Congressional and administration budget negotiators Wednesday agreed to spend $1 billion more over five years on transportation outlays than the amount contained in the preliminary budget agreement, and will direct the extra funds toward bailing out Amtrak.
Negotiators have agreed to spend $123 billion in outlays over five years for highways and transit, or an average of $24.6 billion a year.
It was still unclear Wednesday night how that money would be divided among highways, transit and Amtrak, which is facing the immediate prospect of bankruptcy.
The original budget agreement reached two weeks ago called for an additional $7 billion in outlays for transportation over President Clinton's proposal, which essentially maintained transportation spending at its current level.
Budget negotiators Wednesday apparently added another $1 billion to transportation, raising the total to roughly $8 billion more in outlays over five years than the current law. With additional Amtrak assistance now a part of that equation, annual spending for highways may not increase more than $1 billion to $2 billion a year.
If those numbers are finalized in the budget resolution expected to be marked up today, it would represent a significant defeat for House members and senators who had been pressing for billions of dollars a year more in highway and other transportation spending.
After a blistering letter to the House leadership last week complaining about the transportation funding levels contained in the budget deal, House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bud Shuster, R-Pa., met with House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., to negotiate for more money.
Shuster this year is writing the reauthorization of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act that will set highway and transit spending for the next five or six years.
Shuster asked Gingrich and House Budget Chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio, to add $45 billion more over five years for transportation than the amount called for in President Clinton's budget.
In the Senate, Environment and Public Works Chairman John Chafee, R-R.I., last week thought the deal would directly tie future gas tax revenue, minus the 4.3 cents-per-gallon that now goes toward deficit reduction, to transportation spending.
But, according to CBO projections, that gas tax revenue will provide $129 billion over five years, $6 billion more than the agreement reached Wednesday to set transportation spending at $123 billion in outlays.
Amtrak has become a particularly knotty issue because of its immediate financial crisis.
Last month, Amtrak CEO Thomas Downs testified that because the railroad is now borrowing just to cover operating costs, "the company cannot survive beyond another 18 or 20 months."
To place Amtrak on the path toward self sufficiency, Downs said the passenger railroad will need a multi-billion infusion of cash for capital improvements.
If Amtrak is allowed go bankrupt, Downs said it might actually cost more over the next five years to shut it down than to meet its current capital needs.
That is because Congress, when it created Amtrak, guaranteed most of its workers six years of compensation if the railroad shuts down.
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