Archive for February 17th, 2009
February 17th, 2009
While Rockford twiddles its thumbs on passenger rail, QC Rail goes gangbusters, lobbying for federal and Illinois/Iowa support for Chicago to Quad Cities passenger service. Here’s some of their lobbying activity:
Over the course of the past month, QC Rail met with Congressional staff and Members of Congress in their district and Washington, DC offices to advocate for passenger rail funding in the stimulus bill.Â
·        January 16-26, 2009: QC Rail Steering Committee members met with Congressional staff in Quad City area district offices.
·        January 29, 2009: QC Rail hosted a media conference calling on Congress to prioritize passenger rail funding in stimulus bill.
·        February 3-4, 2009: QC Rail organized a Washington, DC Fly-In to meet with Congressmen, Senators, and DC staff. The QC Rail delegation included: Paul Rumler, QC Rail; Jim Bohnsack, Rock Island County Chairman; Betsy Brandsgard, DavenportOne; Rick Baker, Illinois Quad City Chamber; and Jeff Nelson, MetroLINK.
·        February 10-12, 2009: Paul Rumler met with Congressional members and staff in DC from the Midwest about critical infrastructure improvements, including passenger rail, as part of the Great Lakes Chamber Coalition.
QC Rail will continue to work with Amtrak, IL and IA DOT, and state and federal elected officials to ensure funding is allocated for Quad Cities Amtrak service.
February 17th, 2009
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, the second most powerful senator in Washington, D.C., has gone off to Greece, Turkey and Cyprus. He’s taken Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulious with him. Alexi is a favorite of Barack Obama, and according to The Capitol Fax Blog, he’s being groomed to run for the Senate in 2010. They’re on a trade mission and to seek a solution to the long-simmering dispute between Turk and Greek Cypriots. According to CapFax, Alexi is paying for the trip with his own money.
Read it here
Back to me: If it’s true that the president of the United States and the second-most powerful senator want Alexi to be the senator, Roland Burris will have one, tough time getting any traction should he decide to seek election in 2010, assuming he’s still in office when the time comes to make such a decision.
February 17th, 2009
Related to passenger rail, here’s a story in the Politico that says Obama plans a massive railroad investment in high speed rail during his administration. Plus, Politico says, Harry Reid had little or nothing to do with the $8 billion in high speed rail funding in the stimulus bill. It was put in there by Obama through Rahm Emmanuel, his chief of staff, reports Politico. Read about it here:
February 17th, 2009
House and Senate Republicans need to stop lying about the high speed rail funding in Obama’s stimulus bill. They’ve been on radio and TV talking about “Harry Reid’s $8 billion train from Disneyland to Las Vegas.”
They refer to the $8 billion in the stimulus bill that’s slated for high speed rail and intercity passenger rail projects — throughout the country.
There’s nothing specific about the Ahaheim to Vegas route, which has been in the planning stages, reports TRAINS magazine.
There are also high speed rail corridors extending out of Chicago, to St. Louis, the Twin Cities, Cincnnatti, Detroit, and Californians passed a measure in November to develop the California High Speed rail route between San Francisco and L.A./San Diego.
Passenger rail got a boost from the stimulus plan, TRAINS says, because President Obama personally pushed for it. So, altogether there is $9.3 billion for passenger rail in the stimulus plan.
I’m wondering, will U.S. Rep. Don Manzullo, R-Egan, who generally supports passenger rail, join me in repudiating his colleagues who are lying about high speed rail in the stimulus plan?
