LET AMTRAK RIDE INTO THE SUNSET

LET AMTRAK RIDE INTO THE SUNSET
Chicago Tribune: Amtrak is back on Capitol Hill, clamoring for $1.2 billion more in subsidies. Predictably, foes will demand Amtrak make a profit, a remote expectation, while supporters will argue for subsidies ad infinitum.
This cycle gets taxpayers neither savings nor decent train service. Let's think new ideas: Dismantle Amtrak and reconstitute it into a regional system of high-speed links serving large urban centers. These networks should be driven by market demand, with state and local governments handling a significant portion of the planning and funding.
A bill introduced by Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, roughly followed those outlines but it died in the House last summer. Congress ought to consider it. Continuing subsidies only postpones Amtrak's inevitable day of reckoning.
A new train network requires new assumptions. It's unlikely it will ever make a profit -- no train service in the world does -- which makes privatization a remote possibility.
That said, it's a stretch to say Amtrak survives on subsidies while other transportation modes pay for their own infrastructure and other costs through "user fees" such as taxes on gasoline and airline tickets. A study last year by the Congressional Research Service estimated that between 1985 and 1995, air transportation -- long before the recent blizzard of government-guaranteed loans to the airlines -- received $30 billion more in federal government support than the government collected in user fees. For highways the figure was $17 billion.
During the same period Amtrak received $9 billion, although it carried only a tiny 1 percent of the common-carrier passengers.
Fact is, if Amtrak operated efficiently and had a respectable market share, subsidies would not be such a sticking point. Metra and the Chicago Transit Authority recover only half of their operating costs from fares; the rest comes mostly from gas taxes collected by the state. No one complains much because the trains run on time and they keep the expressways from being vastly more crowded during rush hour.
By comparison, many of Amtrak's cross-country lines are lightly used and fueled by equal parts nostalgia and subsidies as high as $300 per passenger. That kind of subsidy is intolerable.
Intercity links
Yet many shorter, intercity train links are thriving. The Metroliner from Boston to Washington carries 2.6 million passengers a year. A line between Harrisburg, Pa., and New York City serves 3 million passengers. Similarly, trains between Fort Worth and Oklahoma City, and among various points in California, are gaining riders.
A proposed Midwest regional rail system, with its hub in Chicago, could offer competitive service to cities like St. Louis, Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Detroit. Increasing delays from road traffic and airport security could, for instance, make a four-hour train ride to St. Louis an attractive alternative -- provided it's reliable and comfortable.
Studying and building such lines will require heavy subsidies by the feds -- and state and local governments. States ought to assume a good part of the cost and the risk, to avoid the usual grabbing at federal bucks -- for anything -- simply because they are there.
Young's bill provided $12 billion bonding authority to the states, through a complex mechanism that ultimately made states responsible for 30 percent of the costs. That's a good start.
What Young's bill and the plan by the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative fail to do is get rid of Amtrak. The proposals assume Amtrak, with its history of mismanagement and rigid union rules, will run the new rail network.
That's not going to work. Amtrak is a failed concept. It needs to be shut down and replaced with a new network more responsive to today's needs. Anything less will mean more of the same -- sinking good public money after bad.
THE RIGHT DOSE
Washington Post: There are many ways in which children are not just grown-ups in miniature. One of the important ones is that young bodies process medicine differently than adult ones. Simply adjusting an adult dose for lower weight or shorter stature may not produce the best results, but for many years and for many medicines that's what doctors have had to do. Nearly three-quarters of the drugs given to children have not been tested specifically for pediatric use. In 1998 the Food and Drug Administration moved to change that situation by adopting a rule that requires drugmakers to test new drugs and some already on the market for safety and efficacy in children. But recently a federal judge overturned the regulation, ruling that the FDA had exceeded its legal authority in issuing it. Congress should step in. A bill passed unanimously this summer by a Senate committee and backed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and a range of health and children's advocacy groups would write the pediatric testing rule into law. Members ought to find a way to pass it when they return.
Incentives
Lawmakers have already enacted incentives for drug companies to conduct pediatric tests, including a six-month patent extension for drugs undergoing such investigations. Both the testing rule and the incentives have led to new testing, which has produced significant data, including findings that have changed ideas about appropriate children's doses for some drugs. Both are needed because the rule has a broader reach than the incentives, covering some therapies and age groups that would not be reached under the voluntary program alone. Critics argue that the testing requirements impose a burden that could delay or deter the development of new drugs, but there is little evidence to back up that claim.
A spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said this spring, when the administration briefly suspended the testing rule and then retreated after a storm of criticism, that its members had learned to live with the requirement and had not sought its suspension. There is, of course, some level of risk in any broad testing program, but the alternative is simply to carry on with the old practice of trying to guess what's appropriate.