Passenger Trains > Amtrak's Independence?

Is Amtrak independent of the US executive branch and DOGE government overhaul?  

The NY Times recently reported this morning that a DOGE team entered the headquarters of the U.S. Institute of Peace(USIOP) accompanied by DC police.  While I do not want to get into the merits, pros & cons of what the USIOP did or does, (I never knew they existed) it does seem like we are seeing a groundwork being laid out for DOGE and the executive branch to intervene into other larger and independent government subsidized corporations.

A quote from the article, "George Moose, who was fired as the institute’s acting president last week but is challenging his dismissal, accused Mr. Musk’s team of breaking in. “Our statute is very clear about the status of this building and this institute,” he told reporters. “So what has happened here today is an illegal takeover by elements of the executive branch of a private nonprofit corporation.”

I think there are a lot of parallels with Amtrak's structure and the U.S. Institute of Peace(USIOP)

While I know many of us have considered Amtrak beholden to Congress's directives and appropriations, I wonder if we are likely to see a sudden, rapid and forceful intrusion into Amtrak headquarters by DOGE in the name of government overhaul that would include firing and replacement of the Amtrak Board and Amtrak executives and who knows what else.  

I appreciate your informative responses to this topic.

 

Amtrak is, legally speaking, a private corporation (that receives funding from the Feds). Therefore it's employees (that includes executives) cannot be fired by Trump/Musk. They can only be fired by Amtrak.

That said, we have seen Trump do outrageous illegal actions including defying court orders. So who knows what might happen.

Hou74-76 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is Amtrak independent of the US executive branch
> and DOGE government overhaul?  
>

Are you suggesting that issues of massive waste and mismanagement should never be reviewed or questioned?
I thought that "Inspector Generals" had the duty to review massive waste and mismanagement.  How did that work out?  No surprise that they were fired.




 

Amtrak is waiting on the federal government to select a new chair of the board, and maybe fill seats held by hold over directors.  Once that happens, Mr Gardner will likely get clear marching orders.

Or  "we move fast and break things" may be the order of the day

redberan4449 Wrote:

> Are you suggesting that issues of massive waste
> and mismanagement should never be reviewed or
> questioned?

No, I am not.  
 

I had never heard of USIP, but I found Public Law No. 98-525 (Oct. 19, 1984) which created it. It has some similarities to the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970 that created the NRPC, but there are differences. The RPSA says outright "The Corporation will not be an agency or establishment of the United States Government." 

That said, appointments to the NRPC Board are not lifetime and it's only a question of how long it will take for the current administration to gain control. For that matter, Congress could amend the NRPC statutes at any time, if they have the votes to do it. 

And as to whether the current administration would act now and wait for the courts to sort things out later, we will have to wait and see. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/25 12:16 by ctillnc.

redberan4449

You must have learned from Steven Gardner, how to "Spin"  a phrase or question--

The way you phrased your following question is classic "Spin"--i.e.
"are you suggesting massive waste and mismanagement should never be reviewed or questioned".

Who in their right mind would answer "Yes" to that question?  The old term was "a Loaded Question"

So, now I'll "Spin" a question to you.

Are you suggesting Musk has absolute knowledge of massive waste in all 3 Million government jobs?  Did he review them all?
Are you suggesting a roaring chainsaw, of a  non-government person, will magically eliminate all waste?


 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/25 12:20 by ronald321.

Salaries and benefits costs are one component, but the programs these folks manage are much bigger $$$. Shutting down VA health centers, cutting school lunches, limiting medicaid, etc will produce far bigger results.

Amtrak is small fish in this game, but DOGE will catch up eventually.

Go back and read the relevant chapters in project 2025. It is all laid out there.

Posted from Android

I think it's an open question given the politics of the day. As has been noted here and elsewhere, Amtrak is by law a private corporation with its preferred and some common stock owned by the federal government through the DOT. The ownership and stock shares question was discussed in detail in this recent thread: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,5993664,5994500#msg-5994500   See the third and seventh posts particularly.

The loss of rights by Carl Lindner mentioned in the above TO discussion is treated in considerable detail in this 2015 article by Frank Willner in Railway Age. May be behind a paywall: https://www.railwayage.com/news/fini-to-saga-of-amtraks-common-stock/

Written in his unique and typically acerbic style, one can take his color of opinion with a considerable grain of salt. But in between the facts are all there. I remember having encountered this article some years ago, and having been quite taken aback by it. So much so that I independently researched all of the legal actions and details he described. At that time I did not find any inaccuracies. Although I did put aside his highly opinionated coloring of the facts of the case. And I'll add that I am not an attorney.

Bottom line: Amtrak's preferred stock all rests with the federal government through the office of the Secretary of Transportation, now Sean Duffy, a former Republican congressman from Wisconsin. Any common stock that somehow survived the redistributions described in the previous thread and Willner's article probably rests with one of the freight railroads, left over from Amtrak's formation, and has no rights. That's not likely, but not impossible. There have been other common-to-preferred conversion cases where shares of common stock have been found long after the redemption to preferred, or some other conversion. Whether they had any rights was highly unlikely, but that rested with the facts of the individual case.

Again, I'm not a lawyer. But it seems to me that the fact that Amtrak is constituted as a regular corporation, with preferred stock that technically may be marketable, just as the past common shares were technically marketable at some times in their history, may give it some distance from DOGE actions in the courts. Even though the preferred is all held by the Secretary of Transportation, and with a board appointed by the President. Just as a citizen, I can't see how that would inherently make it a federal agency. Its employees are not, by all sources I can read, considered to be federal employees, and none of them I've ever known have ever suggested to me in many conversations about their jobs that they felt like or were treated like federal employees. Nor were they made subject (to the best of my knowledge) the rules and procedures that apply to federal employees, nor to the civil service rules that apply to federal employees.

Yes, it has been pointed out here on TO that there are apparently some Amtrak vehicles that have federal government license plates, and that those cannot be applied by law to any non-government vehicle. I'm going to venture a guess that this is somehow a "hybrid" case having to do with tax status or administration by DOT (and alignment with GSA rules by DOT) than by some legal status as being a federal agency. My understanding is that there are also government plates on some Indian tribally-operated vehicles in connection with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an agency of the Department of the Interior, which could be a similar "hybrid" case. And I don't think that anyone is going to suggest that the federal plates on those tribal vehicles makes the tribe (which is recognized by the government as a sovereign nation) into an agency of the federal government. But that's all just a layman's guess from the outside looking in. And I'm sure "longliveSP", who has pointed out the license plate situation previously, will come down on me like a ton of bricks for making these statements So be it.

Bottom line: Amtrak is often described as a "quasi-governmental" entity, or some similar term. Will the administration and DOGE see it that way, and also therefore view it as open to their actions? Or will they see in its "quasi" status enough distance, however thin or thick, from being another federal agency that they might decide to pass on taking it on? Hate to say it, but I think it's a jump ball. That may be good for Amtrak, or not. But if DOGE rips into Amtrak, it may also may be quite a thorny case for the courts to sort out. And there, very sadly (to say the very, very least) it doesn't seem like DOGE or the administration cares much these days about such entanglements before a court.

MC



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/25 13:32 by ironmtn.

Good analysis. Once the Board changes, the situation should be clear.

FWIW, I think Amtrak, TVA, Bonneville power, etc are all in the same bucket. Not federal employees, but part of government operations and subject to oversight.

Posted from Android

On going off-topic here slightly, but while I'm thinking of it,
I wonder if The Federal Reserve is on the DOGE "hit list."
First, it ain't "Federal" and there is no "Reserve," but I digress.

FR is a private corporation(bank) under government jurisdiction, i.e.,
the President appoints board members and the Chairman(woman),
right? So I wonder if FR might be "privatized" or is it immune?

Thank You Hou74-76 for initiating this thread!

I would love Musk to lead all the incompetent leaders out of the headquarters and fire them ALL.  But I do hope Musk has a new leader in mind, who wants the job and knows passenger railroading.  NOT an airline boy or rocket maker etc.  

The President has said that the Federal Reserve Board (and presumably the regional Federal Reserve Banks) should be directly subject to the pleasure of the President.  So, it's a good bet that co-President Musk and the DOGE kids will be there eventually.

As it stands, the Chair and several members are appointed by the President, and confirmed by Congress for long terms (I believe nine years). Other members of the Board are elected by the banks in each FRB district. There's a formula for which of those latter members have a vote in each meeting.  The system is designed to make the Board resistant to political pressure.

ronald321 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> redberan4449
>
> You must have learned from Steven Gardner, how to
> "Spin"  a phrase or question--
>
> The way you phrased your following question is
> classic "Spin"--i.e.
> "are you suggesting massive waste and
> mismanagement should never be reviewed or
> questioned".
>
> Who in their right mind would answer "Yes" to that
> question?  The old term was "a Loaded Question"
>
> So, now I'll "Spin" a question to you.
>
> Are you suggesting Musk has absolute knowledge of
> massive waste in all 3 Million government jobs? 
> Did he review them all?
> Are you suggesting a roaring chainsaw, of a 
> non-government person, will magically eliminate
> all waste?
>
>
>  
I suggest Musk mind Tesla. Its stock is down 53% since year end.

One institutional investor is threatening a law suit unless Musk either steps down or steps up to do his job at Tesla.

Posted from iPhone

CPMorris Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> On going off-topic here slightly, but while I'm
> thinking of it,
> I wonder if The Federal Reserve is on the DOGE
> "hit list."
> First, it ain't "Federal" and there is no
> "Reserve," but I digress.
>
> FR is a private corporation(bank) under government
> jurisdiction, i.e.,
> the President appoints board members and the
> Chairman(woman),
> right? So I wonder if FR might be "privatized" or
> is it immune?
>
> Thank You Hou74-76 for initiating this thread!

Trump has been very quiet about Fed Chair Powell. Why? Because any threat against a Fed Chair would instantly crush the market. I don’t mean the 10% we’ve seen so far. It’ll be more like 30-50%.

Posted from iPhone

The Wall Street Journal is reporting on Tuesday night that President Trump has fired the two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission. That follows his earlier firing of the Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board. That firing is being contested on the grounds that no President has a right to remove a sitting member other than "for cause".  It is likely the FTC firings will also be contested. The President's firing of the head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was reversed by a federal judge on Monday.  It is likely one or more of  these cases will eventually end up at the Supreme Court.

Mr Trump contends that the Constitution gives him the right to terminate any member of an "independent government board or authority" for any reason, or no reason.

 

When Amtrak's turn comes -- Musk/Doge won't have to prove Amtrak
is full of "Waste"-- just DECLARE they are.  Some people will automatically believe it.

As a trainfan--I asked myself--is Amtrak full of waste,etc..  if so, in what areas?

Up to now, Musk has claimed "efficiency" by cutting jobs.  Dose Amtrak have a lot of unnecessary jobs?
(They don't have enough people to operate full dining car service. And Anderson fired a lot of ticket agents long ago)

"Waste" is not a "fact"--it is a judgment call.
I call Gardner's bonuses a waste--but, would he agree with me. (my judgment vs. his)

Eliminating entire gov. departments--(or agency like Amtrak)--by calling it "wasteful", --means it should no longer exist because it
serves no function or purpose.  Dose Amtrak serve no purpose?  Dose Acela serve no purpose?

But, Musk-DOGE don't give a damn about any of this--the goal is to raise money to cover extending the Tax Cut--by cutting any-and-everyone
else with that chainsaw.  Just call them "Wasteful"