Buoyed by the Obama administration's initial and enthusiastic commitment this past fall, Congress is taking the first real steps in U.S. history to build a national high-speed rail system. To be sure, the U.S. has a long way to go -- both in terms of financing and planning -- before it can lay claim to any comprehensive system. But the demand is there. Ridership is up on Amtrak, the inter-state rail system already exists, and far more officials have put in requests for stimulus grants than are available. Now, Congress just has to decide how much to allocate.

When it passed a broader transportation and housing bill this past summer, the House appropriated $4 billion in new funding for high-speed rail initiative. (Reps. Peter Roskam and Mark Kirk voted in favor of an unsuccessful amendment to strip that money.) The Senate set its sights a little bit lower, only authorizing $1.2 billion in FY 2010. Flanked by transit advocates from the Four Billion coalition at Chicago's Union Station today, a group of state lawmakers called on members of the Senate (including Illinois' own Dick Durbin) to ante up when the final bill is reconciled with the House version. Watch excerpts from some of their statements:

In other rail news, the stimulus grants will likely be awarded in late January. Officials from across the country are furiously lobbying for consideration, but folks from Illinois are confident that the bulk of their $550 million request will be met. While he said it's unclear which projects would get funded, the Midwest High Speed Rail Association's Dan Johnson-Weinberger said today there is "almost zero percent chance that [the Midwest] will be left out entirely." Stay tuned.