House Overrides Bush’s Amtrak Veto; GOP Stalls Senate Battle

The House voted Thursday to override President Bush’s veto of a bill that continues about $1.4 billion in federal subsidies for Amtrak, the national passenger railway system.

Aided by the defection of 57 Republicans, House Democrats easily mustered the two-thirds majority required to overturn the veto, voting 294 to 123 to pass the bill.

However, Republicans temporarily derailed the Democratic-led effort to overturn the veto in the Senate, where Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), citing the absence of five Republicans, refused to permit a vote until Tuesday.

“I don’t know if we’ll have the votes then to win or not,” Dole said. “But we have a responsibility to the President to do the best we can (to sustain the veto), and we can’t do our best with five members absent.

A defeat for Bush on the Amtrak bill would represent the first of his 11 vetoes to be overturned by Congress. Although the House voted to override Bush’s veto of a bill affording legal protections to Chinese students earlier this year, the veto was sustained in the Senate.

This time, Senate backers of the Amtrak bill were predicting victory, although they conceded the vote would be close.

Bush vetoed the bill May 24 because of a provision that would subject certain types of railroad acquisitions to closer government scrutiny. Asserting that there was no need for the provision, Bush called it an example of re-regulation that represents “a step backward for the entire rail industry.”

He offered to sign a “similar” bill if it were sent to him without the offending provision, but House and Senate Democrats dismissed the offer as camouflage for what they suspect is an attempt to end federal financing of the railway system.

The Democrats also argued that the provision Bush dislikes is needed to close a loophole in existing law that allows companies not involved in the railroad business to acquire railway freight services without a federal review process.

Under current law, railroad companies that seek to acquire or merge with other railroads must have those transactions approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission. But this review process does not apply to companies buying into the freight railroad business for the first time.