Viewliner said:
Click
here for a good article which makes points in our favor that show how compitent David Gunn would be if he got funding.
Sadly,
it would appear that the letter fell on deaf ears in the House appropriations committee. They voted yesterday and approved only 762M for Amtrak. In addition they added the ridiculous condition that only 150M can be used to support Long Distance trains. LD trains currently require over 350M in support annually just to keep running.
So what they have cleverly done, or so they think, is to not stick their necks out and tell Amtrak what routes to cut like they were doing in the original draft. They've put the ball back into Amtrak's court so that David will have to make the tough decisions and be the fall guy for cutting LD trains. Apparently they haven't been listening to David Gunn very carefully. He's told them time and time again, that he won't cut any LD trains unless Congress specifically tells him what trains to cut.
Should this bill make it through the whole House, something that could happen but still seems unlikely, it would then have to be reconciled with the Senate version. So that provision could still be taken out during the reconciliation process.
Regardless of the outcome over the LD provision, if the House does not up the total appropriation to the 1.2B, they won't have to worry about what LD trains get cut. There won't be an Amtrak, as David will have closed the doors.
He’s also told Congress time and time again, that he can’t have anything less than 1.2B otherwise he will be forced to shutdown Amtrak.
He can't run Amtrak with anything less than 1.2B; and cutting 2, 3, or more LD trains isn't going to save him any money this year. So Amtrak will still run out of money before the end of the year, if they are only given 762M.
Stay tuned, it looks like it’s going to be another interesting ride!