Your weekly source of fresh takes on news affecting America's passengers. See also the NARP Blog.
January 29, 1992
The Administration's proposed fiscal year 1993 budget was released today, containing few surprises. The Administration tried to portray the budget as "protecting the environment and enhancing the quality of life," but fails that goal by giving big increases to highways and aviation and big cuts to rail and transit. Amtrak would get only $343 million, compared to $651 million this year. That's eve...
January 24, 1992
President Bush named White House deputy chief-of-staff Andrew Card as Secretary of Transportation, on January 22. He has no transportation background at all, but is a very loyal member of the Bush political team. He is also a former Massachusetts state legislator. If confirmed by the Senate, one of Card's tasks this year will be implementation of the new surface transportation act. The Amtrak boa...
January 17, 1992
Oral arguments were held in the Supreme Court case involving the Montrealer, NRPC v. Boston & Maine, on January 13. Since the case involves challenge of an ICC decision, the Amtrak/Central Vermont side was argued by the Solicitor General's office of the Department of Justice. In the question session, Justice Scalia seemed most upset about the 1988 transfer of the Connecticut River line from...
January 10, 1992
There are indications that even as President Bush was signing the landmark surface transportation act on December 18, the Office of Budget and Management was making deep cuts to the transit program for fiscal 1993. We won't know for sure until the budget is released early next month, but deep cuts would be very ironic, because Bush had praised the act as a means to put people to work. The Supreme...
January 3, 1992
A final reminder to those who wish to run for the NARP board of directors. Your 75-words-or-less candidate statement must be postmarked no later than January 4 and sent to our office or faxed to us by January 6. America's eight Class I railroads have filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Guilford in the Montrealer Supreme Court case. They are afraid that if Amtrak wins this case, Amtrak co...