NARP March 1998 Hotlines

#24 - March 6, 1998
#25 - March 13, 1998
#26 - March 20, 1998
#27 - March 27, 1998

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Senate leaders agreed on March 2 to increase ISTEA spending by $25.9 billion over the next five years -- but in a great setback to balanced transportation, decided to devote all of the increase to highways. Banking Committee Chairman Al D'Amato (R.-N.Y.) tried and initially failed to maintain the usual pattern of giving 20% of transportation funding increases to transit. However, by late yesterday, he succeeded, and $5 billion in new transit spending was added to the package.

However, there are no budget offsets for any of this new funding, which exceeds the spending caps in the 1997 balanced budget resolution. It is up to the Budget Committee to find offsets. Budget Chairman Domenici (R.-N.Mex.) has implied it may not be possible to find offsets for more than one year's worth of increased spending.

Another big threat next week is the Johnson-Thomas amendment, named for Senators Johnson (D.-S.Dak.) and Thomas (R.-Wyo.). The amendment would mandate a minimum of transit funds that states would get, allowing rural states to spend it on highways if their transit funds exceed their transit needs. This will greatly cut into transit funds for places that have big transit needs, and reduce maybe a quarter of the money available for rail transit construction.

Senator Brownback (R.-Kans.) is pushing a separate amendment to make it harder to preserve the integrity of abandoned railroad rights-of-way. Finally, Senator Levin (D.-Mich.) has a good amendment requiring states to develop a way to let local officials in rural areas influence state transportation planning, a privilege now reserved to local officials in urban areas.

Call your Senator right away to oppose the Johnson-Thomas, oppose the Brownback, and support the Levin amendments to the ISTEA bill, S.1173.

The House Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee will hold its annual hearing on Amtrak on March 11.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R.-Ga.) named his three members to the Amtrak Reform Council this week. They are Gov. Christine Todd Whitman (R.-N.J.); Chris Gleason of Altoona, Pa., a member of last year's Shuster blue ribbon panel; and Bruce Chapman, the executive director of the Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank in Seattle. The Reform Council is now complete except for the two Clinton appointees, one each representing rail labor and management.

The Federal Railroad Administration has approved the use of tilting mechanisms on Talgo trains in the Pacific Northwest. This will allow Amtrak West to add a round trip when timetables change May 17. Seattle-Portland travel times will decrease by as much as 25 minutes.

A light rail proposal for Orlando took a step forward last week as the board of Lynx, the local transit authority, agreed to begin final design on a southern route, running from downtown to Sea World. Planning on a northern leg to Winter Park and Longwood has been postponed for three months, due to local community opposition to building along the CSX right-of-way. The southern leg theoretically could be running in 2001.

The Coast Starlight now may not resume running south of Oakland before March 13. Currently, there is alternate transportation for Starlight passengers, but not for San Diegan passengers north of Los Angeles.

NARP Region 6 meets at Detroit tomorrow. On March 14, Region 4 meets at Baltimore, Region 7 at Bloomington, Ill., and Region 9 at Dallas, where NARP President Jack Martin will speak. On March 21, Region 5 meets at DeLand, Fla., again with NARP President Jack Martin, and Region 8 meets in Seattle. On March 28, Region 1 meets at Boston, with NARP Executive Director Ross Capon among the speakers, and Region 10 meets in Council Bluffs, Ia., again with NARP President Jack Martin. More details are in the February newsletter and on the NARP web site.

The Senate passed its ISTEA renewal bill, S.1173, yesterday. This bill still provides states the flexibility to spend some of their federal transportation funds on intercity passenger rail projects, if they choose to do so. This important feature is not in the House bill, H.R.2400, and so will have to be worked out in conference. Also, S.1173 does not address the question of gas-tax money for Amtrak. However, Amtrak's current plan is to rely instead on a combination of the Taxpayer Relief Act money and a broader, new definition that allows capital funds to be used for all types of maintenance work.

One amendment that passed this week that is of interest to rail passengers was one from Don Nickles (R.-Okla.) letting states without Amtrak service use some of their transit funds to get Amtrak service. Another approved amendment, from Carol Moseley-Braun (D.-Ill.) increases annual grade-crossing spending on high-speed rail corridors from $5 million to $20 million.

There was a hearing March 11 in the House Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee on Amtrak and FRA funding for 1999. The witnesses were Federal Railroad Administrator Jolene Molitoris, Acting Amtrak President George Warrington, and Amtrak board members Sylvia de Leon and Amy Rosen.

The hearing generally was positive. Warrington and the two board members made a strong case that the BMWE agreement is in Amtrak's best interest. Warrington showed that Amtrak pays much less for some types of work than the Long Island and Metro North commuter railroads. He said it is costly when Amtrak has to keep training new employees because Amtrak loses workers to higher-paying railroads. He also said Amtrak's labor contracts are far better than any freight or commuter railroad has been able to negotiate regarding productivity gains and work rules.

Chairman Frank Wolf (R.-Va.) seemed to have an open mind about the new definition of capital Amtrak is seeking, though he called it a "shell game." There also were questions about taking all new Amtrak funding from the Highway Trust Fund.

Amtrak witnesses said that, after counting for work rule savings and cost-of-living raises that would have happened anyway, the BMWE agreement applied to all unions would cost $38 million a year. They said that was not much compared to Amtrak's annual payroll of $1 billion, and not much compared to the $3.8 million a day that a strike would have cost.

The only really sour note was a promise from Subcommittee member Sonny Callahan (R.-Ala.) that he would try to cut Amtrak funding this year.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bud Shuster (R.-Pa.) has appointed Bob Franks (R.-N.J.) as the new chairman of the Railroads Subcommittee. This position has been vacant since Susan Molinari (R.-N.Y.) left the House last summer. Issues before the Subcommittee this year include the reauthorization of the Federal Railroad Administration, the Surface Transportation Board, and the Railroad Safety Act. Also, Shuster appointed Jerry Moran (R.-Kans.) to the Railroads Subcommittee.

Amtrak West resumed full service on the Coast Starlight route on March 11, after two weeks' interruption due to a flood-damaged bridge near Ventura, Cal. San Diegan service north of Los Angeles resumes March 16. All trains north of Los Angeles are subject to delay.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R.-Miss.) has put a hold on the nomination of William Clyburn to the Surface Transportation Board, according to the Journal of Commerce. He was nominated by President Clinton last August to fill a vacancy on the three-member board. The hold is apparently because the DOT Office of the Inspector General is investigating board member Gus Owen (R.), over a possible conflict of interest.

Amtrak shifted its Cardinal stop from Catlettsburg, Ky., to a new intermodal facility in the old C&O freight house in downtown Ashland, on March 11.

In the wake of the Senate having passed its ISTEA bill March 12, the House is now ready to move. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is planning to approve its bill, H.R.2400, on March 24. Chairman Bud Shuster (R.-Pa.) plans to take it to the floor the week of March 30 for approval by the time Congress takes its spring recess, April 2.

House leaders have approved a plan that would increase ISTEA spending, along the lines of what the Senate did with their bill, S.1173. However, the House would add more money to highways than the Senate bill did, and less money to transit. In both bills, budget offsets to pay for the funding increases have not been fully identified, putting the question of what programs to cut to pay for the increases off into the future.

Flexibility for states to use federal transportation funds on intercity passenger trains is not in the House bill, though it is in the Senate bill. It is not likely to be added to the House bill, given Chairman Shuster's general aversion to spending highway money on passenger trains. That shifts the focus on flexibility to the reconciliation conference committee that will come after spring break.

Therefore, as we said last week, tell your Senators to fight to keep flexibility in the final bill, and tell your Representative that the Senate language on flexibility should be kept in the final bill.

NARP will also urge conferees to preserve the Senate bill's funds for grade crossing work on high-speed corridors, and to preserve the Senate bill's tax language that improves the equity between employer-provided parking and transit benefits.

The pro-environment Surface Transportation Policy Project is concerned about Congress' intention to increase highway spending significantly, but believes that if states spend more of the increase on repairing existing roads, and less on new roads, the situation won't be so bad. But since building new roads is a great temptation for both politicians and state DOT engineers, there is legitimate reason to fear the worst. Meanwhile, oil prices are at historic lows, encouraging more and more driving.

The Senate Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee will have a hearing on the future of Amtrak on March 24. No witness list has been released yet, but there are reports that the witnesses have been asked to talk about "alternatives" to Amtrak.

Because of heavy bridge work in southeast Connecticut, NortheastDirect service will be disrupted today, and March 21 and 22, between New Haven and Boston. Expect some bussing if you are traveling in that direction those days.

Tim Gillespie, the Amtrak vice president of government affairs, is leaving Amtrak at the end of the month. Gillespie has been in that position for many years and is well thought of by passengers, legislators, and other lobbyists alike.

The president of the Association of American Railroads, M. B. Oglesby, is departing suddenly, after less than nine months on the job.

The Glenville Super Steel company of Schenectady has been awarded a $20 million contract by the New York State DOT to rebuild two Amtrak turboliners, according to the Albany Times-Union. This will be done apparently in a manner similar to the one that was rebuilt a few years ago for 125-mph service.

NARP Region 8 meets at Seattle tomorrow, and Region 5 meets at DeLand, Fla., with NARP President John R. Martin speaking. On March 28, Region 10 meets at Council Bluffs, Ia., again with NARP President John R. Martin, and Region 1 meets at Boston with NARP Executive Director Ross Capon. The last meeting of the season is Region 3 at Lancaster, Pa., on April 4.

The full Senate is expected to vote on a Budget Resolution on March 30. The Amtrak numbers are $594 million a year through 2002, which is good. In fact, this is slightly more than the Administration requests for the last three years of that period. The fact that the resolution gives nothing to Amtrak in 2003 is bad, but that is too far off to worry about right now.

What may be a problem as early as March 30 or more likely March 31 is an amendment by Phil Gramm (R.-Tex.) to increase highway spending at the expense of Amtrak and other discretionary programs. The amendment is still being written, but it would eliminate or greatly cut Amtrak funding. Gramm is looking for a Democratic co-sponsor -- if he finds one, the chances of passing his amendment are good. Please ask your Senators to work against -- and vote against -- any Gramm amendment that increases highway spending at the expense of Amtrak.

The House's ISTEA renewal bill, H.R.2400, received committee approval this week and is ready for floor debate next week, beginning March 31. This bill does not contain flexibility for states to use some of their federal transportation funding on passenger rail investment, as is allowed by the Senate bill, S.1173. Like the Senate bill, H.R.2400 provides highway and transit spending in excess of past budget resolutions and in excess of identified budget offsets.

A new feature of H.R.2400 is that Chairman Shuster (R.-Pa.) has gotten the nod from House leaders and incorporated a provision to take the highway trust fund off budget. This is a long-standing goal of Shuster's. That will free up much more highway money, some of which the federal government now uses to reduce the size of the federal deficit. It's hard to see anything good in that from a balanced-transportation point-of-view -- more concrete than ever would get poured and programs like Amtrak that remain behind in general funds would be harder squeezed than ever.

The bill has been sharply criticized by some House leaders. Budget Chairman Kasich (R.-Ohio) is considering a floor amendment to abolish most of the highway program and trust fund and turn it back to the states. That is unlikely to pass, but would have problems of its own, since many of the states are even more pro-highway than the federal government.

The Senate Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee had its annual hearing on Amtrak funding on March 24, and in a departure from long-standing practice, invited no one from Amtrak to talk about Amtrak. Instead, Chairman Shelby (R.-Ala.) named the hearing "Amtrak's Future and Passenger Rail Alternatives," and invited some witnesses to talk about how bad Amtrak is, and some others to talk about what should replace it. Witnesses included former Amtrak Board Member Robert Kiley and the president of the Reason Foundation, which advocates privatization. The General Accounting Office and the DOT Inspector General testified about Amtrak's serious financial problems.

Shelby's positions seem contradictory -- on the one hand, he complains that Alabama has too little service. On the other hand, he invites witnesses who at a minimum seem united in the belief that there are too many long-distance passenger trains.

Fortunately, other witnesses and Senators spoke better of Amtrak, including Sens. Lautenberg (D.-N.J.), Biden (D.-Del.), Roth (R.-Del.), Specter (R.-Pa.), and Baucus (D.-Mont.) and Mayor Ed Rendell of Philadelphia. They were concerned there were no Amtrak witnesses, and urged the Subcommittee to allow the current Amtrak program -- which the Senate approved unanimously last fall -- a decent chance to work.

The Missouri Senate Appropriations Committee this week restored most of the threatened money for Amtrak service between Kansas City and St. Louis. The House Appropriations Committee had cut the governor's request by $1.35 million. This week's action would restore all but $250,000 of what the House cut. This is enough to save the trains, but still must be approved by the full Missouri Senate and House-Senate conference.