FY 2022: Administration Proposes $2.7B for Amtrak

[Josh M]

Something new to add to all the previous discussions about funding for Amtrak that have come up on here over the last few weeks: today, the Biden Administration released the short version of their FY 2022 discretionary budget request. (The full budget request will come later.)

See here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/FY2022-Discretionary-Request.pdf

Pertinent for our purposes, on page 27 of the request (i.e., page 44 of 58 on the PDF that opens), the proposal is for an annual discretionary appropriation of $2.7 billion for Amtrak, a 35% increase from the last appropriated amount (which I believe was about $2.0 billion for the last fiscal year appropriated, FY 2020). This is independent of any amounts contained in the American Rescue Plan Act or in the proposed American Jobs Act.

 

[zephyr17]

That is nice, and a good statement of intentions, but it doesn't mean much. Administration budgets are typically DOA on Capitol Hill, no matter which parties hold the Hill and the White House.

 

[Dakota 400]

That is nice, and a good statement of intentions, but it doesn't mean much. Administration budgets are typically DOA on Capitol Hill, no matter which parties hold the Hill and the White House.

True, but it is a clear indication of the Administration's priorities.

 

[MARC Rider]

Anybody remember what the Amtrak budget request was from the Obama administration for the first two years (when Congress was controlled by the same party as the President)? And then what was the actual amount appropriated by Congress?

It might also be interesting to see what the budget requests were for the rest of the Obama administration and what a Congress controlled by the Opposition actually appropriated.

 

[chrsjrcj]

I’m more interested to know if the bulk of that increase is going towards the NEC or National Network.

 

[Josh M]

Anybody remember what the Amtrak budget request was from the Obama administration for the first two years (when Congress was controlled by the same party as the President)? And then what was the actual amount appropriated by Congress?

It might also be interesting to see what the budget requests were for the rest of the Obama administration and what a Congress controlled by the Opposition actually appropriated.

I found historical budget proposals here: govinfo

I had to go through the Appendices for both FY 2010 and FY 2011, the first two proposals under the Obama Administration, and add some numbers, but it looks like the budget proposals in both years totaled roughly $1.5 billion per year.

According to this table from the FRA (Federal Grants to Amtrak | FRA), it looks like what was proposed/requested by the Obama Administration was roughly in line with what Congress ended up appropriating. (Note: according to the appendix for FY 2011, that year they split off the funding for the Amtrak Inspector General into a separate account for the first time, and I don't know if that line item is reflected as part of the FY 2011 total on the FRA page.)

I'll go through some of the later budgets this weekend and see what it looked like after Congress switched hands.

 

[jis]

Do not ignore the $1 Billion new passenger rail grant program and CRISI. Quite a bit of that will help establish new services and service extensions.