WASHINGTON, D.C. — The war on terrorism could be ready to claim an unlikely victim, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports.
Minnesota’s only long-distance passenger train, the Empire Builder, may come to a halt unless Congress gives the ailing Amtrak corporation $1.2 billion, company officials say.
Amtrak’s funding request ran into a bump this week on Capitol Hill when House Republicans passed a $2.1 trillion budget that called for the largest increase in defense spending in 20 years. Amtrak got $521 million, less than half of what it wants.
Amtrak will identify which routes are facing elimination, and with its huge losses the Empire Builder is expected to be among them.
That could be the end of the line for the 136,000 riders who boarded the train in Minnesota in 2001.
“We’ve had many, many crises at Amtrak, but this one is by far the most serious,” said Rick Johnson, a manager at the St. Paul station.
The Empire Builder — which runs once daily each way between Chicago and the Pacific Northwest, stops in Minnesota at Red Wing, Winona, St. Paul, St. Cloud, Staples and Detroit Lakes — is one of 18 unprofitable long-haul Amtrak trains. It lost $45 million in fiscal year 2000.
The uncertainty over federal funding for Amtrak comes because after four years of surpluses Congress is facing tougher tradeoffs than usual. And with taxpayers subsidizing each Empire Builder passenger at $114 per ride, many members of Congress say the silver train is a luxury the nation can no longer afford.
“If we’re going to try and balance the budget, fight a war on terrorism, take care of our farmers, build roads and have better education and do better for our health care for our seniors, something in the budget is not going to get all the money that they want, and that something may be Amtrak,” said Rep. Gil Gutknecht, R-Minn., a member of the House Budget Committee.
While the full Senate has yet to vote on its version of the budget, its Budget Committee on Thursday approved Amtrak’s full $1.2 billion request.
Subsidies questioned
Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., called Amtrak “an important transportation resource that should not be compromised,” adding that it has “a superior record to that of any other passenger rail system in the world.”
However, Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., is among those questioning the subsidies.
“I don’t think it has much of any economic impact for Minnesota, except on the slimmest margin, so it comes down to a matter of priorities, and it’s not at the top,” Dayton said. “I could live without it. I have not made a decision whether I’ll support it or not.”
Gutknecht called for “an honest, sober re-evaluation” of Amtrak.
“We have spent, since the inception of Amtrak, something like $39 billion,” he said. “How many $10 million elementary schools could you build for $39 billion?”
Dayton called Amtrak a relatively small issue for Congress.
“Amtrak might be a victim,” he said. “That’s legitimate, but to say we’re going to cut Amtrak to balance the budget would be like saying if my checking account was overdrawn by a couple thousand dollars I’m going to stop buying Bic pens.”
The big ticket items in this year’s budget are Bush’s requests for $393 billion in defense spending and another $37 billion for homeland security. Both have widespread support in the House and Senate.
In the early budget battles, another winner is emerging: Senior citizens could get a prescription-drug benefit under Medicare. While details have yet to be worked out, Senate Democrats are proposing $500 billion for drug coverage, while House Republicans are countering with a $350 billion proposal.
Both parties are eager to spend more on education, as well.
One area in which the parties differ greatly is tax cuts. Bush and House Republicans want to make permanent last year’s $1.35 trillion tax cut, which is set to expire in 2010. Most Senate Democrats balk at that, saying it would require more money from Social Security surpluses.
Although the budget resolutions are largely symbolic — they are non-binding — they set the parameters for debate on future spending bills.
Amtrak’s blues
Amtrak’s future has been uncertain for several years. Congress mandated in 1997 that the company be weaned of subsidies by December 2002. Despite a spike in ridership, mainly on the Washington-to-Boston corridor, Amtrak posted a record loss of $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2001 and is not expected to meet Congress’ goal.
As a fix, the Amtrak Reform Council, an oversight panel established by Congress, is proposing to split Amtrak into three entities, opening at least some routes to private competition.
Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., said the plan “shuffles the boxes around, but that doesn’t solve the funding problems.”
Gutknecht said that Amtrak needs better marketing and that it could prosper “with the right kind of management.” With the current subsidies, he said, “We’d be much better off to buy people bus tickets.”
Amtrak officials have long argued that the company has been shortchanged by Congress, receiving less than 1 percent of all federal transportation funding. They also say Amtrak has been unfairly expected to meet commercial goals while continuing its unprofitable long-distance trains as a public service.
Kathleen Cantillon, an Amtrak spokeswoman in Chicago, would not say how many people work for Amtrak in Minnesota. Nationwide, the company has 24,600 employees. Amtrak announced in February that it would be cutting 1,000 jobs.
Johnson’s job as an Amtrak manager in St. Paul could be among them if the Empire Builder is eliminated. Since the early-1970s, he has logged nearly 2 million miles on the train, and the views are among the most spectacular in the country, he said.
“It’s easily the best way to travel,” Johnson said.
As an on-board travel guide, he points out items of interest: the Montana town where boxing champion Jack Dempsey fought, or the best place to spot grizzly bears in Glacier National Park.
Johnson said he would joke as the train passed through North Dakota that the state is “so flat a rancher once told me he watched his dog run away for three days.” He said that passengers make friends aboard the Empire Builder, adding that such camaraderie in travel is “unusual in this day and age.”
Larry Buboltz, mayor of Detroit Lakes and an occasional Amtrak passenger, said that the trains are particularly important to rural communities, providing a link to bigger towns. He said the extinction of the Empire Builder would mark the end of an era.
“Whenever you take one of those services away from rural Minnesota, it never comes back,” Buboltz said.