Frank Lautenberg: “Mr. President, I indicate my strong opposition to the amendment offered by the Senator from Arizona. It almost sounds…”

“Mr. President, I indicate my strong opposition to the amendment offered by the Senator from Arizona. It almost sounds like a vendetta. Talk about $18 billion worth of spending on Amtrak--my gosh, we spend over $8 billion a year on aviation; we spend over $20 billion a year on highways. Amtrak is the only serious railroad opportunity we have for passengers, and it has continued to prove its merit and its worth as time has gone by. Amtrak's farebox comes closer to its revenues than any other major passenger rail service in the world. It is ridiculous for the United States of America not to have a significant passenger rail service. Just look at what would happen in the Northeast corridor where it is believed that we service almost 100 million people. The Northeast corridor would need 10,000 full DC-9's a year to carry the traffic. Well, perhaps that's not true. Maybe we could push them onto the highways. We could put some 11 million people in their cars and tell them to drive between New York and Washington or Boston and Washington or Boston and New York or Boston and New Haven or Boston and Hartford or Boston and Providence. Get in your cars, use more gas, take up more time, that will mean more congestion, more foul air. That is what the alternative is. I have never seen anything so shortsighted in my life, but the speech sounds good--throw out statistics that have no merit in fact.”