Amtrak Awaits New Offer From Administration but May Oppose Demand for Reforms

AP, TBO.com ^ | Jun 26, 2002 | By Laurence Arnold

[greydog]

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration suggested Wednesday it is close to proposing a plan to help Amtrak through its budget crisis, but an Amtrak supporter on Capitol Hill said the plan should not have too many strings attached.

Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta called a late-afternoon meeting of Amtrak's governing board to continue discussions over how to avert a rail service shutdown now threatened for the end of next week.

Amtrak has asked the Transportation Department for a loan guarantee to help it obtain $200 million it needs to survive through September. The national passenger railway now says that without the money, it will begin shutting down on July 4 or 5.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., met at midday with Amtrak President David Gunn. He said Gunn expressed concern that the administration's next proposal would require reforms at Amtrak that are "beyond some obvious things that need to be done."

"I would oppose dramatic reforms of Amtrak as part of the cost of survival," Durbin said, "and I hope the Amtrak board would oppose them too."

Gunn, on the job since May, has already ordered a cost-cutting reorganization and has promised to make Amtrak's books more open to outside scrutiny.

But Mineta last week outlined a series of wider-reaching reforms that the administration wants Amtrak to make. Amtrak critics praised Mineta's proposals as long overdue. Amtrak last year lost $1.1 billion.

But Amtrak's supporters on Capitol Hill have criticized many of the ideas, including ending federal operating subsidies to Amtrak, introducing competition, making states more responsible for paying for train service, and replacing Amtrak as owner of the Boston-to-Washington Northeast Corridor.

Transportation Department spokesman Leonardo Alcivar said Mineta called Wednesday's meeting "another continuation of our discussion," not a time for a definitive final proposal to Amtrak's leaders.

Earlier in the day, Mineta told a group of Republicans that he hoped to reach a solution "by the close of business today" and that he would meet with senior White House officials about the crisis.

Mineta said the administration was prepared to help Amtrak get a loan of $102 million to $270 million and would not demand unreasonable reforms in exchange for the money.

"It seems to me in that kind of a short-term situation, we ought not to be imposing a whole list of conditions that ought to be considered in the long term," he said. "What we've got to deal with is more short-term."

Amtrak's board last met with Mineta on Monday. Mineta has a seat on the seven-member board but sends a deputy to most meetings.

At Monday's session, Gunn said, Mineta proposed a loan guarantee to help Amtrak get about $100 million - half the amount it says it needs - along with a series of "self-help-type actions" Amtrak could take to make up the remainder.

One of many options broached by Mineta, Gunn said, was to mortgage Chicago's Union Station, which Amtrak owns. Gunn said Amtrak officials reviewed that suggestion and others but quickly ruled them out as impractical or not helpful.

Amtrak originally said it could begin shutting down its system as early as Wednesday of this week, but the deadline arrived with the trains still running.

Amtrak trains carried about 65,000 riders a day last year, about half of them in the Northeast Corridor. An Amtrak shutdown would affect not only Amtrak but also several commuter lines, which either run on Amtrak-owned tracks and tunnels or are operated by Amtrak.

Lawmakers of both parties are still trying to include $205 million for Amtrak in a supplemental spending bill now being negotiated by the Senate, House and the Bush administration.

[greydog]

But Amtrak's supporters on Capitol Hill have criticized many of the ideas, including ending federal operating subsidies to Amtrak, introducing competition, making states more responsible for paying for train service

This "business" has been operating for some 30 odd years and has never shown a profit.

And now they are aghast at the idea that competition may be a requirement for another ($200 mil this time) bailout.

[reformed_democrat]

"I would oppose dramatic reforms of Amtrak as part of the cost of survival," Durbin said, "and I hope the Amtrak board would oppose them too."

Of all the idiotic things Durbin has said, this one is breathtakingly stupid.

I would oppose dramatic reforms of Amtrak as part of the cost of survival
or
I would oppose fixing my furnace in order to heat my house this winter,
or
I would oppose earning money in order to pay my mortgage.

Nuts. The guy is just plain nuts.