Amtrak $900 Million Start: Chairman Sees “Increase Down the Way”

Release #06-07—May 26, 2006

Contact NARP

Washington, D.C.—As a House appropriations subcommittee approved $900 million for Amtrak in Fiscal 2007, the subcommittee’s chairman, Joe Knollenberg (R-MI) said, “Obviously, we’re going to have to find an increase in funding down the way.” Rep. John Olver (D-MA), the subcommittee’s top Democrat, called $900 million “a shutdown number.”

National Association of Railroad Passengers Executive Director Ross B. Capon said, “It is vital that Chairman Knollenberg’s prediction of increased funding be fulfilled. At a time of high gas prices and growing uncertainty about future energy supplies, it makes no sense to cut passenger train service. The longer Congress and the Administration starve intercity passenger rail, the angrier the American people will be when they discover they don’t have choices that help them adapt to higher energy costs while still preserving their freedom to travel and maintaining their quality of life.”

In approving $900 million, the Subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury, and Housing and Urban Development, The Judiciary, District of Columbia, came in $390 million below this year’s $1.298 billion Congress, and $698 million below what the Amtrak Board – all Republicans appointed by President Bush – says it needs to continue operating and improving Amtrak next year.

The subcommittee also ignored the Amtrak board’s well documented request for an additional $275 million, $100 million of which would go to the Transportation Secretary for use in providing federal matching grants to states to improve and expand intercity passenger rail services.

A year ago, the same subcommittee approved a “shut down” figure of $550 million, but even that low level was significantly above the Administration’s zero funding request.  This year, the subcommittee merely accepted the Administration figure.

Amtrak says it needs $495 million next year to support operations (Amtrak’s board calls this “a significant stretch goal”) and $295 million for debt service.

A $900 million appropriation would leave only about $100 million for capital projects, most of which would be consumed by “legally mandated” investments—compliance with environmental and other laws. With rolling stock heavy overhauls and work on infrastructure halted, service quality would immediately begin a downward spiral, and chances would grow that the failure of a moveable bridge would end Boston-New York service.

Amtrak has used increased funding in recent years for capital improvements, not operations. Operating grants have remained stable even as ridership has grown.

Americans want passenger rail. A Harris poll released February 8 found that, “as personal travel and freight transportation grows in the future, the American public would like to see an increasing proportion of that traffic going by rail…The modes of transportation which the largest number of adults would like to see ‘have an increasing share of passenger transportation’ are: commuter trains (44%), long-distance trains (35%), local bus service (23%), and airlines (23%).” The comparable percentage for “long-distance travel by car” was just 10%, long-distance bus service 6%.

The legislation next goes to the full House Appropriations Committee, in early June. Passenger rail supporters should raise the Amtrak funding level in full committee, rather than rely on a repeat of last year’s House floor action which “rolled” the leadership and increased funding from the committee-passed $550 million to $1.2 billion.

NARP is a non-profit, non-partisan membership organization that works for more and better passenger train service in the U.S.  Our mission is to work towards a modern, customer-focused national passenger train network that provides a travel choice Americans want.