WASHINGTON, D.C. — The House Appropriations Committee, voting along party lines, defeated an effort to give Amtrak the $1.2 billion the railroad says it needs next year and pushed through an amendment that threatens many — perhaps all — long-distance trains, the Washington Post reported.
The Republican bill would give Amtrak $760 million in subsidies next year, about $500 million less than a Senate proposal, and is likely to be modified in a compromise bill. But it directly challenges Amtrak management’s efforts to stabilize the 31-year-old railroad, which has never earned a profit.
Amtrak said the bill, which the committee is likely to approve next week and send to the House floor, would cripple the railroad and prompt a cash crisis similar to the one that left passenger-train service within days of a nationwide shutdown in July.
But Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), chairman of the subcommittee on transportation, said $1.2 billion “would reward Amtrak for their poor management and poor performance.” The railroad received $826 million this fiscal year.
Rogers also said a larger subsidy would stretch the transportation appropriations bill too thin and result in the bill’s defeat when it comes before the full House.
House Democrats said the cuts would force Amtrak to beg for money next year and accused Republicans of forcing Amtrak to made decisions about politically sensitive route cuts.
Republicans had sought to terminate federal funding to any train route that required a subsidy of more than $200 per passenger on a normal run, which could have closed six train lines. But after about two hours of debate, the committee voted to strike that provision and replace it with language providing $150 million for all long-distance routes — a limit that Amtrak officials said probably would mean the end of all long-distance trains.
The six trains that would have been cut in the original bill run through the districts of several key Republicans who face tight races for reelection.
“You are drawing a veil across an action we are taking,” said Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), the ranking Democrat on the committee. “It’s just taking a little longer for communities to understand what Congress is doing to them.”
In setting the $150 million figure, committee Republicans apparently accepted early Amtrak estimates that long-distance trains receive $200 million in operating subsidies each year.
That figure, however, was based on Amtrak’s peculiar accounting, in which operating funds can sometimes be disguised as capital funds. Amtrak President David Gunn has said he will no longer permit such accounting, and under generally accepted accounting principles, long-distance subsidies are much higher.
In addition, Amtrak officials said, simply cutting a few trains saves little money. Some operating expenses may be saved, but much of its operating expense is in other areas such as stations, maintenance shops and reservations centers. Those expenses would then have to be spread among fewer trains, raising those trains’ per-passenger losses.
The National Association of Railroad Passengers, in a letter to the House committee this week, said shutdowns of long-distance trains would paralyze inter-city travel.
“The existing system is so skeletal that elimination of any major route means total cessation of service to entire states and major metropolitan areas,” the letter said.
Democrats who opposed the cuts said yesterday that eliminating routes would not save Amtrak money during the next fiscal year. The railroad is obligated under its labor contracts to pay crew members who lose their jobs up to six years of salary. Those payments alone could amount to more than $150 million, at least in the first year.
The revised bill will spare many House Republicans the political complications of voting to eliminate specific lines that run through their districts. One of them is Anne Meagher Northup (R-Ky.), who faces a tough reelection battle. Under the original Republican bill, Louisville would have lost the Kentucky Cardinal just months after state officials talked Amtrak into extending the route across the Ohio River from its former station in Jeffersonville, Ind.
“This bill will give people in my community a chance to weigh in,” said Northup, who voted with 34 other Republicans for the $760 million budget. “I hope we will pull the subsidy to below $200 per rider.”