(The followng article by Don Phillips appeared in the Washington Post on Febrayr 18.)
WASHINGTON — Congress has approved enough money for Amtrak to limp through the rest of this fiscal year without the threat of a shutdown, but lawmakers attached confusing conditions that appear to shift responsibility for canceling politically popular long-distance routes from Congress to the Bush administration.
Now the administration — which has advocated a massive reorganization of the money-losing train service but taken few steps to carry it out — is struggling to determine what powers the sometimes contradictory new conditions give it. And it then must decide whether to use the powers.
One condition is clear: Rather than going directly to Amtrak, federal funds will now filter through Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta. That means the government must hurry to set up a grant process because Amtrak has only enough cash to operate for five to six weeks.
“Amtrak and DOT must now immediately work to expeditiously establish grant procedures so that the funding and operations of the national passenger railroad system continue uninterrupted,” Amtrak said in a statement.
Amtrak was allotted $1.05 billion in a compromise $397.4 billion spending bill passed last week to keep most of the government running through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. It was a victory for Amtrak partisans in the Senate, which had voted to give Amtrak President David L. Gunn the full $1.2 billion he requested — particularly because it also delayed repayment of a $100 million federal loan that would have been taken from Amtrak’s appropriation.
The funding decision was a defeat for some House Republicans, led by Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), whose Appropriations subcommittee had voted to limit Amtrak to $762 million, an amount Gunn insisted would force the railroad to shut down this spring.
In addition to giving the Transportation Department grant authority, the conditions attached to the fiscal 2003 bill require Amtrak to establish a detailed business plan with monthly reports, something Gunn is already doing.
The conditions also say the administration must withhold enough money to keep operating commuter railroads that contract with Amtrak to run their trains, even if Amtrak has to shut down for lack of money. But key staff people said it is unclear how that would work because the federal government does not have the power to force anyone to spend the money.
There are only hints as to how the administration would use its powers to eliminate trains, if indeed it has the power. The president’s 2004 budget is highly critical of long-distance trains, listing several routes that “lose hundreds of dollars each time a passenger steps aboard.” Gunn is already eliminating two of those trains, the Kentucky Cardinal between Indianapolis and Louisville and the Chicago to Pittsburgh portion of the Pennsylvanian.
The other four are the Los Angeles-Orlando Sunset Limited, the San Antonio-Chicago Texas Eagle, the New York-Chicago Three Rivers and the Los Angeles-Chicago Southwest Chief.
One of the conditions appears to give Mineta the power to drop some long-distance trains by withholding grant money from individual routes. However, another section of the conditions says that Mineta “shall approve funding” for long-distance trains after “receiving and reviewing” Amtrak’s grant applications. Until changed at the last minute, the conditions said “receiving and approving.”
That change allowed both sides in Congress to claim victory and move on, one source said.
Left unclear is whether Amtrak, and therefore now the administration, still must give six-month notice before eliminating a route.
The National Association of Railroad Passengers reacted mildly to the conditions, noting that the administration did not ask for the long-distance language. Executive Director Ross B. Capon said in a statement that the conditions will “force Amtrak and the Department of Transportation to work closely together.”
A close working relationship “should give DOT a greater understanding of where the money goes, how costs are allocated among Amtrak’s routes, and which costs will not disappear” if a route is abandoned, Capon said.
Sources familiar with House-Senate deliberations said they grew heated over the Amtrak issue, and it became clear to Amtrak’s friends that they would have to give in on the issue of conditions.
“Rogers was going to have his pound of flesh,” said one source. This was the last time that Rogers will deal directly with Amtrak because he is switching to the Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security.
The sources said Rogers was angry not so much with the Senate as with the administration. Several sources said the Transportation Department refused to even discuss the proposed conditions, telling Rogers and others that the proper way to handle Amtrak “reform” was in an upcoming Amtrak reauthorization bill. Rogers was also reported to be angry that the administration had promised for more than a year to submit a detailed reform plan for Amtrak, but had not.
Weary of dealing with repeated Amtrak crises, the sources said, key lawmakers drew up the new conditions in an effort to take the hardest decisions away from Congress and dump them on the administration.
“It was all about pushing this down the street to the Department of Transportation building,” said one source.
A senior administration official said no one could comment for now because staff members had not yet determined exactly what the conditions say. Other key participants, including Rogers, were either traveling for the holiday or did not return calls.