Hotline #851 - November 11, 1994

The Republican party has taken control of both houses of Congress. Exact committee assignments and leaders will not be known for a few weeks. In the House, Frank Wolf (R.-Va.) probably will be chairman of Transportation Appropriations, replacing Bob Carr (D.-Mich.). It will be hard to persuade Wolf that all long-distance routes should continue. His present Senate counterpart, Al D'Amato (R.-N.Y.), may choose another subcommittee, opening chairmanship to Arlen Specter (R.-Pa.). Specter played a key role in saving Amtrak in 1985.

Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will be Carlos Moorhead (R.-Cal.) or Thomas Bliley (R.-Va.). Michael Oxley (R.-Ohio) likely will chair the transportation subcommittee. Larry Pressler (R.-S.Dak.) is the probable chairman of Senate Commerce. John McCain (R.-Ariz.) is a possibility for subcommittee chair. Chairmanship of House Public Works goes to Bud Shuster (R.-Pa.). He is a big road supporter and will have much to say about rewriting ISTEA. His Senate counterpart is John Chafee (R.-R.I.), a moderate.

The House Budget chairman probably will be John Kasich (R.-Ohio), who is no friend of Amtrak. The apparent House Ways and Means chairman, Bill Archer (R.-Tex.), already has said he will greatly emphasize tax cuts and elimination of entire programs. Archer has never voted for Amtrak in his career.

Many friends of Amtrak have retired or have been defeated. Of the 325 House members or so who voted against Hefley amendments, only 255 are returning. That is still more than half the House. There are 87 new House members. Our job is to see that they include as many Amtrak supporters as possible.

In California, the two rail propositions were soundly defeated. The state rail proposition, 181, got only 35% approval; and 185, a citizen initiative covered n the September newsletter, got just 19%.

Making matters worse, Amtrak board member Bob Kiley addressed an audience of freight railroad officials in Phoenix on November 3. He put Amtrak's finances and ridership in the worst possible light, painting a bleak picture of the survival or desirability of a national system. One must question the propriety of making such a speech to such an audience at a time when Amtrak employees and supporters are so worried about the future, and when management has made no decisions on how to close its projected operating deficit. This is at least Kiley's second public appearance as an Amtrak board member in which his comments have ill served Amtrak.

The freight railroads sued the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes last week to prevent them from bargaining with railroads individually. This week, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers sued four railroads to preserve their ability to bargain with separate railroads. Some unions believe that individual bargaining will preserve their right to strike, because Congress is more likely to step in and end a national strike.

The centennial of operation of the Sunset Limited was November 1.

President Clinton signed into law the high-speed rail authorization, H.R.4867, on November 2.

A British Royal Commission released its final report on transport policy on October 26. We reported on a preview of it a month ago, but now more detail is known. The report calls for doubling the real price of gasoline by the end of the decade, an immediate halt to new road construction, a cutting in half of resources put into superhighways and main highways, and large increases in public transportation investment. The report is a huge repudiation of Conservative transport policy in Britain.