By Keith Laing - 08/24/11 12:33 PM ET
Amtrak is rolling forward with its high-speed rail plans, despite House Republican intentions of privatizing parts of the national pasenger rail service.
Amtrak announced Wednesday that it was hiring an accounting firm to plan the financing for its high-speed rail proposals, even while House Republicans are targeting Amtrak's most profitable service area for privatization.
Led by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), Republicans are arguing that non-governmental companies could operate the Northeast rail lines at higher speeds than Amtrak's Acela trains.
Despite that objection, the agency said it was hiring New York-based KPMG LLP to acquire financing for its plan to increase the speed of Acela up to 220 miles per hour in 30 years.
"The selection of KPMG is the result of a highly competitive procurement process that showed us there is real interest and enthusiasm in the financial community for advancing the Amtrak NEC high-speed rail project," Amtrak Vice President of High-Speed Rail Al Engel said in a statement announcing the contract.
"The Amtrak high-speed project is critical for the future of the Northeast megaregion and we are interested in identifying innovative business approaches for attracting private capital and combining it with public financing sources to help us build it," Engel added.
KPMG will work on the rail financing plan with several other companies, including DWH Strategic Advisors, Sharon Greene & Associates and TranSystems, Amtrak said Tuesday.
Plans call for the first 220 mph trains to run between New York and Philadelphia by 2023. The service would eventually be expanded from Philadelphia to Washington, New York to Hartford, Conn., and Hartford to Boston, in that order, the company said.