(Reuters posted the following article on its website on April 9.)
WASHINGTON — The Transportation Department will tell Congress on Thursday that Amtrak funding should be sufficient to avert the kind of financial crisis that almost caused a rail shutdown last summer, a Bush administration official said.
Michael Jackson, the agency’s deputy secretary, will tell the House appropriations subcommittee on transportation that the nation’s passenger rail network can live within its budget.
“We can hold them financially accountable,” one senior Transportation Department official said on Wednesday. “This is a down payment on the structural reform Secretary (Norman) Mineta is talking about.”
Congress approved $1.05 billion in subsidies in February to carry Amtrak through the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Although it was less than the railroad sought, Amtrak officials said the amount was adequate to maintain service.
Frustrated with more than 30 years of Amtrak’s money-losing ways and last summer’s budget shortfall that nearly caused the railroad to begin a shut-down, the Transportation Department now has control of how much and when the railroad gets funding.
The agency will distribute a series of grants over the next several months to Amtrak, which must apply for its subsidies. The first was approved on Wednesday.