Christine Quinn: “I want to begin this discussion by commending subcommittee Chairman Istook for his diligence for bringing this bill to…”

“I want to begin this discussion by commending subcommittee Chairman Istook for his diligence for bringing this bill to the floor today. He and his committee have done their level best with obviously limited resources that he was given to meet tremendous transportation needs and infrastructure needs throughout the country. We need to build roads; there is no question about that. We need to repair bridges. We need to expand the capacity of our airports, but I do not believe that we can forget about our other major mode of transportation and that is passenger rail service. Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, there is not enough money to go around. In order to provide safe, efficient, and reliable passenger rail service, Amtrak president David Gunn has said the company needs $1.8 billion next fiscal year. This bill appropriates only half of that. In my opinion, this will simply continue to do what we have done before, and I said it earlier this afternoon, we will provide Amtrak with just enough money to make sure that it fails. In this case, Mr. Chairman, I think with even worse results.”