Hotline #694 -- February 18, 2011

The House defeated the Sessions (R-TX) amendment yesterday on roll call 79, with 60 Republicans joining 190 Democrats in opposition.  The final vote was 176-250 with seven not voting.  While it is indeed fortunate that Amtrak’ s capital + debt service grant will not be further reduced, the underlying House bill would create a number of problems.  The bill cuts Amtrak from $1.565 billion to $1.413 billion for FY11, which Amtrak says would require 1,600 employee/contractor furloughs, including 400 mechanical employees.

The impact of the cut is exaggerated because it must be sustained over less than seven months.  It is urgent that the Senate come as close as possible to President Obama’s request of $1.6 billion for Amtrak —which, by the way, is still $598 million below Amtrak’s request for FY11 of $2.2 billion.

The number which appears likely to pass the House would cause an end to heavy overhauls of cars and locomotives—and thus a decline in passenger satisfaction and on-time performance.

Congress is in recess next week, so try to meet your representative. In particular, look for and attend legislators’ town meetings—meetings that in some cases tend to attract only those citizens whose sole interest is indiscriminate slashing of public spending.

Late in the Wednesday session (early Thursday morning), the amendment was declared winner of a voice vote, but a roll call was requested. 


A veto-proof, bipartisan majority of the Republican-controlled Florida State Senate yesterday rebuked Gov. Rick Scott (R), a day after he had announced he would reject the $2.4 billion in federal high speed rail money. 

Yesterday the 26 senators wrote to Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood asking for time for them to work around the governor “prior to re-allocating Florida’s to another state…The international consortiums who have been investing time and money while waiting for the chance to respond to a request for proposal deserve that opportunity.  Politics should have no place in the future of Florida’s transportation, as evidenced by this letter of bipartisan support.”

Private companies have said they would hold the state harmless against cost overruns and any operating losses.

House Transportation & Infrastructure Chairman John Mica (R-FL) also criticized the governor’s action, telling Marketplace Morning Report he had 20 minutes to make his case to the governor and telling reporters, “The cart’s in a ditch right now, and we gotta figure out a way if we could all pull it out together.”

[See NARP’s take action page for Floridians]


Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood authored a concise rebuttal to columnist Robert Samuelson’s latest anti-passenger-train diatribe.  In the Feb. 18 Washington Post print edition, he said, “Four decades from now, the United States will be home to 100 million additional people…If we settle for roads, bridges and airports that already are overburdened and insufficient, we will fight thickening congestion… our next generation will find America’s arteries of commerce impassable.”  The Post published two other responses to Samuelson, one sympathetic to LaHood and one not.


CNBC this morning had a mini-debate between NARP President Ross Capon and a Cato Institute Senior Fellow Daniel Mitchell.  View it on the NARP blog.


The Washington Post again editorialized against the Administration’s high-speed rail program. The editorial is headlined, “A railroad to ruin; Mr. Obama’s billions for high speed rail.”  The editorial writers do not like spending money on trains that don’t serve Washington DC.  They consider the costs of rail projects and ignore the costs of failing to build rail.  They attack Japan’s bullet trains, saying only Tokyo-Osaka “breaks even.”  They attack France’s TGV’s, saying ‘only the Paris-Lyons line is in the black.”  With their eyes firmly fixed on history’s rear-view mirror, they ignore the likelihood that rising energy prices will decimate short-distance air travel.  The Post takes letters at letters(at)washpost.com and is more likely to publish short letters. 


China sacked Railways Minister Liu Zhijun on Feb. 12.  He had spearheaded China’s high-speed rail program.  The Feb. 14 Financial Times said Mr. Liu has been “put under investigation for ‘severe disciplinary violations.”  Beijing has prosecuted a number of senior officials for corruption.  The FT said Mr. Liu “is the most senior Chinese official to come under investigation since the Shanghai party boss…was forced out of office in 2006 and later sentenced to 18 years for corruption.”

From the Feb. 17 New York Times: “Speaking on Monday in Beijing, the official who is believed to be the country’s new railways chief, Sheng Guangzu, said the ministry would ‘place quality and safety at the center of construction projects.’  For good measure, he added that safety was his highest priority.  The statement underscored concerns in some quarters that Mr. Liu cut corners in his all-out push to extend the rail system and to keep the [high-speed] project on schedule and within its budget.  No accidents have been reported on the high-speed rail network, but reports suggest that construction quality may at times have been shoddy.

“A person with ties to the ministry said that the concrete bases for the system’s tracks were so cheaply made, with inadequate use of chemical hardening agents, that trains would be unable to maintain their current speeds of about 217 miles per hour for more than a few years. In as little as five years, lower speeds, possibly below about 186 miles per hour, could be required as the rails become less straight, the expert said…

“Some of the criticism may be signs of envy that China has achieved so much at a speed and cost that other countries cannot match. Many multinational companies also resent China for tweaking foreign designs and building the equipment itself rather than importing it…”

Also from the Feb. 14 FT: “Critics have suggested that some of the [high-speed] lines will be uneconomical because the fares will be out of reach for many rail passengers.”