Hotline #857 - December 23, 1994

Deputy Transportation Secretary Mort Downey on December 19 unveiled a Department of Transportation downsizing that would eliminate DOT's mode-specific administrations, except possibly Aviation, and would let states spend highway (but not aviation) trust fund money on intercity passenger rail. Unfortunately, just as this flexibility is added, the size of the federal highway funding pot would shrink 4-5%. This means state highway interests would work even harder to prevent the money from going to rail. The overall DOT plan seems to have been whipped up as part of President Clinton's response to the election and likely will get tough sledding on Capitol Hill, though some aspects may go forward. For example, DOT spends about $1 billion a year just to administer the federal highway program, and there may be bi-partisan support for changing that. In response to a question from NARP, Downey said that DOT favors fiscal 1996 Amtrak funding "relatively similar" to current levels.

The McNeill/Lehrer NewsHour last night featured Transportation Secretary Federico Pena. He said Amtrak's willingness to make service-cut decisions last week enables him to defend Amtrak against its enemies in Congress. He said House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bud Shuster (R.-Pa.) also was pleased with Amtrak's actions. Pena said if Amtrak had not made those decisions, "Congress would have had many more reasons to pull the plug on Amtrak."

Unfortunately, Pena also said the cuts would permit a reduction in Amtrak's federal grants. Hopefully he was talking about a few years from now, after Amtrak has swallowed its reorganization costs and after states get the right to spend federal trust fund dollars on passenger rail projects and Amtrak services. For now, Amtrak President Tom Downs has made clear he need the fiscal 1995 funding level again in 1996. In other words, the service cuts and productivity improvements are aimed at helping Amtrak live within its existing federal grants, not at permitting those grants to get smaller.

Of course, the almost $1 billion figure for Amtrak subsidies that Robin McNeill and Pena mentioned includes nationwide and Northeast Corridor capital investments and mandatory payments.

Amtrak staff is working furiously to develop the details of the cuts, including days of operation of the reduced-frequency services. As soon as we get these details, we will mail them to those who have already sent us a self-addressed, stamped envelope requesting the general service-cut information and to those who now send an s.a.s.e. to "NARP Service Specifics."

Amtrak is studying individual frequencies of many of the targeted state-supported trains in hopes that states unwilling to pay the full bills will fund continued operation of something.

There is talk of the Empire Builder running daily a bit past February 1 because of the huge amount of ski tour revenue that otherwise would be lost. By our calculations, Amtrak's scheme assumes a totally unrealistic 90% retention of the Empire Builder's annual passenger revenues. We think, even accepting a decision to cut Western train-miles, a plan that throws out all Empire Builder mail revenues west of St. Paul may not be the most cost-effective plan.

Here are some Republican members of the new Railroad Subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Susan Molinari (N.Y.) will chair it. Other members are Boehlert (N.Y.), Quinn (N.Y.), Franks (N.J.), Kim (Cal.), and Mica (Fla.). Shuster will serve in an ex-officio capacity.

Please let NARP know if you are willing to help leaflet trains or if you would like to be a leaflet coordinator for your area.