Trainsmag.com just reported that At its meeting tomorrow, the Amtrak Reform Council will likely to vote to delay a finding that Amtrak won't meet the December 2002 deadline for reaching operational self-sufficiency, a council member said today.
And that decision will be the equivalent of putting the Reform Council out of business, ARC Vice Chairman Paul M. Weyrich said. "If they don't, it's a vote to kill ARC." he said this morning.
Yesterday three council members, including Chairman Gil Carmichael, told Trains.com that the vote was to call. By Weyrich's tally, the council will vote 7-4 to delay, perhaps until January, a finding that Amtrak won't meet the congressional deadline.
But Weyrich says the January date could slip, which would give Congress the opportunity to pass legislation to eliminate the self-sufficiency deadline-and with it the council's role in monitoring Amtrak's progress.
"Nobody will make a committent" to a January vote, Weyrich said. "In the meantime, [Senator Fritz] Hollings is moving forward with his bill to kill our authority to do this."
Although many observers have given Hollings' RAIL-21 bill little chance of passage, Weyrich disagrees, and says it would prevent any meaningful overhaul of passenger rail.
"This will be the last chance for any kind of real oversight of Amtrak," Weyrich said. "Congress doesn't do it."
Congress established the Reform Council to monitor Amtrak's progress toward operational self-sufficiency.
If and when the couincil rules that Amtrak won't meet the deadline-pulling the so-called sunset trigger-Amtrak and the ARC would have Three months to react. Amtrak must send to Congress a plan for its own to settle its debts, while the ARC must submit a rationalization and restructuring plan for passenger rail.
It would serve no purpose to delay the decision any longer, Weyrich said. "The data is clear" that Amtrak won't meet the December 202 deadline, he said.
Independent observers- from the transportation secretary to the Department of Transportation inspector general and The General Accounting Office- agree that Amtrak almost certainly will miss the deadline.
Even Amtrak President George Warrington- who all along has insisted that Amtrak is on a glidepath to operational self-sufficiency- says the September 11 terrorist attacks have only increased pressure on the railroad.
"With the economy contracting and public expecations about security and safety rising, the self-sufficiency deadline will force us to choose very soon between two evils," he told Congress last week. "Meet the self-sufficiency requirement by takimg on more debt, mortaging assets and cutting back service severly; or preserve the current system and increase security in the short run, risking a statutory process which... could lead to setttle its debts."
Many in Congress are now questioning the wisdom of the deadline. And in light of the transportation crisis produced by the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration has urged ARC to postpone its decision.
Carmichael backs a delay, which also would give the council time to consider a report on Amtrak's financial picture, due November 16 from the DOT inspector general.
The most strident Amtrak opponents on the council, however, say September 11 only confirmed that Amtrak is not a viable transportation alternative. Its ridership was down about 6 percent in September, despite the post-attack surge in ridership, Weyrich noted.
"You can't have that kind of thing and continue to pretend its one day going to be self-sufficient. It's not going to happen," Weyrich said.
What needs to be done, he said, is for the nation to develop a restructured passenger rail system that focues on 300-mile corridors. Airlines don't necessarily want to serve those markets, he said, and rail can be competitive in such relatively short hauls.
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