President Bush agreed Thursday to sign a rail package with $13 billion for Amtrak, according to House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee ranking Republican ranking John L. Mica .

The Senate cleared the bill late Wednesday.

Mica had been negotiating with the Bush administration for weeks. He said he told White House staff that he’d succeeded in getting reforms, privatization and more competition.

“I don’t know how I could have done any better,” he said.

Every year the Bush administration has offered budget requests bankrupting Amtrak and each year Congress puts the money back. Knowing that and seeing the large margins that the bill passed by in both the House and Senate convinced the president that a veto wasn’t worth the battle, Mica said.

Now Mica said he is trying to convince Bush to sign the bill quickly so that it will be the Republican administration overseeing request for proposals from private companies for the development of high speed rail. The provision is Mica’s brainchild.

Both party’s presidential nominees were in town for the bailout vote and so they also cast votes for the Amtrak and rail safety package.

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois voted for the measure while Arizona Sen. John McCain , a longtime critic of Amtrak, voted against it.