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     The Amtrak Board of Directors, which currently consists of four Bush Administration appointees, has alarmed rail advocates by missing a Feb 15 deadline for submitting a budget proposal for Amtrak. Rail advocates interpret this as indicating that the Board is leaning toward the Administration plan of vastly reorganizing Amtrak with an aim to ending the national system and keeping only a few corridors in heavily populated areas. The Administration aims to force Amtrak into bankruptcy in order to take control of the rail corporation and trim it down or kill it off.

     On the other hand, 35 Senators have prepared a letter highly supportive of full funding for Amtrak in the 2006 fiscal year, which begins Oct 1.

DOT SECRETARY MINETA DELIVERS MAJOR STATEMENT ON BUSH PROPOSAL FOR AMTRAK

   DOT Secretary Norman Mineta held a press conference Feb 14 at Chicago Union Station while rail advocates demonstrated outside for full Amtrak funding. Mineta's remarks can be found here: http://www.dot.gov/affairs/minetasp02142005.htm

   Responding to Mineta, the National Association of Railroad Passengers said "NARP is encouraged to hear that the DOT is supporting the concept of a federal funding match for rail infrastructure investment. However, we are concerned about many other elements of Mineta's speech, including the statements that Amtrak:
  a. '(runs) trains that nobody rides between cities that nobody wants to travel between' (despite clear statistical proof to the contrary--both in ridership and passenger-miles) and
  b. that Amtrak 'could actually save money by not running the train and buying the riders an airplane ticket instead' (which ignores the fact that hundreds of Amtrak cities not only have no commercial airline service, but do not have an airport within fifty miles of their city and that many Americans cannot or choose not to fly)."

   The Mineta talk was in part an apparent effort to counter the many voices that quickly arose in strong support of Amtrak after the Feb. 7 announcement of Bush's zero Amtrak budget. NARP also reported that a letter with the signatures of 35 Senators to Senate budget leaders in support of full Amtrak funding was delivered today. The letter was written by Senators Burns and Lautenberg.

   Though Amtrak's budget may be zeroed out, highways are proposed to receive a massive funding increase. 

   While the DOT is complaining about "nobody" riding trains, the fact is that Amtrak patronage has increased to a new record level in the past year. This fact has been well-publicized in the media, and may be a strong talking point for Amtrak support. Not only ridership but also political support from citizens, state and local officials has been steadily increasing, making it harder to kill Amtrak without vast political fallout.

BUSH BUDGET WITH NO AMTRAK MONEY GALVANIZES SUPPORTERS

2006 DOT BUDGET WOULD ELIMINATE ALL INTERCITY PASSENGER
RAIL SERVICE

The Administration's Fiscal 2006 budget proposal eliminates all funding
for Amtrak. The National Association of Railroad Passengers condemns
this proposal as radical and irresponsible.

It would end virtually all intercity rail passenger service in the
nation, including through service on the Northeast Corridor between
Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. This places the burden of funding
intercity passenger rail entirely on states that do not have the
financial resources to assume such an unfunded mandate.

States with limited resources would place first priority on saving the
commuter operations within their borders. The $360 million the
Administration proposes is to allow freight and local commuter rail
operations over the Northeast Corridor to continue. It is not clear that
this would be enough to accomplish these purposes, and not even the
Administration claims it would allow continuation of any Amtrak trains.

Past experience suggests that the only way to fund services which cross
multiple state lines is at the federal level.

The Bush Administration misleads the public by saying that a
"restructuring" based on zero federal support "should lead to the
development of short-corridor routes between major population centers."

On the contrary, the existing system has provided the framework and
infrastructure for the significant corridor development we have seen on
the West Coast, the Midwest, and in upstate New York.

Eliminating Amtrak would jeopardize many of those improvements, and
would preclude the possibility of improvements elsewhere. It completely
disregards the nation's growing need for the rail travel alternative.

Even if every short-distance corridor survived, the resulting "network"
would be four isolated units serving a total of 21 states. Travel
options would be dramatically reduced even in those states.

Administration claims that an Amtrak bankruptcy would eliminate
"inefficient operations" and lead to the emergence of a "more rational"

passenger rail system that served routes where there is "real ridership
demand" and "support from local governments--such as the Northeast
Corridor" are false.

Clearly they are targeting Amtrak's long distance services and
misrepresenting crucial facts.

*Far from lacking demand, the long distance routes handle 59% more
travel than the Northeast Corridor (NEC). In FY 2004, the long-distance
routes accounted for 2.7 billion passenger-miles, the Northeast Corridor
for 1.7 billion. (A passenger-mile is one passenger traveling one mile.)

*The per-passenger-mile operating grant required for conventional,
Northeast Corridor trains is comparable to that of the long-distance
network. It is a common misconception that the long distance trains are
"money losers" while the NEC trains are "profitable." None is, including
the new high speed Acela Express.

*The amount of federal funding needed to run the entire, nationwide
network is only about 20% greater than what would be required to run the
Northeast Corridor alone.

The Administration compares $521 million in FY 2001 federal funding with
$1.2 billion in FY 2004 to imply that things have skyrocketted out of
control. The numbers below show that FY 2001 was the aberration, not FY
2005. (The first two years also include separate Northeast Corridor
capital funding.)

Federal funding for Amtrak

FY 1997 -- $842.5 million
FY 1998 -- $1.7 billion
FY 1999 -- $1.7 billion
FY 2000 -- $571 million
FY 2001 -- $521 million
FY 2002 -- $826.5 million
FY 2003 -- $1.0 billion
FY 2004 -- $1.2 billion
FY 2005 -- $1.2 billion

The low funding in FY 2000-2001 allowed for no capital investment and
helped create today's deferred capital problem.

One indication that the Administration is not serious about intercity
passenger rail of any kind is the zeroing out of the Federal Railroad
Administration's "next generation high speed rail" programs of research,
development, planning, and technology demonstration. This modest program
was funded at $39 million in FY04 and $31 million in FY05.
-----------------------------------------
     Individual rail advocates, besides contacting their legislators with messages of support for Amtrak, can join the National Association of Railroad Passengers, the only nationwide organization fully devoted to advocating Amtrak support.

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