Hotline #764
March 12, 1993
The House Appropriations Committee has passed the Clinton 1993 supplemental funding/stimulus package. Also, the House Budget Committee has passed a budget resolution with spending guidelines for fiscal years 1994 through 1998. It has more spending cuts than the President sought and freezes non-entitlement spending at 1993 levels, with no room for inflation, for all five years. But it is unclear whether the freeze is at 1993 levels with or without the stimulus funding. The Senate Budget Committee has passed a similar resolution.
The full House expects to vote on March 18 on the budget resolution and then the stimulus package. Democrats want both on the President's desk before the Easter break.
Then will come work on the individual appropriations bills. High-speed rail and transit, which got increases, will be vulnerable targets as offsets to whatever Clinton cuts Congress wants to reverse. Today's Washington Post, for example, says the President himself is having second thoughts about his proposal to increase fuel taxes for barges.
Congress Daily reported that House Public Works Chairman Norman Mineta (D.-Cal.) told the American Public Transit Association's legislative conference this week that there is a "problem" with the Clinton economic package fully funding ISTEA highway programs in 1993, but not transit.
The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing yesterday on the health of the intercity bus industry. The president of Greyhound attacked California's system of Thruway buses, even though the system benefits many small operators and Greyhound itself could bid for the contracts. The president of New Hampshire-based Concord Trailways attacked the Boston-Portland train proposal, saying it would kill bus service throughout New England.
But yesterday, a weekly paper in Maine quoted Ray Penfold, of VIP Charter Coach in Portland, saying he regards Amtrak as an opportunity. "I'm going to feed them and they're going to feed me," he said, adding that "many Maine people may not yet realize the potential benefit to Maine's economy when the state joins Amtrak's giant passenger rail system."
Amtrak service on the San Diego line was restored the morning of March 9. It had been closed by a landslide since February 22. Many of the commuters had switched to driving rather than using the replacement bus service.
Amtrak's eastbound Wolverine struck a propane truck at a private crossing near Kalamazoo, Mich., on March 10. An explosion killed the truck driver and injured the engineer, but no passengers were harmed.
In 1991, ISTEA authorized a designation of a 155,000-mile system of "Highways of National Significance." The American Public Transit Association and others felt such concentrating on highways was wrong, and on March 9 APTA released its own "America's New Surface Transportation Network," which includes intercity rail, intercity bus, local transit, and proposed high-speed rail lines. It is not meant to be a guide, but a reminder to Congress and to the public that other transportation modes are also nationally significant.
Union Pacific announced on March 10 plans to double track its mainline through the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon. This is the route of Amtrak's Pioneer. The double track will take 10 years to complete, cost $100 million, and increase capacity by 50%. An earlier proposal for a long tunnel was rejected.
Canadian National has awarded a contract for construction of a new double-stack tunnel under the St. Clair River at Port Huron, Mich., to open by the end of 1994. But Detroit interests are threatening to sue and Canadian Pacific has filed a complaint with the ICC.
AC Transit has released a proposal for several streetcar and trolley-bus lines in Oakland, where city car lines were scrapped in 1946. There is no funding yet for the proposal, but it would tie in nicely with other proposals to restore light rail to the Bay Bridge and Transbay Terminal in San Francisco.