NARP: Transport fund plan could hurt Amtrak

The National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP) says Amtrak, along with high speed rail projects, could lose out financially if President Obama’s proposal for a rail account in a new transportation trust fund is advanced.

The proposal for funding a new six-year surface transportation law, to succeed the current SAFETEA-LU, would end direct operating subsidies to Amtrak and for the first time include rail programs in what is often referred to in Capitol Hill shorthand as the “highway bill.” SAFETEA-LU was to expire on Sept. 30, 2009, but was extended several times until allowed to expire by Congress on January 12.

Passenger rail operations have been excluded from every surface transportation bill enacted by Congress since the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, or ISTEA, was signed by President George H.W. Bush in late 1991. 

In fiscal year 2010, Amtrak received $1.57 billion in capital and debt service grants, and operating support, more than double the amount it had received in some previous years.

Getting rail funding “on the table where it’s harder to forget is a good thing, but it will be interesting to see where the funding comes from,” said Ross Capon, president of the National Association of Railroad Passengers, based in Washington. “If the implication here is we’re going to try to shoehorn a size-26 foot into a size-16 shoe it’s not going to work.”

Capon was referring to the current shortfall in the highway trust fund, which relies on revenue from the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal fuels tax.

Under the President’s plan the high speed rail account would be divided into $4.05 billion for “system preservation and renewal” in fiscal 2012 and $4 billion for network development. The Northeast Corridor Improvement program, which provides capital funding for passenger rail service between Washington and Boston, would have to compete for money beginning in fiscal 2012.