Administration: Derail Amtrak

The Bush administration is aligning itself with critics who want to end Amtrak's role as the nation's sole operator of intercity passenger trains.

"The last three decades have proved that Amtrak's model of a national network of passenger rail is just not sustainable without massive, continued federal support," Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta said Thursday in a speech outlining the administration's principles for reform.

The long-awaited administration plan would open the door to competition while giving states more authority over rail service, as well as more responsibility to pay for it.

It would gradually remove Amtrak as owner of 366 miles of tracks in the Boston-Washington corridor and put them under the control of an unspecified public partnership.

Some Amtrak jobs eventually could be assigned to outside companies by contract, and failing routes could be eliminated unless states want to pay for them.

"Prices and passengers, not politics, should direct the service," Mineta said in his speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

But Mineta did not offer concrete solutions to Amtrak's immediate financial crisis, which could lead to a nationwide shutdown of intercity trains within weeks.

Amtrak President David Gunn is making preparations for an orderly but abrupt cessation of service if the railroad is unable to close a $200 million budget shortfall.

Gunn on Monday asked the Federal Railroad Administration to help it get the money by granting a loan guarantee. Mineta said the administration is reviewing the request.

"We're going to try everything possible to make sure Amtrak is running," Mineta said.

Lawmakers had pressed the White House for months to outline its ideas for Amtrak and for passenger rail. Congress is to vote this year on Amtrak's future.

The administration's ideas reflect several suggestions of the Amtrak Reform Council, which Congress formed in 1997 to monitor Amtrak's finances.

The council, a major critic of Amtrak's current structure and management, recommended breaking up the rail company and shifting much of its duties to states and private companies, effectively ending Amtrak's three-decade monopoly over intercity train service.

While the White House plan would give the nation's governors more authority over passenger train service, it also may force them to pick up more of the tab. According to the Amtrak Reform Council, Amtrak spent roughly $2.3 billion to operate its trains last year, and states kicked in about $123 million.

The idea of breaking up Amtrak has not proved popular in Congress, however.

Gunn, in testimony prepared for delivery to a Senate subcommittee hearing Thursday afternoon, said the current Amtrak model "can and should work."

"No amount of councils, commissions, study groups, panels or symposiums will find a painless answer to what to do about Amtrak," Gunn said. "Recent proposals to privatize or restructure are exercises in problem avoidance."

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who will chair the Senate hearing, criticized the Bush administration plan as unrealistic, and unfair to states.

She also said the administration "needs to be prepared to explain to the American people why it will allow Amtrak to go bankrupt in the middle of the summer travel season."

Amtrak tried but failed to meet a 1997 order by Congress to wean itself from the government subsidies it has needed for its entire 31-year existence.

Amtrak is seeking $1.2 billion from the federal government in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, a big increase over previous years.

By Laurence Arnold