Amtrak President David L. Gunn yesterday asked Congress for $1.8 billion in aid for fiscal 2005, nearly twice the amount proposed by the Bush administration, and said the president's budget would force the national passenger rail system to shut down.
The White House last week asked Congress for $900 million to support Amtrak and repeated its call for the perennially money-losing rail system to make major reforms by pushing more costs onto states where it provides services. The administration said it will request up to $1.4 billion in future years if the rail system makes those changes.
"There should be no surprises" in Amtrak's larger request, said Gunn, who faced a nearly identical budgetary disconnect with the White House in each of the past two years and threatened to shut down the system in 2002. "We go through this dance that we're going through now every year."
Gunn said the Bush proposal would cover only operating costs and debt payments and would not cover $800 million needed for capital costs such as upgrading wood ties to concrete, replacing bridges and overhauling rail cars. He also defended the passenger rail system as showing improvements in financial performance and ridership, which reached a record 24 million last year.
Amtrak, which received $1.22 billion from Congress for the current fiscal year, has "slowly been able to rebuild confidence on [Capitol] Hill," Gunn said, indicating he thinks Congress will again provide funds necessary to avoid a shutdown. He pointed to Amtrak's reduction in the past year of more than 3,400 employees, leaving nearly 20,000; its elimination of unprofitable express freight and mail services; and its progress in making Amtrak's accounting and budgeting more transparent.
Amtrak has built relationships with several states that are willing to take on some costs to upgrade or improve high-speed rail services between metropolitan areas, such as San Diego-Los Angeles; Portland, Ore.-Seattle; and Philadelphia-Harrisburg, Pa., Amtrak officials said yesterday.
But the White House and some Republicans in Congress have called for much larger changes. Last year, the Bush administration proposed to spin off large portions of Amtrak, such as the Northeast Corridor from Boston to Washington; to open up some routes to competition; and to rely on states, not Amtrak, to determine service levels and to pay for more of the passenger rail costs.
Gunn, who said Amtrak will always run a deficit, characterized the Bush reorganization plan as "above his [Gunn's] head" and said the administration's budget request was "a political statement." Instead, he said, he was focused on his own multiyear plan to address critical repairs and operational efficiency.
Aides to lawmakers yesterday said it was unclear how much financial support Amtrak would receive. "Amtrak should secure local and state funding to help its handful of successful routes, rather than continuing heavy federal subsidies that we can't afford," Rep. Ernest J. Istook Jr. (R-Okla.), a supporter of the Bush plan and chairman of the House transportation and treasury subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, said in a statement.
A separate proposal being developed by Sens. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) would create a grant program for states to match funding for passenger rail programs. A more ambitious proposal by the same senators last year received strong bipartisan support but did not move ahead.
