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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (#11-21)
November 10, 2011

Contact: Sean Jeans-Gail - 202-408-8362 [mobile: 202-320-2723]

Train Passengers Say Adoption of Senate Passenger Rail Numbers Vital

The National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP) sent a letter to House and Senate negotiators in conference on a bill which will decide Amtrak and high-speed rail's budget for Fiscal Year 2012 yesterday, warning of the effects cuts would have on the mobility of millions of Americans.

NARP asked the conferees to endorse Senate-passed funding levels of $1.48 billion for Amtrak and the $100 million for the High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail Program. In his letter to negotiators, NARP President Ross Capon warned of the corrosive effect that the House version would have on America's passenger rail network, severely undermining Amtrak's ability to keep its trains running:

We believe the House subcommittee's draconian operating-grant reduction to $227 million would force an Amtrak shutdown. Equally unacceptable is the House subcommittee's provision to prohibit the use of Amtrak's operating funds on short-distance routes. This could eliminate almost 150 weekday trains and strand more than nine million passengers each year, harming the towns and cities those trains connect. It also would undercut negotiations between Amtrak and the states regarding the increased state payments required under PRIIA by October 16, 2013. Finally, the elimination of those trains would result in shifting of significant shared costs to the surviving Northeast Corridor and long-distance trains, underlining our concern that a $227 million operating grant would force a system shutdown.

Even with the Senate cuts, which are modest by comparison, Amtrak would have to significantly reduce its work force and end work on addressing a backlog of deferred investment in the Northeast Corridor's infrastructure. Additionally, Amtrak will be severely challenged to find the $350 million in capital Amtrak's engineering department needs just to keep the Northeast Corridor running. But the Senate numbers provide the best chance for Amtrak to meet the soaring demand that saw a record-breaking 30.2 million passengers board their trains in FY 2011-the eighth ridership record set over the past nine years, and a 44 percent surge in ridership since FY 2000.

Conference negotiators are discussing a minibus that-in addition to funding for Transportation-Housing & Urban Development-includes FY 2012 spending bills for Agriculture and Commerce-Justice-Science. The conferees are Senators Daniel Inouye, Thad Cochran, Patty Murray, Susan Collins, and Representatives Harold Rogers, Norman Dicks, Tom Latham, John Olver.

[You can find the text of the letter on NARP's website<http://www.narprail.org/cms/index.php/resources/more/letter_to_congressional_conferees_on_fy_2012_transportation_appropriations_/>]

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