(The following article by Paul J. Nyden was posted on the Charleston Gazette website on February 9.)
CHARLESTON, WVa. — The future of Amtrak, whose Cardinal Line runs through Charleston, might once again be in jeopardy.
Amtrak’s Cardinal connects Chicago with Washington, D.C. It travels through Southern West Virginia, stopping in Huntington, Charleston, Montgomery, Thurmond, Prince, Hinton and White Sulphur Springs.
Rep. Nick J. Rahall, D-W.Va., said the new $2.7 trillion budget the Bush administration sent to Congress on Monday “could do significant harm to America’s transportation infrastructure” by severely underfunding several transportation programs.
The proposed budget includes cuts that would take away $415 million from Amtrak, $77 million from rural airports and $950 million from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Airport Improvement Program.
Rahall, who helped lead past efforts to keep Amtrak running, asked on Tuesday, “When are folks going to learn that Amtrak is essential to meeting the transportation needs of our citizens, particularly in the form of the Cardinal Line?”
The new budget provides no federal funds for Amtrak’s daily operations. After Bush tried to do the same thing last year, Congress voted to restore $1.3 billion to save the Amtrak railroad system.
“The GOP leadership in Washington is willing to invest in railroads, highways and airports in Iraq, but refuses to come up with the needed investments here in America to keep our transportation infrastructure from crumbling beneath our feet,” Rahall said.
“Had they had their way, millions of Americans would have been left on the platform with no trains in sight, forced to find another more expensive, less efficient way to travel. Fortunately, we stopped them last year, and I’m confident we’ll do so again.”
Amtrak has several powerful advocates in the Senate, including Sens. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va.; Arlen Specter, R-Pa.; and Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss.
Byrd also criticized proposed budget cuts on a wide variety of programs, including transportation, education, health and homeland security, especially for first responders like firemen and police officers.
“The [Bush] administration’s budget would rather pay $10.4 billion for a pie-in-the-sky missile defense system than for our communities’ first line of homeland defense.
“It appears that the White House has learned no lessons from the dismal response to Hurricane Katrina,” Byrd said on Tuesday.
“Once again, West Virginia families are given the short end of the stick from the White House. It will take hard work from congressional Republicans and Democrats alike to restore some common sense to America’s budget priorities.”