Midland Valley,
It's always important to remember that Congress supports Amtrak as a whole, any congressman or cosponsor can generate any legislation that specifically manages any part of Amtrak. For example, a Congressman from the Dallas, TX area has a bill that requires Amtrak to abolish many long distance trains, like the Sunset Limited, Southwest Chief and even the Silver Star. Although the likelyhood of such a bill to even get out of committee is next to nothing, it still reminds everyone that micromanagement policy is an annual problem that plagues the development of a unified national passenger railroad policy.
On the flip side, Congress can legislate the preservation of a route and service, however, under the current Amtrak authorization legislation, the company is not bound to comply with the law if it doesn't receive any funding to back the legislated route or level or service (Amtrak Reform & Accoutability Act of 1997). This is one of the major reasons why many state supported trains are jeopardy when their respective state legislatures cut funding for their trains. Amtrak can't cover the state's portion without permission from Congress, which in it self is a micromanaging policy that puts, among others, the Michigan trains and their services in trouble due to political infighting in Lansing.
I believe that any micromanaging legistation for Amtrak is bad. It prevents Amtrak from seeking any type of business model to run the railroad. Today's Amtrak is a 35 year legacy of political pork and lack of vision for the passenger trains due to years of "government bureaucracy" style management. Until Amtrak is totally free and independent organization, it will continue to be nothing more than a huge Northeastern United States bureaucracy that runs "those trains" in the South and West. As long as Amtrak and passenger trains continue to be "subsidized" by the federal government, we'll never see any overall improvement in passenger railroading since Congressmen will fight for their districts and those who don't have trains will fight to kill those that don't benefit their constituents.
Although its a little off topic, the release of David Gunn is a prime example where Amtrak was succeeding as a "business" and the bureaucratic mentality of Amtrak sent him on his way as he was saving the company from mountains of debt, the lack of confidence Congress had for the company, the hundreds of "managers" and their salaries and bringing back that long lost concept: reliable service and equipment. That was too much for the bureaucrats and they sent him on his way as the board, middle managers and those wanting to destroy passenger trains lost control of the destiny of of the company: their goal to destroy Amtrak's trains, unionized labor force and put more passengers back onto highways and into the skies on airlines that receive millions in federally funded infrastructure networks (airports, etc.) and labor (FAA, TSA, etc.).