Amtrak gets more money to keep running
The US Senate agreed to a $11.4 billion bill to keep Amtrak, America’s money-losing national passenger railway system, running for another six years.
“When we give Amtrak the resources it needs, more Americans take the train,” said bill sponsor Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. “When travelers choose the energy efficiency of rail over cars and planes, they reduce gridlock, help combat global warming and even reduce our reliance on foreign oil.”
The bill, passed 70-22, also outlines steps to shrink Amtrak’s reliance on taxpayer dollars, with a goal of cutting operating costs by 40% over six years.
The Bush administration opposes the bill because, the AP said, it falls short of demands that Amtrak first carry out more fundamental changes, including allocating resources based on passenger rail service demand, opening up to competition and investing more in the moneymaking Northeast Corridor.
Amtrak, created by Congress in 1970, last year carried nearly 26 million passengers, a record.
In fiscal year 2006 the railway earned about $2 billion and incurred about $3 billion in expenses. Congress in 1997 passed an Amtrak overhaul bill that was supposed to have put the railway on a path to self-sufficiency by 2003.
The new bill directs the Treasury secretary to try to refinance Amtrak’s $3 billion in outstanding debt and requires a new accounting system to improve Amtrak’s transparency and cost convtrols, said the AP.
The Senate rejected amendments that would have more directly linked Amtrak’s future to reducing red ink.
Report by David Wilkening
David
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