Why BUILD America 250 Would Be Uniquely Bad For Passenger Rail
America’s next major transportation bill could potentially strip railways of more than 80 percent of their federal funding — even as its first draft appears to promise Amtrak and other rail operators more money on paper, a top advocacy organization warned.
Last week, the National Rail Passengers Association declined to endorse the BUILD America 250 Act. The organization said the legislation failed to provide “reliable funding and a clear commitment to growth” for train operators across America, despite more than doubling operations funding for Amtrak in the first fiscal year alone.
That’s because the money wouldn’t be guaranteed. And over the course of the bill’s five years, that funding is widely expected to plummet.
Unlike the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which the new bill would theoretically replace when it expires on Sept. 30, BUILD America 250 includes no “advanced appropriations” for any transportation program not secured by the Highway Trust fund — a $106 billion category which includes all funding for passenger rail. That means that every single dollar it “promises” to train operators would need to be approved by Congress again as part of the annual budget process before it actually goes out the door.
By contrast, BUILD America 250 promises more funding for highway programs without subjecting that money to the appropriations process — even though gas taxes have failed to actually cover the costs of America’s asphalt addiction for decades, and growing highways have failed to curb congestion, cut traffic deaths, or delivery any of the benefits that road builders so often promise.
“The message of this bill is loud and clear: highways and roads are a core federal priority and intercity rail is a state-level vanity project that Congress is willing to play along with —but only up to a point,” wrote Sean Jeans-Gail, the association’s vice president of government affairs and policy.
Jean-Gails and his colleagues aren’t entirely negative about the BUILD America 250 Act. They pointed out that the legislation could at least theoretically provide about $64 billion for rail programs — which is 38 percent less than the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, but significantly more than what rail operators enjoyed prior to “Amtrak Joe” Biden’s signature transportation bill set a new bar for federal rail funding.
By making most of that money subject to appropriations, though, advocates fear Congress is once again turning America’s train network into a massive bargaining chip that lawmakers could easily wager away to end a funding fight — and setting up advocates to take the fall for a government shutdown if rail fans in Congress stick to their guns.
Under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, appropriators struggled to scrounge up more than $3 billion additional dollars for transportation programs in any given year during the annual budgeting process. BUILD America 250 would require them to find $13 billion in the couch cushions every year just for rail — not including the other transportation priorities that would be subject to appropriations, too.
And if transit boosters in Congress don’t win that stalemate, their failure could slow or halt America’s railway renaissance just as Amtrak scores all-time records for ridership and revenue — and possibly even threaten route expansions that, by their very nature, take years to implement.
“In the leadup to this bill, Chairman Graves repeatedly made statements about getting ‘back to basics’, where he explicitly referenced highways and bridges,” wrote the association. “The repeated emphasis on non-federal share for passenger rail is a strong indicator that this philosophy won out in this bipartisan process.”
The absence of guaranteed money would also complicate some of the other rail policies in BUILD America 250, including its mandate to create a new “national intercity passenger railroad partnership program” and “equipment leasing pools” that would make it easier for operators to acquire trainsets without waiting years for manufacturers to fulfill their orders.
The association supports both those ideas, but doubts Congress will actually get them done if they can easily pull the rug out from under operators the next time they write a national budget.
“Given an annual appropriations process that is more likely to generate an extended government shutdown than pass a bill on time, we can say with a high degree of confidence: there won’t be enough funding,” Jean-Gails wrote. “An improved policy framework with insufficient funding is like getting a fancy new car and popping the hood to find an ‘IOU’ note where the engine should be.”
With people across the U.S. relying on threadbare train networks to meet their basic intercity travel needs — not to mention yearning for the world-class rail system America truly deserves — association president and CEO Jim Matthews said an IOU just won’t do.
“Passengers, states, workers and communities are let down and left behind by the BUILD America 250 Act … We need your help to push back on this blatant disregard for the needs of millions of Americans across the country,” he wrote.
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