LOS ANGELES, Calif., Feb. 12 -- The 32-member Executive Committee of the AFL-CIO's Transportation Trades Department (TTD) today voted unanimously to urge Congress to fully fund Amtrak at its authorized level for FY 2002 and to reverse course on the "glidepath" to fiscal self-sufficiency pushed by those who are out to dismantle America's national passenger railroad.

"Congress and the President should reject this misguided budget goal," the Executive Committee declared, "and instead reach consensus on a long term Amtrak financing plan that incorporates a serious capital and operating plan and ensures that Amtrak can continue to introduce new, modern high speed service."

Since its inception, Amtrak has fulfilled an important passenger service need as a vital part of the nation's multi-modal national transportation network. But our national passenger rail system is in a precarious fiscal state. The funds from the 1997 short-term Amtrak relief legislation enacted by Congress have run their course and Amtrak is now on a collision course with a statutory glidepath to operational self-sufficiency. Moreover, the Amtrak Reform Council (ARC), a congressionally created body, is not only pursuing radical privatization proposals that would surely lead to Amtrak's demise, but moreover, the ARC has exposed its anti-Amtrak motives by seeking an acceleration of Amtrak's budgetary self-sufficiency "glidepath" to the date Dec. 2, 2002.

"While we reject this unrealistic budget glidepath, clearly an accurate reading of current law concludes that the first full fiscal year that Amtrak must be operationally self-sufficient is 2004," explained TTD President Sonny Hall.

"The 2000 Republican and Democratic Party Platforms may not have agreed on much, but they both emphatically stated that our national passenger railroad is critical to America's economic future," said Hall. "With Amtrak clearly at a crossroads, now is the time to find a sustainable funding mechanism to fulfill this bipartisan vision for America's national passenger rail service."

The TTD resolution also pledged transportation labor's continued effort to "combat the majority at the ARC that continues to peddle ill-advised proposals to privatize and break up Amtrak and ultimately dismantle our national passenger rail carrier."