Emergency personnel work at the scene of Tuesday’s deadly Amtrak train derailment in Philadelphia. (Photo: Patrick Semansky/AP)

The deadly Amtrak train derailment Tuesday night in Philadelphia was deeply personal for many lawmakers, especially those from the Northeast — as important as Vice President Joe Biden and as relatively anonymous as rank-and-file House members — who travel by train to and from Washington.

But just because the accident struck close to home does not mean Congress will increase an already shrunken budget for transportation. Just hours after the derailment, which claimed at least seven lives and left scores more injured, the House Appropriations Committee held an uncomfortably timed markup of its annual transportation spending bill and moved forward with a $250 million cut from last year’s Amtrak funding of approximately $1.3 billion.

Democrats urged Republicans to keep the accident in mind as the hearing progressed and members debated how much the government should contribute to modernizing and repairing transportation infrastructure, including Amtrak.

“[The bill] does not provide funding to address the capital needs required for safety,” said Rep. David Price, D-N.C., the ranking member of the transportation subcommittee of the powerful appropriations panel. Price called for a new budget agreement with higher spending levels because, without such a deal, transportation programs would continue to be “a victim of the majority’s self-imposed austerity.”

Rep. David Price, D-N.C., decried transportation spending cuts before the House Appropriations Committee. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Getty)

“It decimates the investments that a great country must make,” Price said. “There’s no way to sufficiently address all the gaps in funding in this bill.”

Democrats unsuccessfully pushed an amendment, proposed by Pennsylvania Rep. Chaka Fattah, to fund Amtrak at the White House’s requested spending levels for 2016 of $2.45 billion, $550 million of which would have gone specifically to the Northeast Corridor and $220 million of which would have been directed to replace obsolete equipment on state-supported Amtrak routes. The measure failed on party lines, 30 to 21. Another Democratic amendment, from Price himself, would have restored the billions that the GOP cut from the White House’s overall transportation proposal, but that also failed, 29-21.

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Republicans objected to the Democrats’ efforts to break mutually agreed upon budget caps and said any increases in spending, for Amtrak or any other program, would have been challenged on the House floor. Republicans also questioned Democrats’ focus on the Tuesday accident, saying their attempts to tie the derailment to the previously scheduled hearing was inappropriate in the wake of a tragedy whose cause was still unknown. Investigators will be looking at all possible causes of the accident, including those — such as excessive speed — unrelated to infrastructure problems.

The 2016 transportation spending bill could still get log-jammed at any point of the legislative process outside of committee — on the House floor, where conservative Republicans have often voted against any government spending measures, or in the Senate, should the bill actually pass the House. But it’s not the only pressing legislation affecting transportation infrastructure.

A short-term stopgap bill designed to keep ongoing infrastructure projects funded is set to expire at the end of the month, and the extension of that measure remains stalled as Congress has focused on other issues, from Pacific trade to executive oversight on an Iran nuclear deal.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill. (Photo: Brett Carlsen/AP)

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said last week he would block any trade legislation until the transportation and infrastructure bill got a vote (the Senate has filibustered opening debate on President Barack Obama’s trade authority). But no congressional aide could give a timetable for considering a transportation vote. Coincidentally, this week is “National Infrastructure Week” in Washington, and lobbyists already had descended on the Capitol to advocate for a long-term solution to the funding shortfall.

Republicans have long insisted that any money spent for transportation and infrastructure projects be offset by spending cuts to other domestic programs.

A Senate Democratic aide said leaders are expected to bring up the issue of extending this so-called highway trust fund, which covers federal transportation and infrastructure projects, especially in light of current events. Congress is expected to recess for the Memorial Day holiday in less than two weeks.

“As someone who rides Amtrak between Wilmington and Washington almost every day, I know how critical Amtrak is to families, businesses and communities in Delaware and throughout the Northeast,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. “As a member of the Senate, last night’s tragedy is yet another stark reminder of why we must act now to invest in our transportation infrastructure, including Amtrak.”

In Tuesday’s House hearing, however, Republican Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, pushed back against Democrats’ demands for more funding, denouncing “the concept that it is always more money that is the solution.”

Officials meet at the site of the derailed Amtrak train in Philadelphia. (Photo: Mike Segar/Reuters)

The question in coming days, however, will be what is the solution and whether this accident might concentrate lawmakers’ attention on larger transportation issues — especially the lawmakers who travel this route.

Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., had just disembarked the ill-fated Amtrak train in Wilmington, the stop immediately before Philadelphia, where it derailed. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., released a statement saying his son was scheduled on the next Northeast Corridor train out of Washington en route to New York.

And Biden, long an ambassador for Amtrak and a frequent traveler before he was elected vice president, also released a statement indicating how personally the crash affected him and other travelers like him.

“The victims could have been any one of our parents, children or someone from one of our communities. Amtrak is like a second family to me, as it is for so many other passengers,” Biden said. “For my entire career, I’ve made the trip from Wilmington to Washington and back. I’ve come to know the conductors, engineers and other regulars — men and women riding home to kiss their kids good night — as we passed the flickering lights of each neighborhood along the way.”

