Subject:        House funding; Senate flexibility
   Date:        Fri, 11 Jun 1999 13:22:43 -0400
   From:        NARP (s.leonard@narprail.org)

To all NARP members, June 11, 1999--

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) -- in an effort to placate fiscal
hawks in his party -- decided this week to use floor amendments to trim
spending from appropriations bills already approved in committee. The
House already has cut the agriculture and legislative branch spending
bills, by $102 million and $54 million, respectively. However, we hear
the cut target for transportation is between four and eight hundred
million dollars.

With highway and transit spending protected by the TEA-21 firewalls, and
aviation and Coast Guard levels below Clinton's requests, any such
amendment could be fatal to Amtrak. Please ask your representative to
work for floor passage of the $571 million approved in committee and to
oppose any effort to cut it. This is $38 million below Amtrak's current
level, whereas -- again compared to current levels -- the bill increases
aviation by $985 million and the Coast Guard by $153 million. The House
bill could reach the floor as early as the week of June 14.  

Meanwhile, please ask your senators to co-sponsor S.1144, which would
let states use spend their flexible TEA-21 dollars on Amtrak.

--Ross B. Capon