Senate Appropriations Amtrak Hearing

UPDATED with links to Amtrak’s funding request

I attended the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury, the Judiciary, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies hearing this morning on Amtrak.  Amtrak Chairman David Laney presented Amtrak’s Fiscal 2007 budget request at this hearing.  Other witnesses were Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta, Acting President & CEO David Hughes, Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Boardman, and Mark Dayton, a senior economist with the DOT Office of Inspector General.

The Fiscal 2007 Amtrak request is $1.598 billion, plus $275 million in “strategic investment options,” bringing the total implied request to $1.873 billion.

Subcommittee Chairman Christopher Bond (R-MO) chastised Mineta on Amtrak, saying he had hoped to see a budget request supported by a realistic implementation plan. “That was an empty hope.” He said the Administration must be “prepared to implement a reform plan that is supported by the budget.” He noted that the current budget proposal is unrealistic, partly because it completely ignores Amtrak’s debt service payments—“The debt is there and must be paid even if we don’t like how it was incurred.”

Murray remarked that, “despite the fact that all members of the Amtrak Board were appointed by President Bush, their request is some $700 million more than the Administration requested. Apparently those Bush appointees know something about the national network and Amtrak’s costs that the ideologues don’t.” She also noted that rebuilding of the Northeast Corridor, while necessary, has consumed ”just about every dollar of increased appropriations we have provided in the last few years” to Amtrak. She further noted that ridership growth has been stronger outside the Northeast Corridor, citing these FY 2005 increases—Chicago-St. Louis 14%, Empire Builder 9%, St. Louis-Kansas City 7% and Cascades 4%.

Senator Robert Bennett (R-UT) again complained that the California Zephyr did not do enough business in Salt Lake City, and joked to Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), “I’ve been trying to give you Utah’s Amtrak subsidy for years.” Bennett said he thought “less than a dozen passengers a day debarked in Salt Lake City, maybe 120 a week.” Amtrak’s on-line state fact sheet suggests the number is 254 a week, but the central point—as we noted a year ago—is that Utah is uniquely served at bad hours of the day (Salt Lake City 3:30 AM eastbound, 11:45 PM westbound); other states along the route do much better.

Mark Dayton (DOT-IG) attacked subsidies that go to Amtrak First Class passengers.  While he did acknowledge progress in reducing food and beverage losses, he said first class sleeping car service is “still a problem. We find any subsidy for First Class service unacceptable and have yet to see even a pilot program for its elimination.”

NARP sees this comment as a stalking horse for outright elimination of the national system, particularly when coupled with the IG’s recommendation that “power to determine [Amtrak] services [devolve] to the states.” States tend to focus on intra-state needs, which is why NARP and Amtrak consistently have said that the national network trains should be a federal responsibility.

We issued a media advisory with more detail this afternoon, which is viewable on our regular website.

UPDATE Download the following from the Amtrak website:
2007 Grant and Legislative Request
David Laney’s testimony.