Happening Now
ACTION ALERT: Help Amtrak beat this month's budget deadline!
September 6, 2016
Passenger trains need your voice in pre-election talks
With the deadline to pass a budget just weeks away, and none of the 12 annual regular appropriations bills passed, Congress is gearing up to pass a short-term budget extension (a Continuing Resolution, or CR) to avoid a shutdown before the election.
NARP is asking passenger advocates to support the White House's request to fully fund Amtrak at $1.39 billion using the new accounting structure approved by Congress last year.
This sensible proposal avoids saddling Amtrak with additional costs and wasted hours that would come from having to run two parallel accounting systems, and is a responsible use of limited taxpayer resources.
We are also asking Congress to support passenger rail programs authorized and approved by both the House and the Senate committees -- though not yet put before the President to be signed into law. These programs are critical to addressing national transportation challenges, and will create American jobs and support economic growth.
"The National Association of Railroad Passengers has done yeoman work over the years and in fact if it weren’t for NARP, I'd be surprised if Amtrak were still in possession of as a large a network as they have. So they've done good work, they're very good on the factual case."
Robert Gallamore, Director of Transportation Center at Northwestern University and former Federal Railroad Administration official, Director of Transportation Center at Northwestern University
November 17, 2005, on The Leonard Lopate Show (with guest host Chris Bannon), WNYC New York.
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