WASHINGTON — According to Reuters, Amtrak president David Gunn warned Congress on Wednesday the U.S. national passenger railroad could begin a shutdown within months if lawmakers made wholesale cuts in his request for $1.2 billion in funding.
The railroad threatened a similar shutdown during its budget crisis last summer, which was resolved before any service disruption with a $300 million package of loans and cash from the government to maintain operations.
In a statement, Gunn criticized proposals now working their way through the House of Representatives and Senate that would reduce his spending request for the current fiscal year by about a third.
“Amtrak will have no other choice but an orderly shutdown of all service this spring or sooner,” Gunn warned lawmakers if their final funding target for the nation’s only city-to-city passenger rail service was not substantially increased.
Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat and outgoing chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee on transportation, plans to offer an amendment to an omnibus spending bill for fiscal 2003 that would match Gunn’s request for $1.2 billion.
That was the amount her panel and the full Appropriations Committee approved last year during consideration of a transportation spending bill. But that measure was never approved before the end of the last Congress, and the new Republican-controlled Senate has now proposed a reduction in Amtrak funding to $826 million.
A plan being weighed in the House would fund Amtrak at $762 million.
While the Bush administration has said it wants to avoid any shutdowns, it is crafting a formal inter-city passenger rail plan that would mandate business reforms, make states pay more for service and open some Amtrak routes to private competition.
Amtrak has never made money in its 32-year history and is mired in debt. Its service does not generate enough revenue to support operations and pay for capital improvements.
Since Gunn took over the railroad last spring, he has instituted a number of reforms, eliminated unprofitable business ventures, cut staff and found other cost savings.