Tom,

Thanks for your thoughts and for sending the newspaper article.

Another environmental advocate recently said that campaign finance reform
has got to be our #1 priority, because campaign financing as it is now has
such a huge impact on everything that federal, state and even local
government does.   The newspaper article below is one more confirmation of
that unhappy fact.  The Shays-Meehan bill is a good first step, but it's got
at least one major loophole (ads on the Internet were exempted from the new
regulations) and it is not by any means a comprehensive solution.

Public Campaign has a good piece of model legislation on its Web site
http://www.publicampaign.org/clean_main.html as well as documentation on how
successful the Clean Money approach has been in the states where it's been
enacted.  Let's see if we can get this done in Iowa.  This legislation has
been introduced at least twice here but evidently never made it out of
committee.

Patrick Bosold

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Mathews" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, March 17, 2002 10:52 PM
Subject: Transportation policy


> This article from the Baltimore Sun is especially timely, as The Des
Moines
> Sunday Register today announced the beginning of a multi-year,
multimillion
> dollar project to rebuild Interstate Highway 235 through Des Moines and
its
> increasingly sprawling suburbs.
>
> As environmentalists, we should  move beyond finding ways to mitigate the
> damage caused by highway construction. We should move beyond just finding
> ways to route highways around evironmentally sensitive areas. We should
now
> start to question whether any more highways should be built, or "improved"
by
> widening, while our rail system continues to undergo abandonment.
>
> Not only are highways environmentally destructive and energy inefficient,
> compared to rail. Highways are murderously unsafe, compared to rail. A few
> days ago a 125 car pileup in Georgia turned an Interstate highway into an
> instant junkyard, killed four people, and seriously injured 15. Every
year,
> motor vehicle accidents kill about 42,000 people and seriously injure tens
of
> thousands more. All this carnage is so commonplace that it is considered
> barely newsworthy by the major media. Last Thursday's Georgia pileup rated
> just three brief paragraphs on page two of The Des Moines Register. The
New
> York Times carried a photo one page one, with the story buried on page 12.
>
> Rail transport, particularly with modern communications, is far safer than
a
> highway system. Starting in the mid-1960s, the Japanese were able to
operate
> their high-speed "bullet" train for over thirty years without a single
> passenger fatality. It is unconscionable for the US to be without such a
> modern, safe passenger railway system. Our transportation dysfunction can
> only be explained by the power of the highway lobby: the road construction
> contractors, the auto manufacturers, the oil companies and all the other
> monied interests that benefit from our present lack of a transportation
> policy that meets the needs of people for safe, environmentally sound rail
> transportation.
>
> As the following article explains.
>
> Tom Mathews
> Transportation issue chair
> Sierra Club, Iowa Chapter
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
>
> ------------
> Subj:         Big money fuels scheme to derail Amtrak for good
> Date:   02-03-06 20:41:19 EST
> From:   [log in to unmask] (Eric Bruun)
> Sender: [log in to unmask] (Sierra Club Forum on
> Transportation Issues)
> Reply-to:   [log in to unmask] (Sierra Club Forum
on
> Transportation Issues)
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> >From the Baltimore Sun:
>
> Big money fuels scheme to derail Amtrak for good
> By Douglas Turner
>
> March 5, 2002
>
> WASHINGTON - Just 15 miles south of here, the federal government is
building
> a $600 million spaghetti-bowl interchange at just one of the zillion
> intersections of the Interstate Highway System. This follows an investment
> of at least $200 million to add four lanes to Interstate 95 immediately
> south of this crowded interchange.
>
> There is enough spent there to build a great university campus - complete
> with medical school, linear accelerator and chemistry laboratories. This
> mindless splurge, which is being replicated all over the country, will
> accomplish nothing.
>
> The four new lanes are now bumper-to-bumper by 11 most Saturday mornings.
> This is because motor vehicle traffic abhors a vacuum. Buses, cars and
> trucks go where the capacity is. And traffic is expanding faster than road
> capacity.
>
> Despite this investment of taxpayer dollars, the capacity of this
particular
> interchange is locked in for the next 40 years simply because of the
bridge
> abutments and other built-in arrangements.
>
> State and federal highway agencies throw hundreds of billions around like
> this without blinking, with no public debate and virtually no media
notice.
> It's on automatic.
>
> Similarly, federal agencies and airport authorities dump tens of billions
> into new runways, aprons and other projects. That, too, is on automatic.
>
> It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to figure out why. The combination of
> forces favoring sprawl, concrete and steel - automakers, contractors and
oil
> companies - is virtually unbeatable here.
>
> The hired guns in pinstripes representing the major airlines are likewise
> unstoppable. Witness last fall's congressional $15 billion bailout of the
> major airlines, whose callous and reckless indifference to security
concerns
> played a role in the hijackings of Sept. 11.
>
> These same forces have traditionally thwarted attempts by former
Democratic
> Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and other progressive thinkers to
> advance rail solutions to inter-city transportation problems. These
> interests have succeeded in preventing Amtrak from fulfilling the promise
> made when President Richard Nixon created it three decades ago.
>
> Now, with the support of White House Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels
> Jr., this combine has hatched a cabal to kill off Amtrak when it is most
> needed.
>
> This conspiracy - and it is not too strong a term - centers on a report
> concocted by the so-called Amtrak Reform Council. This was a 1997 creation
> of then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and then-Senate Majority
> Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi.
>
> This elitist exercise in anti-urban, regionalist bias was forced on
Congress
> by those two Republicans as a condition of continuing the modest level -
> compared with the subsidies given the airline and highway businesses - of
> operating subsidies provided to Amtrak.
>
> According to the 1997 law, Amtrak had to show a profit by 2002 or this
> Amtrak Reform Council would call on the passenger system to come up with a
> liquidation plan.
>
> No national or regional passenger system in the world shows a profit, any
> more than the airline or trucking industries could operate without
> government money. All transportation - other than canoes, bikes and
scooters
> - is subsidized.
>
> The council also produced a plan to "reorganize" Amtrak. Complaining
loudly
> about the modest subsidies Amtrak receives to run a national passenger
> system, the council proposes to break up and sell off the entire system,
> including the only tracks Amtrak owns - the northeastern corridor, running
> from Washington to Boston.
>
> Already under the reform council's pressure to cut costs, Amtrak has
> announced it will cut 18 long-distance trains from service this fall,
> including trains running through the district of New York Republican Jack
> Quinn, chairman of the House Transportation Subcommittee on Railroads.
>
> The reorganization "plan" crafted by the council is a predictable one,
> considering the council's makeup. Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Lott saw to it that
> the panel would be dominated by the most dedicated, right-wing,
> anti-government ideologues they could find - people who would be
indifferent
> to the interests of Amtrak's middle-class customers.
>
> The plan the reform council produced is an audacious union-busting grab
for
> government property, with a death grip on the public purse. It would sell
> off Amtrak's assets, liquidating some, and offer parts of its system to
> private operators. These private operators would be subsidized, of course,
> according to the reform council scheme. One estimate is $100 billion over
a
> decade.
>
> Privatization moves in Massachusetts and Britain have proved disastrous.
The
> $100 billion is a good estimate of what Amtrak should have gotten but
didn't
> because of its well-heeled opponents. This outrageous plan for Amtrak is a
> classic case study of what can happen when entrenched big money is pitted
> against the common citizen in this town.
>
>
> Douglas Turner is the Washington bureau chief of The Buffalo News. Readers
> may write him at 1141 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045.
>
> Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun
>
> (Distributed only for the purposes of discussion between railroad
activists.)
>
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