House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bud Shuster, R-Pa., late Wednesday delayed floor consideration of the Amtrak reauthorization bill while talks continue between House negotiators and their Senate and Clinton administration counterparts over setting up a new Amtrak board of directors.
Shuster presented his plan to the House GOP Conference late Wednesday. But members at the meeting said there was little debate of the Amtrak issue and Shuster left quickly after he was finished. Republican members afterward said that in addition to the merits of Shuster's arguments for the board, it also has become a larger "House vs. Senate" tug-o-war.
Shuster wants to replace the current Amtrak board, whose members are now appointed by the president, with a board appointed in consultation with congressional leaders of both parties and approved by the Senate, like other administration nominees.
The purpose of creating a new board, sources on both sides of the issue acknowledge, would be to seat more members who are less sympathetic to labor. Shuster and other Republicans believe that for Amtrak to survive with less federal assistance, it needs concessions on work rules and wages from its workers. Shuster and other Republicans point to the just-completed negotiations with the track maintenance workers as evidence that the board structure should be changed.
At the insistence of the White House, the board members, mostly appointed by President Clinton, took over from Amtrak management the negotiations with the track maintenance workers who were threatening to strike late last month. In the subsequent labor agreement, the board promised the workers higher wages that are contingent on congressional approval. GOP House and Senate leaders have called the settlement a nonstarter.
While Senate Commerce Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., supports a reconstituted board of directors, Senate Republicans are warning Shuster that the plan will cause Senate Democrats to oppose the Amtrak reform bill. In turn, that opposition would jeopardize passage of the House bill by unanimous consent in the Senate before adjournment; Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., will not bring up the bill under regular debate rules before the end of the session.
Senate Democrats argue they already swallowed hard to accept the labor and liability provisions agreed to last week in the Senate bill. Shuster accepted those provisions.
The bill is time sensitive because Amtrak, which borrowed $83 million in fiscal 1997, faces its creditors in December. Passage of the Amtrak reauthorization bill would trigger payment of $2.3 billion for capital expenses set aside in the budget agreement.
Shuster aides are counting on Senate Democrats and Clinton to agree to the new board if the alternative is Amtrak bankruptcy. As an additional tactic to win support for his new Amtrak board, Shuster on Wednesday argued that the board structure in the Senate bill, and Amtrak's current board structure, is unconstitutional.
In a "Dear Colleague" sent Wednesday, Shuster cited a July letter sent from Assistant Attorney General Andrew Fois to McCain stating that because Amtrak's board of directors wield significant power over a government-related agency and answer to no other executive officers, they must be appointed with the "advice and consent of the Senate" like other presidential nominees.
Therefore, Shuster argued, the Senate-passed bill is unconstitutional because it does not change the current structure of the Amtrak board.
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