(The following story by Ted Monoson appeared on the Billings Gazette website on August 14.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Montana senators on Friday called on fellow lawmakers to reject a Bush administration proposal to cut millions of dollars from Amtrak’s budget.
The Bush administration has requested $900 million for the passenger railroad service for fiscal year 2005. Amtrak’s budget for fiscal year 2004 was $1.2 billion.
A letter signed by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., and 48 colleagues urged members of the Senate Appropriations Committee to provide Amtrak with $1.8 billion for fiscal year 2005.
Burns is a member of the Appropriations Committee and has consistently supported Amtrak.
Baucus and Burns noted the importance of the Empire Builder, which runs across Montana’s Hi-Line.
“Year after year, we have to fight for Amtrak because some folks don’t understand how critically important it is to jobs and our state’s economy,” Baucus said. “Amtrak is truly a lifeline for the Hi-Line, and I’m proud to team up with Senator Burns to secure the funding it needs to continue providing quality service in Montana.”
Burns said many people from outside the state do not recognize the important role Amtrak plays in Montana.
“Amtrak service is and has long been an integral part of making sure that we can move people and products across the state, and I have always stood firmly behind the need to keep it fully funded and functioning properly,” Burns said.
Amtrak CEO David Gunn has said he needs $1.8 billion to operate the railroad.
“In the past two years, Amtrak’s financial picture has been one of steady improvement,” the senators wrote in the letter. “Amtrak has refocused its efforts on its core business … Amtrak’s CEO, David Gunn, has set forth an aggressive and much-needed five-year capital plan that will restore the railroad’s existing plant and equipment.”
Besides cutting the amount of money the passenger rail service receives, President Bush’s proposal calls on Amtrak to pay off a $100 million federal loan that had been deferred and to spend $500 million improving the section of rail between Washington, D.C., and Boston known as the Northeast Corridor.
On July 15, a House Appropriations Committee panel agreed with Bush’s call to provide Amtrak with $900 million, as well as pay off the loan and make the improvements.
The House panel’s proposal still must be approved by the full committee and the entire House. That bill would then be reconciled with a Senate-passed measure and sent to President Bush.
Amtrak was created by Congress in 1970 and combined the assets of several railroads that were going to drop passenger service. The law requires Amtrak to be self-sufficient and turn a profit. The railroad has failed to live up to the mandate.
Burns and three fellow Republican senators – Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, Trent Lott of Mississippi and Olympia Snowe of Maine – have offered a long-term proposal for saving Amtrak.
Their plan would authorize $60 billion for Amtrak over six years, with $12 billion coming from the federal treasury and $48 billion from tax credit bonds issued by a nonprofit corporation that the bill would create.
States would have to match 20 percent of the value of the money they received from the bonds, and the money would be used for repairs and infrastructure improvements.