Hotline #27 - March 27, 1998

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.