8
infrastructure
investor
may
2014
NEWS ANALYSIS
MONTHLY COMMENTARY FROM
INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTOR
SENIOR REPORTER
KALLIOPE GOURNTIS
w e s t e r n
f r o n t
When history comes
back to haunt you
SenateBill 754 andHouseBill 1326:
their mundane nomenclature dis-
guises an issueof considerablegravity.
Introduced in Maryland’s Gen-
eral Assembly in late January and
early February, respectively, the bills
may create a new risk category for
P3s, which we might term “histori-
cal risk”. At the least, their passage
wouldmake the state’s Purple Line
P3 ineligible for federal funding,
possibly jeopardising the project
altogether.
The bills were drafted because
Keolis, a company that is 70 percent-
owned by the French state railway
company SNCF, was one of the com-
panies shortlisted in January for the
16-mile light rail line scheme.
‘PAID PER HEAD’
According to Leo Bretholtz, a
93-year old Holocaust survivor
who started a petition leading to
the introduction of the two bills,
SNCF was not – contrary to what
the company claims – an unwilling
participant in the transportation
of 76,000 victims to death camps
during the Second World War.
The SNCF website says the railway
system was under Nazi control at
the time. But according toBretholz
andothers, SNCFwas paidper head
and per kilometer for the people it
helped transport to the camps.
During a hearing held on
March 10 by the Ways and Means
Committee, Delegate Kirill Reznik,
whoalongwithanother 18delegates
co-sponsored theHousebill, saidhe
was inpossessionof an invoiceSNCF
issued for said transportation.
What’s more, the French com-
pany had allegedly acknowledged
its role in the deportations by pro-
viding reparations toHolocaust vic-
tims in France and other European
countries.
The proposed legislation in the
state general assembly sought to do
the same forHolocaust survivors in
Maryland, by requiring companies
bidding for P3 projects to disclose
their involvement in deportations
during that time and to compensate
victims and/or their families if they
hadn’t done so already.
Similar legislation already exists
in the state.Maryland State Finance
and Procurement Article sections
12-501 through 12-511 require any
entity bidding for the Maryland
Area Regional Commuter (MARC)
rail service operation and main-
tenance contract to disclose any
information regarding Holocaust
deportations.
OnMarch 13, the Federal Tran-
sit Administration (FTA) expressed
concern – as it had in the case of
the 2011 legislation – that if either
Senate Bill 754 or House Bill 1326
were to be enacted, the Maryland
Transit Administration (MTA)
would not be able “to comply with
federal full and open competition
requirements,” which could result
in the loss of federal funds of up
to $900 million for the $2.2 billion
Purple Line project.
While theMTAworked around
the FTA’s concerns in the case of
MARC by segregating funding for
certainoperation andmaintenance
activities, this time the entire Purple
Line project could be jeopardised if
it did not receive federal funding.
“This is not about the Purple
Line project,” Reznik emphasised
during the March 10 hearing. “I
emphatically support the construc-
tion and operation of the Purple
Line and I sincerely hope to ride it
in my lifetime,” he said.
“It needs to be built but we
cannot have this company operat-
ing the Purple Line without having
themacknowledge their responsibil-
ity and close the wounds that they
have caused,” he said.
In speaking with his office
however, one of Reznik’s staff told
Infrastructure Investor
that the bills
were probably not moving forward,
declining to comment further.
It was unclear whether the
passing of Bretholz – he died in his
sleep on March 8, two days before
he was set to testify at the hearing
– contributed to the bills’ loss of
momentum.
n
e:
“We cannot
have this
company
operating the
Purple Line
without
having them
acknowledge
their
responsibility”
Pending legislation in Maryland’s General Assembly
might create a new risk category for P3s
