Ever since the idea first surfaced in February, I’ve been saying that there are really two separate questions surrounding the proposed restructuring of Amtrak. The first is whether restructuring Amtrak might be a good idea, and the second is whether anyone seriously believes it can be done without Congress.
This week, we got a useful reminder about that second question.
House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Ranking Member Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) and Railroads Subcommittee Ranking Member Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) sent Amtrak a letter asking for details (download link at the bottom of this story) about the restructuring work now underway. And while the letter raises plenty of specific questions, its larger message is pretty hard to miss.
Congress created Amtrak. Congress funds Amtrak. Congress writes the laws governing Amtrak. Congress confirms its Board members. And every few years Congress rewrites a fairly substantial portion of the rulebook under which the railroad operates.
So Congress is unlikely to sit quietly in the cheap seats while somebody fundamentally reorganizes the company.
Amtrak last week put up a public comment portal looking for feedback and thoughts from stakeholders about the proposed reshuffle. I’d say this counts as a pretty significant comment...
But there’s an even more practical reason Congress matters here: money.
Based on our conversations with Amtrak and fellow stakeholders, it’s clear to us that actually carrying out a restructuring of this magnitude would require additional resources. Whatever Amtrak’s existing legal authority may be to create subsidiaries or rearrange pieces of the company, turning an organization chart into a functioning railroad is another matter entirely.
And if implementing the plan requires Congress to appropriate additional money, then the notion that restructuring can somehow happen independently of Congress becomes pretty academic.
That’s one reason Larsen’s and Titus’ question about the expected cost to taxpayers is more important than it might first appear. Before Congress is asked to pay for a new structure, Members are understandably going to want to know what they’re buying, why they’re buying it, and what passengers get in return.
Earlier this year, Federal Railroad Administration Deputy Administrator Drew Feeley suggested that the Administration was looking at a broader restructuring of Amtrak and that it might be something FRA could accomplish without additional money or Congressional approval. Larsen and Titus specifically call out that statement and ask a pretty basic question: exactly who is driving this thing, Amtrak or FRA?
They ask some other questions, too. What statutory authority permits the restructuring? What happens to existing routes and jobs? How would the new entities be governed? What would it cost? How would Amtrak square a new corporate structure with the way Congress currently appropriates money separately to the Northeast Corridor and National Network?
And there’s an especially interesting question about why this idea should be viewed any differently today than nearly a quarter-century ago, when both Amtrak and Congress rejected an infrastructure/operations split proposed by the Amtrak Reform Council.
As I’ve said before, none of this means restructuring Amtrak is necessarily a bad idea.
We’ve been pretty consistent about that. There are things about the way Amtrak is organized today that don’t work especially well, and there are plenty of passenger railways around the world whose experience is worth studying. If restructuring can make Amtrak better at delivering reliable service, buying and maintaining equipment, managing infrastructure, growing the network and serving passengers, we ought to be willing to look seriously at it. And we’d welcome that.
But there are also plenty of examples around the world of restructuring schemes that fragmented responsibility, created new bureaucratic boundaries, made coordination harder and left passengers wondering whom to blame when things went wrong...or worse, hit passengers straight in the pocketbook with higher fares for degraded service.
Our job is to make sure we’re importing the best practices and not the worst ones.
That’s why the process matters almost as much as the boxes on the eventual organization chart.
The House has already weighed in on that point. The BUILD America 250 Act, which passed the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee 62-2, doesn’t authorize the proposed three-subsidiary structure. Instead, it would require Amtrak to provide at least 90 days for public comment on a restructuring proposal and explain both its legal authority and how the plan would advance Amtrak’s statutory mission.
That bill isn’t law. But a 62-2 vote ought to tell Amtrak something about the appetite on Capitol Hill for being presented with a fait accompli.
There’s another practical problem here, too: the political calendar.
We’re heading toward midterm elections. The Congress that deals with Amtrak next year may look rather different from the Congress sitting in Washington today. Committee leadership could change. Majorities could change. And whatever restructuring ultimately emerges will still depend on Congress for money, statutory authority and, sooner or later, the confirmation of the people sitting around Amtrak’s Board table.
That makes political and stakeholder buy-in more than a courtesy. It’s probably a prerequisite for making any restructuring durable.
There may well be a smart way to reorganize Amtrak. We’re keeping a very open mind about it, and we’re going to judge the proposal by what it means for passengers and for growing the national passenger rail network.
But reorganizing America’s congressionally created, congressionally funded national passenger railroad while treating Congress as an interested bystander? Well, that was never going to work.
With no guaranteed funding stream reorganization amounts to little more than rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking Titanic. Will it solve the chronic shortage of rolling stock? Will it take proposals to add routes in 20 years and get them done if 5? Less talk and more action. Congress must earn their pay and take the lead in solving the funding and on time enforcement issues.
I followed the British experience with multiple restructuring and more recently some of the Continental experiences with new structures and have yet to see more than bits and pieces that would be relevant to the U.S.