(The following article by Ted Mann was posted on the New London Day website on March 17.)
NEW LONDON, Conn. — Supporters of Amtrak scored a preliminary victory Wednesday when powerful U.S. House Republicans bucked President Bush and included $1.2 billion in operating subsidies for the national rail line in their proposed budget.
The late-afternoon announcement was a coup for Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District, and a score of other House Republicans who have publicly criticized Bush’s proposal to eliminate Amtrak’s federal subsidy, which would effectively bankrupt the system.
The House Budget Resolution being debated this week includes the $1.2 billion for train operations, Simmons’ staff said, the same amount being spent by Amtrak in the current fiscal year.
It was the end of a long day of train negotiations for Simmons, who also hammered out a deal with Amtrak officials in Washington to delay by six months a multi-billion-dollar increase in the access fees charged to the state of Connecticut for the right to operate Shoreline East service.
Simmons was jubilant Wednesday, beginning a telephone interview by blowing repeatedly on a train whistle.
“We had a long come-to-Jesus meeting with them this afternoon,” he said of his meeting with officials from Amtrak’s planning and government affairs departments, “and we got some good news.”
Gov. M. Jodi Rell had publicly appealed to Simmons, who sits on the railroad subcommittee of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, for help last week, as the state faced a more than 600 percent increase in the access fee for Shoreline East.
The state’s operating agreement with Amtrak expires June 30, and Amtrak officials had proposed an increase in the fee from $847,000 to $5.3 million per year.
Under the agreement reached Wednesday, the current operating agreement will be extended six months, and the two sides will continue to negotiate a new access fee, according to Simmons, state officials and Amtrak.
“In the process of extending the deadline, we are ensuring continuity of service to our partners and customers in Connecticut,” said Cliff Black, an Amtrak spokesman.
In a statement released through her office, Rell expressed appreciation for what she called a “major achievement.”
“The governor asked the congressman to do it,” said a spokesman, Rich Harris, “and he did it.”
The continued subsidy for Amtrak operations, meanwhile, is far from a done deal.
The House is not expected to vote on its budget document until late Friday, and the Senate on Wednesday rejected an amendment, supported by Sens. Christopher J. Dodd and Joe Lieberman, Connecticut Democrats, which would have earmarked $1.4 billion for the rail line, meaning members of both chambers must still debate whether to approve the funding in their budget conference later in the spring.
Bush also is a potential obstacle. His budget proposal would have quickly broken up Amtrak by depriving it of its operating funds with the goal of having interested states step in to continue high-demand routes with a combination of government and private investment.
Simmons was among 21 Republicans who wrote to Rep. Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, to protest that approach and ask for “sufficient funding” for the railroad, which ran 46 trains per day carrying almost 1.4 million riders in Connecticut alone last year. That figure showed a significant increase in ridership since 2003, despite what Amtrak says is a barely adequate budget.
(The system also is hampered in southeastern Connecticut by the state Department of Environmental Protection, which limits trains in the summer to accommodate boat traffic at five moveable bridges, according to an Amtrak analysis.)
Simmons has fought to protect the Amtrak system but also has expressed interest in reforming the system, including the possibility of detaching the popular Northeast Corridor from longer, less-efficient routes or asking states to take ownership of the rails, stations and infrastructure.
Other rail supporters, such as former Massachusetts governor and Amtrak Chairman Michael Dukakis, have said such a break-up scheme would be “chaos.”
“It’s not a surprise that we are at our best in that part of the country where we own the infrastructure,” Dukakis said this week, referring to the Northeast Corridor.
Simmons sees dividing up some of Amtrak’s assets as a possible way to eliminate the burden of maintaining infrastructure from the cost of operating the train system, and argues that some of the longer train lines are wasting needed money.
“I think that Amtrak is running routes that are very expensive and have very low ridership, and there doesn’t appear to be a reason to run those routes,” he said.
But Bush’s solution, he said, was “kind of like killing the patient before taking him in for major surgery.”
“I think that there’s a pretty good understanding here on Capitol Hill that running a company like Amtrak into the ground is not the best way to bring about reorganization,” Simmons said.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, echoed those sentiments in an interview earlier this week, as did Dodd and Lieberman after the subsidy amendment failed.
“It won’t be easy restoring the Amtrak cuts in the Bush Administration’s budget, but I am committed to the fight along with others in our region who depend upon and believe in Amtrak,” Lieberman said in a written statement.
Dodd said in a written statement that he was “deeply troubled” by the vote to kill the Senate amendment, calling Amtrak “a vital transportation artery in Connecticut and the Northeast.”
“It does more than help transport commuters, it literally helps propel our economy forward,” Dodd said.
But, he added, “I have no illusions as to the difficulty of this fight because of the opposition of President Bush and the House and Senate Republican leadership.”