Frank Lautenberg: “I will summarize very quickly to say that on these long rides, a person may be diabetic, may need food. It is part of…”

“I will summarize very quickly to say that on these long rides, a person may be diabetic, may need food. It is part of what rail transportation offers, and it attracts more passengers to know that they can be comfortable and still have some nourishment along the way. If we want to reduce subsidies, then we ought to look at the airlines where we are subsidizing them to the tune of $15 billion a year and say cut out the mini pretzels, cut out the little bag of nuts. It costs a lot of money when you multiply it by all of the passengers who get on airplanes. The objective is to make Amtrak a more viable part of our transportation network, and I hope we will not start to pick things apart. Maybe we ought to look at what they do mechanically; see whether we can reduce a mechanic here or there. That is not what we want to do. All of this is going to be reported. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for his amendment, but I am going to oppose it, and I hope all of our colleagues will.”