Bud Shuster: “I thank the gentlewoman from Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition. I certainly appreciate the gentleman's…”

“I thank the gentlewoman from Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition. I certainly appreciate the gentleman's concern. He has been a true deficit hawk. One of the great challenges we face in America is reducing the deficit. There has been a longstanding debate in this Congress about passenger rail in this country. I, for one, believe it is necessary. I think that what we have in this bill--and I have watched for the past 40 years also some of these broken promises. I am committed to, and I think we committed in this bill to putting forth reforms, streamlining, empowering the States, which I think is a huge step in the right direction, giving States the ability to be at the table, to invest their dollars to force Amtrak to do things differently. So, again, throughout the bill, there are these reforms. I feel confident that, in the way the country is going, with population growth and with these corridors expanding, we have to have passenger rail to move people around some of the most densely populated corridors. So I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I would simply respond to the ridership claims that it has no impact on congestion because the ridership is infinitesimal. You have to compare Amtrak's 31 million trips to the 650 million airline trips per year. According to Cato, the average American logs about 15,000 miles per year by car, 1,800 miles by plane, and just 20 miles on Amtrak.…”