The Consolidated Appropriation Act 2021 including the Supplemental COVID Relief Bill

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jis

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Elsewhere it has been insinuated that the COVID Relief Bill contains foreign aid money. This misconception needs to be addressed. While general budget and appropriation priorities need to be discussed, it is probably not appropriate subject for an Amtrak specific forum except to say that if that money was not spent there it could theoretically be spent on Amtrak. But even that is a somewhat naive position since for example, foregin aid money is under State Department which is a different Title handled by a different Subcommittee from the one that does THUD. But that is also a separate discussion in civics.

More specifically, about the current appropriation bill..... The thing that is being referred to as the "COVID-19 Relief Bill" is actually just two divisions, "Division M" and "Division N" of the "Consolidated Appropriation Act 2021". The rest of the massive tome is the 2021 Appropriation for various government departments, including State Department which includes the foreign aid appropriations. So it is really not surprising that this bill contains that among other things.

Here are the FRA items affecting Amtrak numbers from the Bill.

The 2021 Consolidated Appropriations the numbers are (amounts available until expended):

1. SOGR $200M (State of Good Repait)
2. CRISI $375M (Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvement)

$75M reserved for new intercity passenger service
$25M reserved for prevention of trespassing related work

3. Maglev $2M
4. Restoration and Enhancement $4.72M
5. NEC $700M

$75M reserved for ADA jointly with National Account
$100M reserved for new cars (Amfleet I replacement) for use on NEC, State routes, and LD routes

6. National Network $1,300M

$50M reserved for safety and PTC where Amtrak is the only user of a freight railroad route.

There is also a net of about $700M rescinded, and covered in the appropriation, so the net appropriation appears to be larger than it actually is.


The COVID Supplemental numbers are (to be expended during the balance of FY2021:

NEC: $655.4M

$109.4M reserved for covering State payments

National $344.6M

$174.9M reserved for covering State payments in conjunction with the amounts reserved from the NEC account
State accounts should be credited with 7% of the cost for this period from the 2019 reconciled accounts.

FTA $14 B, breakdown between rail and rest will take some work. NY MAT apparently gets about $4 B.

Hope this helps all understand the lay of the land.

Of course, unless the President signs the bill, it expires on Jan 3 and the process begins afresh in the new Congress.

Hallelujah! The President signed the bill late on Sunday 12/27/20!
 
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$109.4M reserved for covering State payments
[snip]
$174.9M reserved for covering State payments in conjunction with the amounts reserved from the NEC account.
That's excellent news! It means that despite the rhetoric of "no assistance to State governments" in the relief bill, the prospect of state-sponsored services being the victim of covid-caused state budget cuts is reduced.

$75M reserved for new intercity passenger service.
That's pretty good too. Amtrak asked for $300 million annually for new services, but Congress hadn't approved anything for it (as I recall) until this.
 
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