Hotline #278 - January 17, 2003

The full Senate last night rebuffed an attempt to cut a third of the funding for Amtrak in 2003 that was approved last year by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Consideration of the pending omnibus appropriations bill for 2003 (H.J.Res.2) had been delayed last week because of a delay in making procedural changes related to committee restructuring. Although those committee changes were made by January 15, the omnibus bill did not go through the Senate Appropriations Committee but went right to the Senate floor, where debate began January 15 (and continues through today).

The omnibus bill, as introduced January 15, included only $826 million for Amtrak -- more than the $762 million the House Appropriations Committee approved last fall -- but $374 million less than the $1.2 billion Amtrak has asked for. Amtrak President David Gunn said in a January 15 statement, "Federal funding substantially less than $1.2 billion will take us right back to the near-shutdown we experienced last summer … We are into the second quarter of the fiscal year and we are beyond the point where we can make significant changes to avoid a shutdown. None of us wants to repeat a financial crisis similar to the one we experienced last year."

An amendment to bring the Amtrak amount back up to $1.2 billion was introduced by 13 Senators -- Murray (Wash., Senate Transportation Appropriations ranking Democrat), Hutchison (R.-Tex., Senate Commerce Surface Transportation subcommittee chair), Byrd (W.Va., Senate Appropriations ranking Democrat), Snowe (R.-Me.), Hollings (S.C., Senate Commerce ranking Democrat), Chafee (R.-R.I.), Biden (D.-Del.), Specter (R.-Pa.), Leahy (D.-Vt.), Carper (D.-Del.), Lautenberg (D.-N.J.), Corzine (D.-N.J.), and Jeffords (I-Vt.). This amendment -- the only bipartisan amendment the Senate considered yesterday -- was approved on a voice vote.

A pro-Amtrak "Dear Colleague" letter was circulated to Senators before the January 16 debate.  The letter supported the amendment, and was signed by the first eight senators listed above (four from each party).  The letter said, in part, that Gunn "is reforming the railroad. He has taken practical steps to bring stability to Amtrak; he has opened the company's books and made them available to the U.S. Department of Transportation and each of the oversight Committees in Congress, and he has made tough decisions to shrink the Amtrak workforce and eliminate certain services. He has been straightforward with Congress about the critical shortages confronting Amtrak and the fiscal realities they face."

Ten Senators spoke in favor of the amendment -- Murray, Hollings, Lautenberg, Jeffords, Carper, Durbin (D.-Ill.), Byrd, Schumer (D.-N.Y.), Biden, and Feinstein (D.-Cal.). Senator Stevens (R.-Alaska) made remarks not entirely germane to the amendment (about highway gas taxes and 19th century railroad land grants).

Significantly, Senator McCain (R.-Ariz.) supported the amendment. He also said he understood that state funding for long-distance trains "may be difficult" because of the number of states they traverse.  Nonetheless, he made clear that he still equates "reform" of Amtrak with eliminating long-distance trains.

The omnibus bill still has to go to a House-Senate conference committee, where efforts to preserve the $1.2 billion are likely to be difficult. Please thank your Senators for the $1.2 billion for Amtrak, but also urge them to urge appropriations leaders to defend that level vigorously when meeting with House leaders. Click here for ways to contact Senators.

S.104, the National Defense Rail Act, now has 31 sponsors. Those added since last week are Feinstein (D.-Cal.), Burns (R.-Mont.), Cochran (R.-Miss.), Inouye (D.-Hawaii), Kerry (D.-Mass.), Nelson (D.-Nebr.).

Full funding -- $8.9 million for the Mule and Ann Rutledge -- is in the budget released by Missouri Gov. Bob Holden on January 15, for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Unfortunately, the Mule's last runs this fiscal year will be February 28 unless the state comes up with another $1.2 million.

This week, in a talk to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels made very clear the Bush Administration's opposition to any tax increase. The speech appeared to slam the door on gas-tax increase proposals advanced recently by House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Don Young (R.-Alaska). Apparently in search of other ways to increase highway spending, Senate Finance Chairman Charles Grassley (R.-Ia.) and Ranking Member Max Baucus (D.-Mont.) apparently are considering a plan to reprogram gas-tax funds that now go to transit by disqualifying cities with populations over one million from receiving such funds.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) on January 16 released two reports. A 151-page report, "Intercity Passenger Rail Transportation," is the group’s first report on this topic. It says Amtrak's "long-distance trains serve a basic transportation role in many markets throughout the United States" and "provide an alternative form of travel during periods of severe weather conditions or emergencies that affect other modes." There is detailed discussion of corridor development plans. The report costs $84 dollars through the AASHTO bookstore.

AASHTO also released its "Freight-Rail Bottom Line Report," available at no charge. This report "establishes the need for investment of $175 billion to $195 billion over the next 20 years to maintain rail’s share of projected total freight movement” but says the industry will be unable to raise “an estimated $53 billion of the total"; if those funds don't "come from other sources ... billions in additional highway-maintenance and congestion-relief costs will be added over 20 years."

NARP has joined 46 other organizations -- corporations, unions, citizen groups, National Conference of State Legislatures, States for Passenger Rail -- in endorsing the "American Passenger Rail Agreement." It advocates development and preservation of a nationwide passenger rail system and calls on the federal government to fund passenger rail and provide police development and oversight comparable to that given to the other modes.

Responsibility for California's high-speed rail project would be given to the state's transportation department, Caltrans, under a proposal made January 10 by Gov. Gray Davis (D.). The proposal is a small part of proposals to close a $35-billion state budget deficit. Current rail services are not proposed for cuts. The nine-member California High-Speed Rail Authority would still exist, but lose its staff and have to rely on Caltrans for all work. Some high-speed proponents fear that burying the Authority in the mammoth Caltrans, whose main function is roads, will kill it. While the Authority's chairman, Ron Diridon, expressed confidence in the intermodal outlook of Caltrans Director Jeff Morales, he expressed concern with the pace at which work might proceed.

In another development, Caltrans announced on January 10 that it would commission a report, to be done by a consulting company, to look at benefits and problems associated with having an agency other than Amtrak operate the three intercity corridors in California. A handful of possible operators showed interest, but none have Amtrak's statutory right to operate on freight railroads.

The City of Escalon, Cal., has dropped its suit against Caltrans, which involved a proposal to add a second track to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe main line through that town, southeast of Stockton. The line is also used by Amtrak's San Joaquins. City officials said that Caltrans has agreed to look at safety measures, including the use of "quad gates." These gates have been tested successfully in North Carolina.

A temporary massage service is offered on Capitol Corridor train 538, which leaves Oakland at 3:30 pm for Sacramento and Auburn.The service began January 13, is offered Monday through Thursday, and runs through February 6. The fee for neck and shoulder massages is $1 a minute, offered by the National Holistic Institute in Emeryville.

Dedication of the restored station at Norman, Okla., was this morning.

All current and future rail service to downtown Indianapolis would be eliminated, according to a plan proposed by Eli Lilly and Co., a major business in that city. The motivation for such a proposal is to open up more land to development and eliminate an elevated railroad that divides downtown from the neighborhood immediately south of it.

But it also would end the use of Union Station by any rail carrier, including Amtrak (which uses it today), and would preclude any future use of Union Station by high-speed or commuter rail operators. From a transportation point-of-view, that would be a terrible misstep, as one of rail's great advantages is the ability to serve downtown areas. Lilly proposes putting a rail station at the airport. That's feasible, but future train service from Chicago can and should serve both the airport and Union Station.

Lilly has proposed putting all through-freight traffic on a belt line it owns, but which needs significant capital improvements. But Lilly has no plan to pay for that, which has drawn the opposition of CSX.

CSX track work between Florence and Charleston, S.C., will force temporary schedule changes for Amtrak's southbound Silver Meteor (train 97) and northbound Palmetto (train 90). Train 90 will run two hours earlier, departing Miami at 3:00 pm, every day through February 19. Train 97, four days a week -- Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday -- will run 30 minutes earlier than scheduled from Florence to Savannah (and will not stop at Kingstree or Yemassee), through February 19. Train 97 will run on its normal schedule the other days (Thursday, Saturday, Sunday).

MARC introduced quiet cars on two of its Penn Line (Baltimore-Washington) commuter trains (401 and 503) this week, as a three-month experiment. The move comes after many customer requests, and after the popularity of the program on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor trains -- which, unfortunately, is for weekday trains only.