Trent Lott: “let me say again to the Senator from South Carolina who just left the Chamber, I appreciate the way he has approached…”

“let me say again to the Senator from South Carolina who just left the Chamber, I appreciate the way he has approached this. He did not come in and condemn it; he looked at it. He had some ideas, and several of them have been accepted. I think he wound up getting five of his ideas that have been accepted. So he has been a constructive force. I have found a lot of Members assume we are trying to provide money to Amtrak without any reforms. When they look at it, I think they are surprised at the number of requirements and plans and reform that we do include in this legislation. But I would be opposed to this amendment. You would have to print on each individual ticket the specific amount of the Government subsidy per passenger for that route. Now, think about it. You know on its face that would take a lot of effort. It is changing. It would cost, I have heard, probably as much as $3 million. I do not want to vouch for that, but there would be some cost. But it is already available. You can get this information through the public Web site. That is available, about what the cost of the subsidy is on these tickets. So it would provide something that is already available. You would have to pay for it. We have a number of other reporting and disclosure requirements included in this bill. I think it is redundant to what we have in the bill. We are focused on trying to reduce subsidies.…”