WASHINGTON – Congress is on the verge of killing funding for President Barack Obama’s signature high-speed rail program, but it may have some life in it still.
Republican lawmakers are claiming credit for killing the program. But billions of dollars still in the pipeline will ensure work will continue on some projects. And it’s still possible money from another transportation grant program can be steered to high-speed trains.
Obama had requested $8 billion in fiscal 2012 for the program, and $53 billion over six years. House and Senate negotiators agreed to a measure this week that eliminates any funding specifically for high-speed trains. Final passage of the bill, which funds day-to-day operations at the Transportation Department and several other agencies in fiscal 2012, is expected Thursday in the House and Friday in the Senate.
Republicans have made it clear since taking control of the House last year that they intended to eliminate the program, which they say is too costly.
The bill marks “an end to the president’s misguided high-speed rail program, but it is not the end of American high-speed rail,” said Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s railroad subcommittee.
Shuster and the Transportation Committee’s chairman, Rep. John
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