(The Washington Post published the following story by Don Phillips on its website on September 12.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The White House late today announced that it will nominate three new members to the Amtrak board of directors including former American Airlines Chairman Robert L. Crandall.
The other two nominees are former World Bank railways official Louis S. Thompson, an advocate of railroad privatization, and Floyd Hall, former chairman of K-Mart.
The three new nominees would replace two members whose terms expired June 25 — Meridian, Miss., Mayor John Robert Smth, former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis — and either former Virginia governor Lynwood Holton or Amy Rosen, whose terms expires Sept. 24.
The planned nominations come just as the Amtrak board approaches such a small number of people that it could be left without a quorum. In fact, a number of attorneys and Capitol Hill staffers argue that the board is already without a quorum because, technically, the terms of Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta and new Chairman David M. Laney also expired June 25. The Transportation Department contends the Mineta and Laney terms have not expired.
Initial rail labor reaction was negative, apparently guaranteeing a Senate nomination battle.
“These choices appear to us to stack the deck against Amtrak, its workers and its riders,” said Edward Wytkind, executive director of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department. “They obviously will be insiders wedded to advancing the administration’s plan to dismantle Amtrak and make the states foot the bill.”
The nominations come as Congress nears a decision on how much to appropriate to Amtrak for the next fiscal year. The House has approved $900 million and the Senate $1.35 billion, but Amtrak President David L. Gunn says he needs $1.8 billion to keep all services going and to spend the money necessary to improve Amrak’s deteriorating infrastructure.
Crandall retired from American Airlines in 1998, and now serves on several other boards including the Halliburton Co.
Crandall is recognized as one of aviation’s brightest pioneers. He created the computerized reservation in 1973, and created the first frequent flyer mileage program in 1975. Although he strongly opposed deregulation of the airlines, he used deregulation to triple American’s size and make it one of the world’s largest airlines.
Thompson is the only one of the three with extensive railroad experience. In fact, he was a policy and budget analyst at the Transportation Department in the late 1960s and early 1970s where he helped create Amtrak.
From 1978 to 1986, Thompson was on the staff of the Federal Railroad Administration where he was director of the Northeast Corridor Improvement Program, a $2.5 million program that was the government’s first attempt to modernize the Washington-Boston corridor.
Thompson went to the World Bank in 1986, where he led the privatization of railroads in Argentina, Mexico, Chile and Romania, and helped in the privatization of railroads in other parts of the world. He also helped lead railroad reconstruction in China, Russia and India. He retired from the bank earlier this year. Thompson has in the past advocated removing the Northeast Corridor infrastructure from Amtrak ownership.
Hall is a longtime Republican fundraiser and business executive who has helped nurse several ailing companies back to health, including the Singer Sewing Machine Co., Grand Union grocery stores and K-Mart. He also formed the Museum Company retail stores.