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Frothing at each other in circular firing squads, Republicans in Congress are missing a chance to solve their larger problems in the politics of the environment. The engine for their deliverance is Amtrak.

The GOP has a bad rap on the environment? Nothing could be greener than passenger rail, but some of the party's ideologues want to shut it down.

If Republicans felt the wrath of constituents because of last year's government shutdown, they will discover serious anger if they terminate Amtrak next year, which could happen. But this shutdown would not be temporary.

"If we go away, so does intercity rail passenger service, and it won't come back.", says Thomas Downs, president and chief executive officer of the National Rail Passenger Corporation, Amtrak's official name.

Downs has fashioned a plan along sound conservative principles. He wants to put Amtrak on track toward being subsidy-free but only after a capital investment program is in place to protect the taxpayer's investment.

The system could be entirely privatized by 2002, but ideologues cannot wait. "It would be cheaper for the American taxpayer if we just brought Amtrak Passenger airline tickets." Steven Moore of the Cato Institute says. "A costly burden," opines Ronald Utt of The Heritage Foundation. Not all Republicans ar in thrall to think tanks. When Rep. H.L. (Sonny) Callahan, R-Ala tried to kill Amtrak's funding in committee, he was rejected by a voice vote.

The shallowness of the Anti-Amtrak argument is rooted in its poor sense of history and its attitude toward "Subsidy," a word that describes exactly the source of potential salvation for Amtrak, the Highway Trust Fund. When President Eisenhower and a Democratic Congress created the interstate highway system in 1956, they built one of the mammoth socialistic enterprises in world history.

Wyoming, which has 480,000 people had 914 miles of interstate. New Jersey, with 8 million people, has 413 miles of interstate. Who is being subsidized here? Republicans, mostly. Denser, more urban states subsidize the wide, open spaces. Karl Marx could not have created a more lopsided scheme.

Amtrak's success in places where it has invested funds leads to resentment among Republican rubes such as Sen. Christopher Bond of Missouri, who has labeled Amtrak an "East Coast Luxury." between New York and Washington, Amtrak now carries half of the air-rail market. If Baltimore and Philadelphia are added, the total rises to 70 percent.

When the rail line north of New Haven is electrified (a project 75 years in the making), the Boston-Washington Section will be profitable. This will help Amtrak serve 530 cities and towns in the 48 states. Amtrak now carries 55 million passengers a year. If it were an airline, it would be the nation's third largest carrier. Why dismantle it now?

To prepare equipment and roadbed for the 21st Century, Amtrak wants 1/2 of 1 percent of the Highway Trust Fund dedicated to its capital program for five years. Without such specific access, says Downs. "Competing for funds is like being pushed into a very small phone booth with a hungry 300-pound dog."

Amtrak's reach itself is a prime political asset. "When we have a cash crisis, we go to commercial banks," Downs says. "When Congress cut funding, we had to cut routes. Then Congress says: 'We didn't mean that.'"

Sen. Trent Lott discovered during route-cutting that Amtrak has fans in Mississippi. Senate Finance Committee chairman William Roth heard from folks from Delaware.

Will Politics derail Amtrak? "I'm an optimist," says Downs. Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater's answer is disturbingly Clintonesque. "I personally believe that we cannot have a transportation system in the 21st century without a strong Amtrak component," Slater says, predicting "a long-term reliable funding structure."

Martin F. Nolan is a columnist with the Boston Globe. Distributed by New York Times Special Features. Published locally in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on July 25, 1997.

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Last Update: 11/14/98
Web Author: Warren Y. Yee