Richard Shelby: “However, since I heard the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee and the ranking member of the…”

“However, since I heard the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee and the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee come out in opposition to this measure, I could not miss the opportunity to stand with them in opposition to include this provision on the Transportation appropriations bill. ... my concern here is that Amtrak will use the provision to leverage State to shift badly needed highway dollars to simply maintaining already failing Amtrak service. This is one of those circumstances of needing to be careful what you wish for--many States may find that they have fewer highway dollars and the same Amtrak service at the end of the day if this provision were to pass. I urge my colleagues to reject this provision on this bill.”