Posted on 06/27/2002 5:58:50 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Amtrak, Bush Admin. Reach Agreement Amtrak, Bush Administration Reach Tentative Agreement to Keep Trains Running
The Associated Press
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• Where Does Personality Come From? W A S H I N G T O N, June 26 — Amtrak and the Bush administration reached tentative agreement Wednesday night on a plan for resolving a budget crisis that could have shut down the national passenger railroad next week.
Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta and Amtrak Chairman John Robert Smith released a joint statement reporting "excellent progress" in their discussions on how to help the railroad close a $200 million budget shortfall.
"Significant details are still being finalized, and no final agreement has been signed," they said. "We are confident that, with congressional support, Amtrak services will not be disrupted."
Amtrak had turned to the Bush administration and Congress for help in averting a shutdown. The proposed resolution counts on action from both.
Mineta and Smith said the Transportation Department will provide the immediate financial assistance needed to keep the trains running. Amtrak has been seeking a loan guarantee from the department to help it borrow money to stay in business.
Amtrak and the Transportation Department also will jointly request action by Congress, which has the power to appropriate money to the railroad.
Mineta and Smith said the tentative agreement would improve Amtrak's financial discipline and performance, make Amtrak's finances and operations more open to public scrutiny and give federal officials a better understanding of its long-term prospects.
"It's a good compromise part loan, part grant," said Rep. Jack Quinn, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Transportation subcommittee on railroads.
Some Amtrak backers had fretted that the administration would condition help on major changes to Amtrak.
Mineta last week outlined a series of wide-reaching reforms, including ending federal operating subsidies to Amtrak, introducing competition and making states more responsible for paying for train service.
"I would oppose dramatic reforms of Amtrak as part of the cost of survival," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said earlier Wednesday, "and I hope the Amtrak board would oppose them, too."
But Mineta told a group of Republican lawmakers Wednesday morning that the administration would not make any unreasonable demands.
"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.
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 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 impracticable or not helpful.
The tentative deal struck Wednesday still has the Transportation Department providing about $100 million immediately. But it envisions Congress providing the rest, rather than Amtrak finding the money itself.
Lawmakers of both parties already have been trying to include $205 million for Amtrak in a $30.4 billion anti-terrorism spending bill now being negotiated by the Senate, House and the Bush administration.
The tentative deal was announced after Amtrak board members and Transportation Department officials met for several hours behind closed doors.
Amtrak had warned it would have to begin shutting down service as early as July 4 or 5 without the needed money. It originally said the shutdown could begin as early as this week.
Amtrak trains carried about 65,000 riders each day last year, about half of them in its Boston-New York-Washington corridor.
An Amtrak shutdown would also affect several commuter lines, which either run on Amtrak-owned tracks and tunnels or are operated by Amtrak.
On the Net:
Amtrak: http://www.amtrak.com
Transportation Department: http://www.dot.gov
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