Panel says Amtrak needs to regroup

Panel says Amtrak needs to regroup
Fight expected over future of rail system

By Raphael Lewis, Globe Staff, 11/10/2001

A bipartisan federal panel yesterday declared that Amtrak will not achieve
financial independence by December 2002, as required by Congress, setting
the stage for a Capitol Hill showdown over the future of the nation's
passenger rail system.

The Amtrak Reform Council's largely party line vote of 6-5, with Republicans
emerging victorious, means that Amtrak has 90 days to draw up plans to
liquidate itself. The vote also gave the council 90 days to create a
blueprint for restructuring rail service.

Both plans will then go to Capitol Hill, where a deeply divided Congress is
embroiled in a debate on how best to deal with Amtrak's perennial losses and
crumbling system.

Amtrak, which was formed as a monopoly in 1970 and has since absorbed more
than $24 billion in federal subsidies, will continue providing rail service,
including the MBTA's commuter rail trains, said Transportation Secretary
Norman Y. Mineta.

Mineta stopped short of criticizing the outcome of the vote, but said the
council had acted prematurely.

''To me, the question is one of timing,'' Mineta said in a statement. ''The
Department of Transportation ... will issue a report on Amtrak's financial
situation later this month. We need to assess the full financial picture at
Amtrak carefully and work with Congress to implement effective reform.''

Amtrak officials said they were shocked, and pledged to work with lawmakers
to fashion a liquidation plan. But they decried the council's action as an
ill-advised attempt ''to limit Congress' role in making critical policy
choices about the future of passenger rail.''

Michael S. Dukakis, acting chairman of Amtrak, said the vote had little
practical meaning because the council's powers are advisory, and because
Congress is debating bills that would pump billions of dollars into both
Amtrak and a burgeoning system of high-speed rail services like the Acela
Express.

He also accused the council of voting in violation of the law; the council,
he said, is ''charged with taking account for national emergencies, like the
one President Bush has declared.''

Senator John F. Kerry, a member of the Senate Transportation Committee,
called the vote ''the latest episode in a long-term, ideology-driven effort
to cut Amtrak and let it wither on the vine.''

''I will do everything in my power not just to speak out against this absurd
effort, but to secure additional funds so that Amtrak can continue to
provide critical transportation services,'' said Kerry, a Massachusetts
Democrat.

Deputy Transportation Secretary Michael Jackson had pleaded with the council
to delay the vote until January, when Amtrak's 2001 budget could be examined
in its entirety, council members said. And according to one member, Chicago
lawyer James Coston, the board had consented.

''I thought we were all in agreement that this was an inappropriate time for
something like this, given that the airline industry is in a complete
uncontrolled meltdown and that we're at war,'' he said.

But the council's Republican majority pressed ahead with the vote, saying
they were obligated to tell Congress as soon as they knew that Amtrak would
not meet its deadline.

''Many of us felt things were deteriorating for Amtrak, and if we didn't say
what was obvious to so many people now, we would be failing in our duty to
the Congress,'' said Bruce Chapman, the president of a transportation policy
think tank and an appointee of former House speaker Newt Gingrich.

A Democrat, Milwaukee Mayor John O. Norquist, voted with the majority.
Norquist did not return calls, but fellow council member Wendell Cox,
another Gingrich appointee, said Norquist's vote was proof that ''this was a
bipartisan vote.''

But powerful Republicans were unhappy with the vote. Representative Jack
Quinn, the New York Republican who chairs the House subcommittee on
railroads, blasted the council's action. ''The Amtrak Reform Council's
decision could not have come at a worse time. After the attacks on Sept. 11,
thousands of Americans have come to depend on passenger rail service as an
essential component of our transportation network,'' he said.

The vote came as Amtrak enjoys record ridership, particularly in the
Northeast Corridor from Boston to Washington.

Bookings on the Acela Express train are up 40 percent since the hijackings,
and many long-distance trains have sold out sleeper cars for months in
advance.