,000 for his re-election efforts.

According to his campaign’s most recent disclosure in July, nearly 650 bundlers had collected more than $143 million for Obama and the Democratic National Committee. The president is expected to release an updated list with his third-quarter bundlers later this week.

All of the GOP presidential nominee’s lobbyist-fundraising muscle has aided not only the Romney campaign but also the “Romney Victory Committee” — a joint fundraising organization that funnels cash to his campaign, the Republican National Committee and several other party entities.

Individuals can donate up to $75,800 to the Romney Victory Fund. The first $5,000 is directed to the Romney campaign while the next $30,800 goes to the RNC. The remaining funds are split between other participating party committees.

Romney has rejected calls from good-government groups such as the Center for Responsive Politics, the Sunlight Foundation, the League of Women Voters and the Campaign Legal Center to release additional information about his top fundraisers, unlike former GOP presidential candidates George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

Romney’s fundraising network extends well beyond those lobbyists named in FEC filings. Earlier this year, USA Today released a list of more than 1,000 individuals that the newspaper identified as bundlers for Romney.

Even as Romney has denied requests for increased transparency, he plans to list the names of all bundlers who raise at least $200,000 in a commemorative book after Election Day. Top supporters are also being offered special access to weekly strategy sessions, VIP retreats and signature apparel, according to Politico.

Those who raise at least $200,000 between the primary and general election will be honored at the “Stars” level, according to documents obtained by Politico, while those who bundle at least $400,000 enjoy “Stripes” level status.

Some of Romney’s lobbyist-bundlers have blown past these thresholds.

In addition to Graves and Beightol, Dirk Van Dongen, the president of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, and Patrick J. Durkin, Sr., of Barclays have each bundled more than $1 million. Van Dongen has raised roughly $1.2 million, including nearly $961,000 during the third quarter, and Durkin has collected about $1.1 million.

Sixteen other lobbyists have raised at least $200,000 for Romney, according to the Center analysis.

Abramoff, once a top Washington lobbyist, pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges in 2006 and served 43 months before being released in late 2010. The scandal prompted Congress to pass a package of new ethics rules.

The Center for Public Integrity is a non-profit, independent investigative news outlet. See more of its stories on this topic.

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The Washington Post has an excellent look at visits by lobbyists to senior officials in the Obama administration, based on White House visitor records. An excerpt:

More than any president before him, Obama pledged to change the political culture that has fueled the influence of lobbyists. He barred recent lobbyists from joining his administration and banned them from advisory boards throughout the executive branch. The president went so far as to forbid what had been staples of political interaction — federal employees could no longer accept free admission to receptions and conferences sponsored by lobbying groups.

"A lot of folks," Obama said last month, "see the amounts of money that are being spent and the special interests that dominate and the lobbyists that always have access, and they say to themselves, maybe I don’t count."

The White House visitor records make it clear that Obama’s senior officials are granting that access to some of K Street’s most influential representatives. In many cases, those lobbyists have long-standing connections to the president or his aides. Republican lobbyists coming to visit are rare, while Democratic lobbyists are common, whether they are representing corporate clients or liberal causes. 

Is lobbying greater under Obama than under his predecessors? It's impossible to know, because President Obama is the first president to release records of White House visitors. Score one for transparency, and score one for the lobbyists, too.

You may recall that msnbc.com covered the issue of White House visitor logs, pressing repeatedly for the White House to release all the records. That still hasn't happened. Records of visitors for the first eight months of the Obama presidency have not been released.

You can search for names of visitors

The Obama administration released records to settle a lawsuit, and another lawsuit is pending to try to force the White House to release all the records. The president's attorneys continue to make the claim, as previous administrations had made, that the records are not covered under the Freedom of Information Act, despite two federal court decisions calling for all the records to be released. So the disclosures made so far are, in the White House view, voluntary. Presumed Republican nominee Mitt Romney has not said whether he will release White House visitor logs.

Stories in our msnbc.com series on the White House visitor logs:

• Obama blocks list of visitors to White House
• After lawsuit, Obama opens a bit of info on meetings with health care executives.
• Obama yields on most White House visitor logs
• Help figure out who has been lobbying Obama
• Obama names 110 White House visitors
• Obama is sued for White House visitor list

Kelly B. Huston

The Chatsworth rail disaster in 2008 caused 25 deaths and 135 injuries in Chatsworth, Calif., on Sept. 12, 2008.

By Justine Sharrock, Laurie Udesky and Stuart Silverstein
FairWarning.org

Less than four years after a California train disaster spurred passage of major safety legislation, railroad companies are pushing hard to relax the law’s chief provision.

They have won over key Republicans, and extracted a major concession from the Obama administration, in their bid to scale back and delay a system to prevent crashes such as the head-on collision that caused 25 deaths and 135 injuries in Chatsworth, Calif.

The Rail Safety Improvement Act, passed in late 2008 soon after the Chatsworth disaster, mandated the $13 billion project and stuck railroad companies with nearly all of the cost. The law calls for installation of a technology known as Positive Train Control, or PTC, that automatically puts the brakes on trains about to collide or derail.

Railroads are required to install PTC by the end of 2015 on an estimated 70,000 miles of track used by trains carrying passengers or extremely hazardous materials such as chlorine.

The technology’s champions include the National Transportation Safety Board, an independent advisory and investigative agency. It has advocated PTC for more than two decades to prevent accidents resulting from human error, the main cause of rail crashes.

Investigators with the agency have identified 21 train wrecks since late 2001 that, they say, would have been averted by PTC. In all, the accidents caused 53 deaths and nearly 1,000 injuries.

 “PTC can prevent these human errors from causing collisions, hazmat releases, passengers killed and injured, and train crews being killed,” said Steven Ditmeyer, a former rail industry executive and federal official who now teaches in Michigan State University’s railway management program.

Serious train crashes, he said, “are very rare events, but they still occur.”

PTC supporters such as Paul Hedlund, a lawyer for many families of Chatsworth victims, say they are appalled by efforts to relax the mandate. It’s a “scary step backwards,” Hedlund said, calling existing protections “horribly archaic.”

Since 2008, he added, “We haven’t had another crash of the magnitude of Chatsworth that would be affected by this but we are going to.”

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The 2005 rail crash in Graniteville, S.C., killed nine people and caused the evacuation of 5,400.

But the railroad industry and its allies, arguing that the project is unaffordable, have put up stiff resistance. They also maintain that the technology still needs to be refined, even though Amtrak already operates a similar system from Boston to Washington, D.C.

PTC critics have argued for delaying the installation deadline by three years, exempting as much as 20 percent of the track and allowing railroads to use other safety systems that might be cheaper, but also less effective.

The industry is bolstered by a political climate that is hostile to federal dictates, a factor behind the executive order President Obama issued early last year to streamline regulations. They have extra leverage because federal agencies are divided on the merits of the PTC mandate.

PTC opponents also are drawing ammunition from a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office. The GAO assessment didn’t address PTC’s effectiveness but said technological hurdles could delay completion of the project beyond the 2015 deadline.

“What you hear from all the railroad companies is that everyone supports PTC in theory, but the realities of how difficult it is financially and technologically to install [mean] it can’t happen by 2015,” said Matt Ginsberg, director of operations for the National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association, which includes contractors that work on PTC installation.

The industry’s strategy, he added, is that “instead of an outright repeal, they will slowly chip away at it, making small little tweaks that will make a big change overall in the effect of the rule.”

Leading the resistance are the Association of American Railroads, which represents freight haulers and Amtrak, along with the American Public Transportation Association, which represents commuter rail systems. They have called PTC the biggest federal mandate the industry has faced in more than a century, and say they anticipated that the government would step up its financial support.

To deliver their message on PTC and other issues, railroad interests spend heavily on lobbying. According to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the railroad industry poured $73.4 million into lobbying in 2009 and 2010, and another $8.75 million in the first quarter of 2011.

The industry also has retained dozens of lobbyists, including the firm of former Senate powerhouses John Breaux, D-La., and Trent Lott, R.-Miss.

Meanwhile, as political currents have shifted and PTC has fallen out of the spotlight, the technology has fewer forceful advocates.

Former U.S. Rep. James L. Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat who led the push for PTC in the House and who argued for it since the 1990s, was voted out of office in 2010, when Republicans took control of the lower chamber.

The Democrat who perhaps was most pivotal in getting the rail safety act through Congress and signed into law was Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California. Days after the Chatsworth crash in September 2008, she said the failure to install PTC would amount to “criminal negligence.”

Today, she still favors PTC but no longer is a leader on the issue and is not a member of the panel with jurisdiction over railroads, the Commerce Committee.  Feinstein’s office quoted the senator as saying that she has urged colleagues to maintain the current deadline.

PTC systems include GPS and wireless communications technology and central control centers. They can monitor trains and stop them if they enter the wrong track or are about to run a red light.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board, one of the accidents that PTC would have prevented was the freight train-commuter train collision in Chatsworth. The NTSB investigation blamed the accident on an engineer on the commuter train who ran a red light while text-messaging on a cellphone. (Metrolink, the rail system that operates the Chatsworth commuter line, hopes to finish installing its PTC system by mid-2013.)

The NTSB said the January 2005 rail crash in Graniteville, S.C., that killed nine people and injured 554 also would have been prevented by PTC. The crash punctured a chlorine tank car, releasing a toxic, greenish cloud that led to the evacuation of about 5,400 residents.

However, the agency responsible for enforcing the deadline has expressed ambivalence about PTC. The Transportation Department’s Federal Railroad Administration concedes that PTC increases safety. But the agency says PTC would save only about four or five lives a year, not nearly enough to justify the  cost – though the agency analysis was completed in 2005, before the Chatsworth disaster.

PTC advocates say the agency’s analysis ignores the enormous business benefits that the technology could provide by, not only preventing accidents, but also by coordinating train traffic more efficiently and cutting shipping times.

Still, after the Transportation Department spelled out its rules for enforcing the PTC law, it was sued in November 2010 by the Association of American Railroads. The industry group accused the agency of issuing “a regulation that imposes a staggering and unjustified burden” that went beyond the intent of Congress.

Among other grievances, the industry said federal officials wrongly required railroads to put PTC on track that by 2015 will no longer be used to haul chlorine or other extremely hazardous materials.

The Transportation Department, to settle the litigation, offered to reduce the amount of track required to have PTC. The proposal, expected to be adopted in some form this spring, would remove 7,000 to 14,000 miles of track from the mandate, a cut of about 10 percent to 20 percent.

In an Aug. 23 announcement, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood characterized the move as being in line with the Obama administration’s initiative to streamline regulation.

NTSB officials, however, say the proposal also could have a pernicious effect. They say it could crimp regulators’ flexibility to require PTC on troublesome track not specifically designated by the statute.

For instance, regulators can insist on PTC when they are concerned about the safety of track where freight trains haul, say, ethanol – a dangerous material, but not one of the extreme hazards specified in the law. But the head of the NTSB, Deborah Hersman, said her agency is concerned that the “ability to identify other high-risk corridors will be hampered” because, under the proposed change, the railroads no longer would have to provide the government with as much risk data.

Separately, House Republicans have advocated relaxing the PTC requirements. One of the leaders is U.S. Rep. John Mica of Florida, chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Mica is one of the biggest recipients of railroad industry campaign contributions, with $182,298 since 2008.

He is working on a long-term surface transportation authorization bill that is regarded as a likely legislative vehicle for key breaks sought by the railroads. Lawmakers are expected to resume working in earnest on the authorization bill by the beginning of February.

Mica has voiced support for extending the PTC deadline by three years and allowing trains to use so-called non-technological safety systems. 

Such systems, unlike PTC, can’t automatically counter human error, which the Transportation Department says causes 40 percent of train accidents. Mica has described his goal as to “protect against overly-burdensome regulations and red tape.”  

Another vocal critic of PTC is U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., chairman of the railroads subcommittee.

According to The Center for Responsive Politics, railroads were the top-contributing industry to his 2008 and 2010 election campaigns. Shuster has received $165,800 in campaign contributions from railroad interests since 2008.

He has criticized the PTC mandate ever since it was adopted. At a March hearing,  Shuster advocated extending the deadline beyond 2015 and reducing the amount of track covered, while calling the existing requirements “regulatory overreach.”

Talk of accommodating the industry, however, infuriates union leaders. “It’s hard for me to believe that anyone can go to Congress and say with a straight face that seven years after the bill passed is ‘not enough time for us to do this,’’’ said James Stem, legislative director of the United Transportation Union.  “But that’s what’s going on.”

Frank Kohler, severely injured in the Chatsworth train wreck.

It’s also distressing to crash victims such as Frank Kohler.

Kohler was one of those injured in the Chatsworth disaster.  He woke up after the collision lying on the ground with his head split open; he suffered a brain injury that, Kohler says, causes him to get confused and has ended his 36-year career as an emergency responder and registered nurse.

If PTC has been in place three years ago, Kohler said, he would have arrived home safely. Kohler added, “I would still have my professional life intact and I would be a productive member of society.”  

FairWarning is a nonprofit, online investigative news organization focused on public health and safety issues.