Thurs. Feb. 26, 2009
To: Montana NARP Members - Montana Rail Passenger Advocates - Other Interested Parties:
The Montana State Legislature has adjourned for the mid-session break. The State House of Representatives will reconvene at 4:30pm on Mon. March 2 and the State Senate will reconvene at 5pm on the same day. Now is the time to personally visit with your State Representatives and Senators as they return home asking them to support efforts for increased rail passenger service in Montana.
The following updates pertain to Senate Bills 9 and 166.
SB 9 - introduced by State Senator Ron Erickson (D) - SD 47 - Missoula, would authorize funding of transportation systems with revenue bonds. This bill has now been rescheduled for a hearing by the State House Local Government Committee.
Date & Time - Thurs. March 19, 2009 - 3pm
Location - Room 172
State House "Local Government" Committee -
Meets Tuesdays, Thursdays, 3 p.m., Room 172
Arntzen, Elsie (R) (Chair) - HD 53 - Billings
Hands, Betsy (D) (Vice Chair) - HD 99 - Missoula
MacLaren, Gary (R) (Vice Chair) - HD 89 - Victor
Becker, Arlene (D) - HD 52 - Billings
Bennett, Gerald (R) - HD 1 - Libby
Berry, Tom (R) - HD 45 - Roundup
Driscoll, Robyn (D) - HD 51 - Billings
Ebinger, Bob (D) - HD 62 - Livingston
Grinde, Wanda (D) - HD 48 - Billings
Hamilton, Robin (D) - HD 92 - Missoula
Ingraham, Pat (R) - HD 13 - Thompson Falls
Menahan, Mike (D) - HD 82 - Helena
More, Michael (R) - HD 70 - Gallatin Gateway
Reichner, Scott (R) - HD 9 - Bigfork
Reinhart, Michele (D) - HD 97 - Missoula
Sands, Diane (D) - HD 95 - Missoula
Stahl, Wayne (R) - HD 35 - Saco
Vance, Gordon (R) - HD 67 - Bozeman
Staff: Joe Kolman, 406-444-9280
ACTION ALERT - Please consider attending this March 19th hearing in Helena. If you know that you won't be able to personally attend, please contact the Committee Members shown above asking for their support and passage of SB 9 from their Committee to the Full House. Once again, it's important to try and get as many people to attend this hearing to show our support for this legislation.
SB 166 - introduced by State Senator Dave Lewis (R) - SD 42 - Helena, would have allowed the use of low-interest coal tax trust fund loans to expand rail passenger service within the state. This bill had been heard by the State Senate "Local Government" Committee on Fri. Jan. 23. This committee "Tabled" the bill on Tues. Jan. 27 by a vote of 7 to 2.
As of today, Thurs. Feb. 26, 2009, the bill is officially dead account it missed the deadline for general bill transmittal and there will be no more action on this bill.
As a side note, comments were made by Senator Lewis indicating that he felt his bill was dead because of paranoia on the part of Northern MT Legislators that any attempt to revive a Southern Route would jeopardize the Empire Builder. To date, yours truly has only heard of one instance where there were comments made, and they were not from a State Legislator, against restoring Amtrak's North Coast Hiawatha through Southern Montana and the worry of losing the Empire Builder.
Therefore, if there have been other comments against restoration of rail passenger service through the Southern part of the state, they haven't been very vocal nor have they shown up in print where I would have seen or heard them since the beginning of the Legislative Session. Possibly, those of you that receive this correspondence could enlighten me as to whether or not you've heard adverse comments from anyone regarding the work towards bringing some type of rail passenger service to the Southern part of the state. In the end, any effort to restore rail passenger service through Southern Montana must not interfere with any of the current operations of Amtrak's Empire Builder across the Hi-Line.
As a reminder, the following web link offers various ways for you to contact these and other Montana State Legislators:
If I can be of further assistance, please don't hesitate to contact me about this or other rail passenger matters. Please feel free to circulate this correspondence with others within the state that you know are interested in these efforts during the legislative session.
Sincerely yours,
Barry E. Green
NARP State Rep. for Montana
P. O. Box 162
Glendive, MT 59330
(406)-377-8056 (Home)
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