The GOP-controlled House passed legislation Tuesday to cut Amtrak’s budget by $242 million, though lawmakers added new funding for video cameras inside locomotive cabs to record engineers and help investigators get to the bottom of crashes such as last month’s deadly derailment in Philadelphia.
Amtrak announced last month it is going to install the cameras after years of delays. The transportation and housing measure approved by a narrow 216-210 vote contains $9 million approved last week to fund the inward-facing camera initiative in the budget year starting in October.
Amtrak is among many domestic programs whose budgets are cut or frozen by the GOP measures, as automatic spending curbs known as sequestration are again hitting federal agencies after two years of relief. Previous House GOP attempts to cut Amtrak over the years have been reversed, and Tuesday’s transportation measure is but an opening move in a longer chess match with the White House over spending levels for agency operating budgets passed annually by Congress.
Federal safety investigators probing the deadly Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia were waiting to interview the train’s engineer, whose attorney said on Thursday he did not remember the crash that killed seven people and injured more than 200 others.
The train bound for New York City from Washington was barreling into a curve at more than 100 miles per hour on Tuesday night, twice the speed limit, when the engineer slammed on the brakes, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said.
Investigators said they have not yet interviewed the train’s engineer, identified by a city official as Brandon Bostian, to give him time to recover.
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Police have confirmed a seventh death in the investigation of an overturned Amtrak train in Philadelphia, multiple outlets report.
Emergency response crews were sifting through the mangled wreckage of the train Wednesday morning, as officials attempt to account for missing passengers and determine what caused the deadly accident.
“You have a lot of questions, we have a lot of questions,” Robert Sumwalt of the National Transportation Safety Board said during a press conference at the crash scene.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
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