For those of you intending to write to Congressional Representatives involved with Transportation and high-speed rail, here is a short article identifying the members of John Mica's House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. It lists both Republican and Democratic members. As we have been saying on this blog, it's the Republicans who are in opposition to HSR and need our support for that stand. The Democrats can't and won't hear us. That's been true at the state level, and it's especially true at the national level.
Below this article is another from Progressive Railroading. This one is about the intended budget cuts for Transportation. The DeMint Spending Reduction Act is merely an opening shot from the Republicans. Even if it passed through the House, it still needs approval from the Democratic Senate and the President. We have a long way to go.
There are several other articles below that provide information about decision-making in Washington regarding high-speed rail. Why are there so many articles on this same topic? Because this is where the "action" is. The fate of high-speed rail in California hangs in the balance, not in Sacramento, but in Washington. And that is where we need to keep our focus.
There are several other articles below that provide information about decision-making in Washington regarding high-speed rail. Why are there so many articles on this same topic? Because this is where the "action" is. The fate of high-speed rail in California hangs in the balance, not in Sacramento, but in Washington. And that is where we need to keep our focus.
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Government
Rosters set for House transportation committee, railroad subcommittee
Yesterday, Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, announced the chairmen, vice chairmen and Republican members of the committee’s six subcommittees for the 112th Congress.
The Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials will be chaired by Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.); Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) will serve as vice chair. The subcommittee’s Republican members include Gary Miller (Calif.), Sam Graves (Mo.), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), Jean Schmidt (Ohio), Candice Miller (Mich.), Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.), Randy Hultgren (Ill.), Lou Barletta (Pa.), Larry Bucshon (Ind.), Billy Long (Mo.), Patrick Meehan (Pa.), Richard Hanna (N.Y.), Stephen Fincher (Tenn.), Jeff Landry (La.) and Jeff Denham (Calif.).
Meanwhile, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Democratic leader, announced the committee’s and railroad subcommittee’s Democratic members.
Committee members include Peter DeFazio (Ore.), Jerry Costello (Ill.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.), Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), Corrine Brown (Fla.), Bob Filner (Calif.), Eddie Bernice Johnson (Texas), Elijah Cummings (Md.), Leonard Boswell (Iowa), Tim Holden (Pa.), Rick Larsen (Wash.), Michael Capuano (Mass.), Timothy Bishop (N.Y.), Michael Michaud (Maine), Russ Carnahan (Mo.), Grace Napolitano (Calif.), Daniel Lipinski (Ill.), Mazie Hirono (Hawaii), Jason Altmire (Pa.), Timothy Walz (Minn.), Heath Shuler (N.C.), Steve Cohen (Tenn.), Laura Richardson (Calif.), Albio Sires (N.J.) and Donna Edwards (Md.).
Railroad subcommittee Democratic members include Brown, Nadler, Cummings, Larsen, Bishop, Michaud, Napolitano, Lipinski, Altmire, Walz, Richardson, Sires, DeFazio and Rahall.
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1/21/2011 Legislation
Republican committee members propose to slash transit funding through spending-cut bill
Yesterday, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Scott Garrett (R-N.J.), and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) unveiled the Spending Reduction Act, which proposes to reduce the national debt by cutting funds from a range of federal programs. The congressmen serve on the Republican Study Committee.
The plan would save $2.5 trillion through 2021 by paring back current spending to 2008 levels. By Oct. 1, 2011, the bill proposes to further reduce spending to 2006 levels and freeze spending for the next decade.
Included in the legislation: proposals to cut $2 billion in New Starts funding, $1.5 billion in Amtrak subsidies, $2.5 billion in high-speed and intercity passenger-rail grants, and $150 million in Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority subsidies annually. The bill also calls for repealing unspent stimulus funds.
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Friday, January 21, 2011
Republicans Propose Spending Cuts Targeting Amtrak, Transit Funding
by Tanya Snyder
A new Republican proposal would eliminate federal subsidies to Amtrak; kill New Starts, the primary federal transit funding program; and make painful cuts to dozens of other federal programs. It’s a plan by the Republican Study Committee, which is trying to keep alive House Speaker John Boehner’s campaign pledge to reduce the budget by $100 billion. Boehner himself has been backing off from the pledge, given the popularity of many of the programs the Study Committee is now proposing to axe.
According to a Committee press release, “Compared to current projections, the Spending Reduction Act would save taxpayers $2.5 trillion through 2021. It starts by keeping House Republicans’ pledge to take current spending back to 2008 levels and repeal unspent funds from the failed ‘stimulus.’ At the beginning of the next fiscal year on October 1, 2011, spending is further reduced to 2006 levels and frozen there for the next decade.”
The proposal would shift some spending, like Medicaid costs, to the states, which are even more cash-strapped than the federal government. Media attention is focusing on proposed cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, USAID, and veterans’ programs. But the cuts to transportation are deep.
The FTA’s New Starts program is, in its own words, “the federal government’s primary financial resource for supporting locally planned, implemented, and operated major transit capital investments.” SAFETEA-LU authorized $6.6 billion for the program through 2009, and the extension gave another $2 billion for last year. It funds commuter rail, light rail, heavy rail, bus rapid transit, streetcars, and ferries.
According to Bureau of Transportation Statistics contributor William Mallett, “Partly as a result of federal support, rail transit route mileage in the United States almost doubled between 1985 and 2008, and rail transit passenger trips and passenger miles grew by 66 percent and 73 percent, respectively.”
The Republican Study Committee would axe the entire program. Along with it, the entire $1.57 billion Amtrak subsidy would disappear. The high speed rail program, which the GOP has been publicly itching to gut, is also, predictably, on the chopping block. Lesser-known programs like the Appalachian Regional Commission, which includes transportation as one of its programs, would also lose $76 million in annual federal subsidies. The $150 million annual federal contribution toward Washington DCs transit authority, WMATA, would also be cut, despite the longstanding federal commitment to supporting the infrastructure, like the metro system, that keep the capital running.
The EnergyStar program, grants to states for weatherization, U.S. support for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: all gone.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is promising an up-or-down vote on the spending cuts. Though Democrats are generally trying to go along with much of the Republicans’ rhetoric of fiscal restraint, it’s unlikely the Senate will go along with the wholesale elimination of so many popular programs.
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High-speed rail projects could be among the first to go if conservative spending hawks get their way in the new 112th Congress.
(Washington, DC — Todd Zwillich, Transportation Nation)
Republicans are sharpening their budget shears, looking to make good on promises to cut federal spending and reduce the overall size of government. And it looks like high-speed trains are high on the list.
A new House budget-cutting bill introduced Thursday by the conservative Republican Study Committee aims to return federal non-defense discretionary spending to 2006 levels. It cuts more than 100 programs, including the more than $10 billion in high-speed rail money funneled to cities and states in the economic stimulus bill.
Overall, the RSC bill looks to slash $2.3 trillion in federal spending over the next 10 years.
“This bill represents the first step in the process, not the last. To achieve long-term fiscal stability, we must finish the race by making the tough decisions Congress has put off for far too long,” said Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) head of the RSC’s budget task force.
The RSC represents the conservative wing of the Republican House conference, so consider that the “high water mark” in negotiations that ultimately will have to satisfy Republican leaders, the Democratic-controlled Senate, and President Obama.
But other Republicans with direct influence over transportation projects also have high speed rail in their sites. They include Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA), the new chairman of the subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials, who has made it clear that high speed rail funding is about to face new scrutiny.
The newly-empowered chairman has begun to get critical of the way in which the Obama Administration doled out high-speed rail grant money, suggesting politics, and not practicalities, guided many of its choices. Shuster told CQ Today that the Obama Administration isn’t responding to his requests for information on how they chose where to steer high-speed rail money.
A statement on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Web site says high-speed rail has “potential” in transportation infrastructure. But it also suggests Shuster’s panel is getting set to go after the Obama Administration in hearings.
“The Committee will provide needed direction for this program, working to ensure that taxpayers are not burdened with economically unviable and ineffective projects. The Committee will seek to incorporate private sector participation in financing, building, and operating rail projects,” it says.
