Bush Vetoes Amtrak Bill as Step Backward

President Bush on Thursday vetoed a bill authorizing $2 billion in spending by Amtrak, complaining that the bill’s expansion of federal regulation over railroad acquisitions “represents a step backward for the entire rail industry.”

Bush took issue with a provision that would require the Interstate Commerce Commission to approve the acquisition of railroads by non-railroad companies.

“This requirement is an unwarranted regulatory roadblock to the financial restructuring of the railroad industry,” Bush told Congress in a veto message.

Amtrak spokesman Clifford Black said the veto would have no effect on daily train operations because the national rail passenger service is working with money that Congress already had appropriated for 1989-1992.

But the veto will indefinitely postpone plans for a commuter line between Washington and its Northern Virginia suburbs, Black said. The bill contained technical provisions necessary for the project to open.

It was Bush’s first veto of 1990. He returned 10 bills to Congress in his first year in office. None has been overridden.

The vetoed legislation would have authorized a new, three-year government subsidy of $2 billion to Amtrak. Actual spending levels are set by separate appropriations bills.

Black said Amtrak supports the provision that prompted Bush’s veto, although it applies only to private freight railroads.

The spokesman said Amtrak relies on private freight lines for its tracks outside the Northeast corridor and “does support ICC oversight of takeovers of railroads by non-railroad companies.”