According to Amtrak, the bill would eliminate nearly 150 weekday state-supported trains in the country and affect Oklahoma and 14 other states.

“The Republican proposal forces an unwelcome decision on states who clearly want to preserve and expand passenger rail service,” Amtrak board Chairman Tom Carper said.

The bill was approved by a House appropriations subcommittee last week and is now before the full committee.

It would cut Amtrak’s funding by about 60 percent and prohibit Amtrak from spending any money on “state-supported routes.”

The Heartland Flyer receives state funding from Oklahoma and Texas.

However, even with the state funding and revenue from tickets, the route had an operating deficit of more than $2.6 million last year that had to be covered by Amtrak, according to a recent report by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Muskogee.

Coburn’s report says fares on the Heartland Flyer would have to be more than doubled to eliminate the need for an Amtrak subsidy.

Coburn is among many critics of the large subsidies for passenger rail service. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service wrote last year that Amtrak loses more than $1 billion a year and that virtually all of its 44 routes lose money.

But Carper, the Amtrak board chairman, said the Republican bill would kill “an engine of local and regional economic growth much needed today.”

Jared Young, spokesman for Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa, said, “We are following what is going on over in the House, but at the same time, I would anticipate that there will be many changes to the legislation as it makes its way through the process.

“I would not think that the final language of the bill will look exactly the same as the committee passed it.”

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