Rev. Jesse Jackson, second from left, has joined transit workers' unions in their Save Our Ride campaign. (Photo: Streetsblog NYC)

The president of the AFL-CIO's Transportation Trades Department, Ed Wytkind, also pushed for passage of the Senate bill in a National Journal guest blog post this morning. The Amalgamated Transit Union and the Transport Workers Union, both AFL-CIO members, have aligned with Rev. Jesse Jackson, environmental groups, and civil-rights advocates for a campaign dubbed Save Our Ride that seeks to stave off sweeping transit cuts in major cities.

The unions have several hurdles to clear before the transit funding becomes available, however. The Senate legislation contains only authorizing language, meaning that lawmakers must quickly follow with "appropriating" language that technically disburses the operating money.

That two-step process would have been accomplished quickly by attaching the transit aid to a larger bill that is considered "must-pass" by Congress, such as the upcoming supplemental funding bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Republican senators vowed early on to oppose any attempt to add unrelated spending to that measure, and the Senate passed its version sans transit aid before adjourning for the Memorial Day recess.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday advanced
an auto safety bill aimed at strengthening U.S. DOT regulators’ hands
in the aftermath of Toyota’s recall debacle. Despite Republican complaints
that the legislation would impose too many new costs on the car
industry, bipartisan support emerged readily for an amendment focused
on pedestrian safety.

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) (Photo: 2.bp.blogspot.com)

Offered
by Reps. Ed Towns (D-NY) and Cliff Stearns (R-FL), the amendment would
require makers of hybrid and electric cars, which often produce little
to no sound when traveling at low speeds, to include an alert noise as
a precaution for nearby pedestrians and cyclists.

The silent-cars amendment tracks with conclusions reached this month
by automakers and advocates for the blind, many of whom were long
concerned about already-impaired pedestrians’ ability to guard against
the presence of a semi-silent oncoming vehicle.

A September study [PDF]
conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found
that the crash risk to pedestrians from cars traveling at low speeds
was twice as high for hybrids as for combustion-engine models. The
study also concluded that the likelihood of crashes at road
intersections involving cyclists were "significantly higher" for
hybrids than for conventionally powered cars.

“As the
popularity of hybrid and green cars continues
to grow, the audibility of these vehicles at low speeds poses serious
safety
concerns,” Towns said in a statement on his and Stearns’ proposal. The
broader auto-safety bill is expected to come to a vote in the full
House later this year.

Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT), left, Charles Schumer (D-NY), right, and Dick Durbin (D-IL), second from right, with Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). (Photo: AP)

The transit operating bill would authorize $2 billion in federal grants aimed at helping local transit agencies reverse already-imposed service cuts, fare increases, or worker layoffs -- provided that those changes were forced by a shortfall in state or local transport budgets that took effect after January 1, 2009. Any agency planning future service cuts or fare hikes could use their grant money to stave off those moves until September 2011.

"While families continue to struggle to make ends meet, the last thing we should do is make it harder and more expensive for people to get to work," Dodd said in a statement. "This bill will prevent disruptive service cuts and help put money back in the pockets of families when they need it most."

Those transit agencies not pursuing service cuts, fare hikes, or layoffs would be allowed to use the extra federal money for maintenance or repair of existing infrastructure. The transit operating funds would be distributed according to existing formulas, but the authorizing nature of the bill means that the money will also need to be appropriated in a separate piece of legislation.

Notably, the bill's authorization remains in effect until September 2011, giving lawmakers more than a year to find suitable appropriations vehicles to which the operating aid bill can be attached.

In addition, the legislation's short-term nature meets the conditions set by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), which had endorsed extra operating aid with the proviso that it not become a permanent fixture of the federal transit program.

Transportation for America (T4A), an infrastructure policy reform group that counts APTA as a member, hailed the bill's release.

“With demand for public transportation service at its highest level in over 50 years, Congress must act to protect Americans who rely on transit from service cuts and fare hikes that threaten their ability to reach jobs and daily necessities," T4A director James Corless said in a statement. "This act will help to preserve an economically essential service with a one-time, emergency infusion that will help to save jobs and access to jobs."

A private firm recently signed a deal with New Orleans officials to help run the city’s streetcars, seen above. (Photo: NYT)

Few definitive answers to those questions were on offer today at a transit panel sponsored by the Mobility Choice
coalition, which allies members of conservative-leaning think tanks
with a handful of environmental advocates and urbanists — but the
discussion yielded some provocative evidence of the fault lines between
public and private operators.

Principally sponsored by the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), the group describes itself as adopting "a fiscally responsible, free market oriented approach to expanding
competition among transportation modes for the purpose of reducing
oil’s strategic value."

American Bus Association (ABA)
Chairman James Jalbert, whose group represents private bus and
motorcoach companies, lamented that the U.S. DOT’s implementation of
its $10.5 billion high-speed rail program — which is expected to
receive billions more in federal funding in the coming years — did not
envision a role for private-sector firms that already provide
inter-city service.

"A good-quality system that could be
included in a rail project is now going to be run over by that rail
project," said Jalbert, also the president New Hampshire-based bus
company C&J. "We want to be part of the solution, but we need to be invited to the party."

Integrating
private bus operators into proposed passenger rail projects has to
start at the state level, where officials make the call on whether and
how to pursue federal bullet-train money, Jalbert added. He described a
potentially successful partnership between public inter-city rail and
private bus companies as a shared scheduling system, where passengers
could purchase tickets for rail during peak hours but an equivalent bus
journey during off-peak times, when operating a motorcoach could be
more efficient.

Tom JeBran, ABA vice chairman and president of Trans-Bridge Lines
in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, went further than his private-sector cohort
in suggesting that public transit agencies receive an unfair advantage,
thanks to their operating subsidies and exemption from the federal gas
tax.

"The only way I’d support" raising fuel taxes and
adding new interstate tolls to pay for nationwide transport
improvements, JeBran said, would be if both private and public transit
operators got an exemption from those new charges.

Robert Padgette of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA),
the transit industry’s leading D.C. trade group, fired back at JeBran’s
depiction of government subsidies that go only to public operators. The
U.S. DOT’s Section 5311 grants, Padgette noted, do make taxpayer funds available to smaller, private inter-city bus companies.

While
Jalbert distanced himself from JeBran’s push for a tax and toll
exemption for private operators, he could not help but answer Padgette.
The public subsidies for private inter-city bus companies average about
8 cents per passenger, Jalbert told the panel attendees. "With all due
respect," he quipped, "it’s butt dust."

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, right, with Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) at left and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed at center. (Photo: White House Press)

Donovan’s announcement came during an address
to the Congress for the New Urbanism’s (CNU) annual meeting in Atlanta.
During his visit, the former New York City housing commissioner also
toured the BeltLine project, an ambitious local effort to convert former rail track into new light rail and trails.

In
his remarks to the CNU, Donovan depicted the integration of "location
efficiency" measures as a way to encourage housing developers to pursue
more mixed-use, denser construction.

"[I]t’s time that
federal dollars stopped encouraging sprawl and
started lowering the barriers to the kind of sustainable development
our country needs and our communities want," Donovan said. "And with
$3.25 billion at stake in these competitions, that’s exactly what they
will start to do."

Evaluating
the range of transport options available for prospective residents of
urban and suburban areas was among the central recommendations of a foreclosures report
released in January by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
That study was aimed at mortgage lenders rather than the government,
but Democratic lawmakers last year began pushing for HUD to insure more mortgages based on the properties’ "location efficiency."

Donovan said that HUD would use the new LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND)
system, created by the CNU, the NRDC, and the U.S. Green Buildings
Council, to measure the transportation potential of grant proposals. LEED certification has become an increasingly popular method of tracking the environmental sustainability of new buildings, although skepticism about the range of energy consumption of buildings with the LEED imprimatur prompted some revisions to the format last year.

FTA chief Peter Rogoff addressing cyclists at this morning’s Bike to Work Day events. (Photo: U.S. DOT)

The U.S. DOT sent several senior officials to this morning’s capital-area bike events,
using the day to finalize a new expansion of eligibility for federal
funding of cycling and pedestrian infrastructure connected to transit.

Federal
Transit Administration (FTA) chief Peter Rogoff, who suited up for a
morning ride into downtown D.C., told fellow cyclists that "the Obama
Administration will keep supporting cycle-friendly policies because
they help connect communities in ways that are beneficial to everyone
at very little cost," according to a statement released by the U.S. DOT.

First proposed in November,
the FTA’s new policy for boosting federal bike-ped spending sets radius
surrounding a transit station in which bike infrastructure projects
would be eligible for aid at three miles. Pedestrian projects within a
half-mile of transit stations would be eligible for federal assistance.
The previous regulatory radius was 1,500 feet, in most cases.

Meanwhile,
nine national cycling and pedestrian advocacy groups released a letter
in advance of Bike to Work Day seeking extra clean transport funding
from the new Senate climate bill. The groups studiously avoided the
critical tone that the transit industry and state DOTs used on Wednesday
to seek a greater share of the revenue from the climate measure;
nonetheless, the bike-ped backers urged sponsors Sens. John Kerry
(D-MA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) to lift their legislation’s limit on
transport spending.

The
letter’s signatories — including America Bikes and the League of
American Bicyclists — began by lauding Kerry and Lieberman for
requiring that any revenue from their bill’s proposed new fuel fees be
spent on emissions-cutting transport projects.

Noting that
infrastructure investments from the bill’s new fuel fees would operate
under a ceiling of slightly more than $6 billion per year, the groups
added:

While we appreciate that this level of funding is greater
than prior climate bills, it still limits the ability of states,
counties, cities and transit systems to invest in sustainable
transportation. The market needs a stronger signal regarding the
importance of shifting our transportation modes to low- and no-carbon alternatives.

The
bike-ped advocates proposed an increase in climate revenue set aside
for transportation that would be commensurate with the estimated U.S.
emissions generated by the movement of people and goods — about 30
percent, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-VA), left, in the "congressional ride" during March’s National Bike Summit. (Photo: bikeleague via Flickr)

GOP
Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA), Michael McCaul (TX), Jack Kingston
(VA), and Steven LaTourette (OH) signed on to the letter, which was
sent to LaHood late yesterday in advance of today’s Bike to Work Day events in the capital.

Referencing LaHood’s March policy statement
urging state and local transportation planners to put cyclists and
pedestrians on the same footing as drivers in designing new
infrastructure, the lawmakers wrote:

We recognize, and appreciate, that your statement was not about
providing equal amounts of funding to all forms of transportation, or
prioritizing bicycling and walking over other transportation modes such
as trucking, freight or public transit. Instead, your commitment to
consider all modes clarified that to give citizens a choice, rather
than forcing them into their car, we must make sure that bicycling and
walking are as safe and convenient as other modes.

LaTourette’s
endorsement of that federal embrace of bicycling and pedestrian access
is particularly notable. He initially echoed the National Association
of Manufacturers and the American Trucking Association in chiding
LaHood for the non-binding bike-ped statement, wondering "what job is going to be created" by bike lanes before later walking back his remarks.

The
House GOP quartet’s show of force for non-motorized transport projects
also separates them from a recent Senate Republican report that criticized bike-ped stimulus spending as a waste of taxpayer funds.

A
complete copy of the letter, also signed by House transport committee
chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), is
available after the jump.

Dear Secretary LaHood:

We
would like to thank you for the Department of Transportation’s release
of the “Policy Statement on Bicycle and Pedestrian Accommodation,
Regulations, and Recommendations” announced on March 15. We support the
policy statement’s declaration that bicycling and walking are efficient
modes of transportation that have an important positive impact on our
communities.

We were pleased to see the policy
statement’s acknowledgment of bicycling and walking as an important
part of the transportation system. Bicycling and walking serve as
cost-effective solutions to many of the serious issues facing our
transportation system, including traffic congestion, funding concerns
and air pollution. Moreover, as 40 percent of trips taken in our
country are two miles or less, bicycling and walking should play an
important role in providing transportation options in our small towns,
suburbs and cities.

We recognize, and appreciate, that your
statement was not about providing equal amounts of funding to all forms
of transportation, or prioritizing bicycling and walking over other
transportation modes such as trucking, freight or public transit.
Instead, your commitment to consider all modes clarified that to give
citizens a choice, rather than forcing them into their car, we must
make sure that bicycling and walking are as safe and convenient as
other modes.

We also appreciate the recognition of
bicycling and walking as useful tools to address many other issues
facing our nation such as increased oil consumption, air pollution, and
our growing national debt. Investments in bicycling and walking have
been shown to bring significant economic development to communities
across the country, and to help families lower their own transportation
costs. We believe that communities should be able to move forward with
projects they feel are most advantageous to them, including bicycle
facilities and pedestrian infrastructure.

We hope to
continue to see bicycling and walking as a central part of your
livability initiative. Thank you for all of your hard work on this
issue. We look forward to working with you in the future.

Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), center, and John Kerry (D-MA), right, with onetime climate bill cosponsor Lindsey Graham (R-SC) at left. (Photo: CSM)

"This is one of those cases where we really can't even talk about the merits of any portion of the bill because the fundamental position is flawed," Millar said.

Referring to the legislation's promise of funding for the clean transport and land-use grants known as "CLEAN TEA" and TIGER, he added, "Many of those are very good ideas … but you can't make those ideas work if there's no significant funding to make them work, and this bill would aggravate the funding situation for public transit."

John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), was more direct in outlining where state DOTs want to see the Senate climate bill's fuel revenues directed. "Channel[ing] every dollar through the highway trust fund," he said, would help the industry break through a congressional stalemate and win passage of a new six-year federal transport bill.

Stephen Sandherr, CEO of the Associated General Contractors, and Pete Ruane, president of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, echoed Horsley's interpretation of the new fuel fees in the climate bill -- which are imposed on oil companies and refiners but are likely to be passed along through higher gas prices -- as a de facto "user fee" on drivers.

The climate proposal, Ruane said, does "nothing more than finance a lot of goals, which are enviable in part, on the backs of transportation users."

It remains to be seen whether the transportation industry's combative stance against the partial diversion of the bill's transportation revenue, billed as a "call for a rewrite" of the climate legislation, will help force senators into restructuring the measure. Ruane said he "like[s] the odds" facing the four groups.

But a spokesman for Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said that APTA, AASHTO, and 25 other industry groups mis-estimated the amount of revenue set aside for transportation in a letter outlining their concerns that was sent today to Kerry and his chief climate bill co-sponsor, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT).

“Let’s get the facts straight," Kerry spokesman Whitney Smith said via email. "This bill invests more than $6 billion annually in transportation infrastructure, which is more than any other comprehensive energy and climate bill and more than twice what's claimed in this letter. In effect, the letter advocates a policy that would accelerate emissions from the transportation sector and increase our dependence on foreign oil. That's not good for anyone, especially consumers."

One congressional source was befuddled by APTA's move to "bit[e] the hand that feeds them" by criticizing a climate bill that stands to give broad, lasting benefits to rail and bus systems.

“Perhaps these groups are confused about the purpose of the climate bill: It’s to reduce emissions, not increase them," the source told Streetsblog Capitol Hill. "The Kerry-Lieberman bill invests more money in transportation than any of the previous climate bills. Instead of working constructively to increase that investment, they are biting the hand that feeds them. Why is APTA advocating for a strategy that will decrease the amount of climate money going to transit? Transit makes out like a bandit in the Kerry-Lieberman bill.”

APTA's alignment with AASHTO and the construction industry groups marks a split of sorts from the Transportation for America (T4A) infrastructure reform coalition, which has praised the upper-chamber climate bill's focus on investing in clean transport projects while taking no official position on the legislation as a whole.

The Senate climate plan provides "a new source of revenue" for transportation, T4A spokesman David Goldberg said in an interview. "This is not a gas tax, and it's not conceived of as a supplement to the highway trust fund, for whatever the business-as-usual, run-of-the-mill highway trust fund projects are."

How big would that new source of transportation revenue be, relative to the total amount raised by the Senate climate bill's new fuel fees? APTA and AASHTO claim in their letter that more than three-quarters of total fuel fees would be used for non-infrastructure purposes:

In 2013, fees from on-road fuel consumption [under the climate proposal] would generate at least $19.5 billion.  Instead of returning revenue from these fees to improving the transportation system, the bill diverts at least 77 percent of the funds away from transportation infrastructure investment. As carbon prices increase, the bill diverts as much as 91 percent of fuel revenues.  Of particular concern, the bill limits new investment in the Highway Trust Fund to $2.5 billion per year, far below the amount the bill raises from system users. 

As Kerry's office pointed out, however, the industry groups' math appears to lowball the amount of funding set aside for transportation. The 77 percent estimate would yield an annual pot of less than $4 billion, while Kerry and Lieberman have estimated that transport would receive upwards of $6 billion during the first several years after their legislation takes effect.

In
a release previewing its joint press conference with AASHTO, scheduled
for this morning, APTA said the Senate bill’s use of new fuel fees
for purposes beyond infrastructure, such as paying down the federal
deficit, "would harm efforts to pass
a new surface transportation bill and would also greatly impair the
ability of
states, counties, cities and transit systems to reduce our dependence
on foreign
oil and reduce transportation-related emissions."

The Ford Foundation, created seven decades ago by a U.S. car industry scion, notably diverged from its past today by announcing a new, $200 million grant program aimed at promoting the local integration of transportation and land use planning and a movement beyond auto-based development.

A "transit village" in the San Francisco area, cited by the Ford Foundation as an example of projects eligible for its new grants. (Photo: Bay Area MTC)

The foundation's president, Luis Ubiñas, revealed the move in a speech to local community leaders gathered at the White House to discuss the future of the nation's once auto-dominant cities.

Ubiñas cited several examples of existing transit and urban development projects that would be good candidates for the foundation's five-year grant program. The Bay Area's residential-commercial "transit villages," Detroit's public-private M1 light rail plan, and New Orleans' push to rebuild its Claiborne Avenue corridor topped the list.

“When we look at metro regions and see pockets of serious unemployment but also pockets of employment opportunity, and disjointed transit systems that fail to connect people to the services they need and the jobs they seek, it’s clear that a different approach is needed,” Pablo J. Farías, a vice president at the foundation, said in a statement on the grants.

The foundation was established in 1936 with an initial gift from Edsel Ford, son of the automaker Henry Ford, and managed by members of the Ford family for several decades after its founding.

The
first public meeting will be held Wednesday in Kansas City, followed by
a Thursday meeting in Atlanta, according to a release sent today by the
Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). Rail officials will stop in New
York City on May 26, Salt Lake City on June 3, and Portland on June 4.
More information, including locations for each meeting, is available on the agency’s website.

Does the Senate climate bill include a user fee? That depends on how the term is defined. (Photo: Pop and Politics)

The
central complaint raised by mainstream transport players boils down to,
as American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
(AASHTO) executive director John Horsley put it in a statement, the Senate bill’s "preemption" of user-fee revenue that historically has gone into the nation’s dwindling highway trust fund.

"Congress
can ill-afford to consider any legislation that" siphons off money from
the trust fund, which has required more than $30 billion in
replenishment from the general Treasury over the past 18 months,
Horsley said.

Stephen Sandherr, chief of the Associated General Contractors — a backer of the Senate effort
to bar the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating
greenhouse gas emissions in the absence of congressional action –
echoed that sentiment in his own statement on the upper-chamber climate proposal.

"[B]y taking funds raised through the proposal’s new transportation fees
and committing all but a small percentage to unrelated spending, the
legislation leaves our aging and inefficient roads, airways and transit
systems vastly underfunded," Sandherr said.

But
does the Senate climate bill impose a user fee on transportation fuel
consumers? The text of the measure specifically requires "each refined
[fuel] product provider" to purchase emissions permits from the EPA on
a quarterly basis at a fixed price, with no permit trading allowed.
Horsley’s depiction of those charges as a "user fee" relies on the
considerable likelihood that oil companies and refiners would pass on
the cost of those emissions permits to consumers in the form of higher
gas prices.

In the meantime, how much of the revenue raised by the bill’s new fuel permits would infrastructure receive?

The American Road and Transportation Builders Association estimated last week
that the Senate plan would raise $20 billion from the new charges on
oil producers and refiners, with about $6.25 billion of that divided
into equal parts — one-third for the highway trust fund, one-third for
competitive federal grants similar to the TIGER program, and one-third for local land use projects, in the style of the so-called "CLEAN TEA" proposal.

Villaraigosa (r.) with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, another co-chief of Building America's Future. (Photo: Getty)

Rendell and Villaraigosa came to the Capitol for a visit to the House Ways and Means Committee's revenue panel, which faces the challenging task of finding a workable financing mechanism for long-term federal transportation legislation.

Villaraigosa used his high-profile push for federal assistance with his city's "30/10" transit plan, which would expedite construction of 13 rail and rapid bus projects using proceeds from a voter-approved sales tax, to urge lawmakers' support for an NIB.

"We're not only arguing for infrastructure investment on the federal level," he said. "We're saying ... at a time of spiraling deficits, we've got to encourage local governments to put up their own money. We have done that [in L.A.]."

Rendell, who has used his role as co-chairman of the advocacy group Building America's Future to amass support for an NIB, quoted GOP Sen. Jim Inhofe's (OK) support for federal transport spending in a bid to depict infrastructure as a uniquely bipartisan issue.

"The American people are way ahead of us," Rendell told Ways and Means members. "Infrastructure is something they can touch, they can see, they can experience ... This is easier, in terms of public perception, than anybody thinks."

But even as the duo focused on the NIB -- which Rendell and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) agreed should be placed outside the U.S. DOT, counter to the White House's proposal -- the specter of the federal gas tax hung over the room. One day after conservatives began using anti-gas tax arguments in a bid to derail the new Senate climate bill, lawmakers prodded Rendell and Villaraigosa to share their views on the subject.

Rendell, specifying that he was "not speaking for" his advocacy group, endorsed a gas tax increase. Villaraigosa followed, confidently: "I unequivocally support an increase in the gas tax ... if America is going to continue to maintain its highways and infrastructure, it's crucial."

Few Democrats on the Ways and Means panel, however, were prepared to echo their colleagues from the state and local levels.

"I think we'd have a hard time passing a gas tax increase in the Democratic delegation [and] a hard time passing it in the Pennsylvania delegation," Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) told Rendell after the governor cited surveys that show the majority of the public incorrectly believes the tax is already indexed for inflation. "I just think these polls may not be as telling as we'd like to think."

A middle-ground approach was offered by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), who reminded fellow House members that "there is no reason we have to raise a gas tax, this year or next year," to pay for sustained new federal transport investment. "As long as we establish a revenue path going forward within a 10-year budget score, we can leverage it."

Still, in a political climate dominated by incumbents in both parties running scared ahead of the November midterm elections, the prospects for any significant commitment from Washington appeared bleak.

Sens.
Lindsey Graham (R-SC), left, Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), center, and John
Kerry (D-MA), right, began their climate talks in December. (Photo: Getty)

That money for infrastructure would be
divided into three equal parts, according to the legislation.
One-third would go into the nation’s cash-strapped highway trust fund
– with a mandate to set aside the funding for projects that
decrease greenhouse gas emissions – while another third would go
towards competitive federal grants in the style of the stimulus law’s
Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER)
program. 

A final third would go towards local land-use planning,
as envisioned in the so-called “CLEAN TEA” bill championed by
Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE).

“We want to make this the Senate
where we finish the job and cast the decisive vote for the future,”
Kerry told reporters at a packed Capitol Hill press conference where
veterans’ groups and industry representatives lent their support to
the legislation.

The
climate bill also takes a step towards requiring a set of national
transport objectives – a longtime goal of reform groups – by
giving the U.S. DOT and Environmental Protection Agency one year to
propose “national transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions
goals” as well as unified strategies for states and metro areas to
measure their compliance with those goals.

State
and local transportation planners would then have two more years to
draft plans for emissions reduction, using a variety of strategies
named in the bill, including transit-oriented development, high-speed
rail, zoning changes, and promotion of biking and walking. Any areas
that do not propose plans for reducing transport emissions would be
declared ineligible for the proposed “CLEAN TEA” grants.

The
bill states that emissions allowances set aside for the highway trust
fund “shall be used to promote the safety, effectiveness, and
efficiency of transportation,” specifying that the money should be
used in accordance with the principles of the “CLEAN TEA”
package. But the legislation did not specify how such a firewall
surrounding highway trust fund money would be enforced within the
U.S. DOT.

Nonetheless, transportation reformers hailed the bill as a step forward.

"The authord deserve
high praise for ensuring that revenues generated from the transportation sector
go in part toward meeting the growing demand for more, better and cleaner
travel options," Geoff Anderson, co-chairman of the advocacy group Transportation for America, said in a statement.

Carper, in a statement on the bill’s release, said the addition of "CLEAN TEA" language "puts us on the right path to reduce
transportation emissions and oil consumption and improve our nation’s
crumbling transportation infrastructure … I hope we can continue to build bipartisan support for
infrastructure investment as part of the comprehensive climate bill as we
move through the legislative process."

Even
as lawmakers, aides, and advocates picked through the substance of
the nearly 1000-page bill, its political future remained very much in
doubt.

An
aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) warned recently that
the measure may not reach the upper-chamber floor this year unless
Democratic leaders see a path to reaching the 60-vote threshold
necessary to break a certain GOP filibuster. The onetime Republican
cosponsor of Kerry and Lieberman’s effort, Lindsey Graham (SC), did
not appear at today’s unveiling, though he vowed in a statement to
consider the legislation.

We
should move forward in a reasoned, thoughtful manner and in a
political climate which gives us the best chance at success,”
Graham said, reiterating his previous conclusions that the Gulf oil
spill and simmering immigration debate “have made it extremely
difficult for transformational legislation in the area of energy and
climate to garner bipartisan support at this time."

Answering the perception among
many Hill observers that the climate bill’s odds of passage are slim
at best, Kerry decried what he described as an attitude inside the
Beltway that assumes a broad climate bill would be “dead on
arrival, replaced by a watered-down energy bill or nothing at all.”

Nonetheless, Reid indicated
earlier this week in an interview with Univision that he would be
open to moving forward with a smaller energy bill this year that did
not include broad emissions cuts.

The
two senators replaced their initial plan for a linked fee on
carbon-based motor fuels, which became politically toxic for the
White House and Graham after critics branded it a new gas tax, with a
fixed price for emissions permits that oil producers and refiners
would have to purchase at the end of each quarter. Those permits
could not be traded among businesses or “banked” for later use,
and any over- or under-supply would count against the next quarter’s
allocation.

We
took refiners and fuel providers out of the market,” Kerry and
Lieberman’s offices said in a summary of the bill’s transport
section. “Instead of having them participate in the market for
allowances, we made sure the price of carbon was constant across the
industry.”

(ed. note. This post was updated to add comment from Carper’s office.)

Taiwanese high-speed rail, above, opened for business in 2007 — less than a decade after final contracts were awarded. (Photo: Streetsblog LA)

The
discussion, sponsored by the pro-rail group America 2050, focused
largely on recommendations for the National Rail Plan that the U.S. DOT
is expected to unveil this summer. Senators from both parties warned
Obama administration aides last month that a more detailed vision for
inter-city rail would be needed in order to win passage of significant
new funding.

Frank Busalacchi, secretary of the Wisconsin state DOT — which is moving ahead
with a Madison-Milwaukee link after winning an $810 million federal
grant earlier this year — urged U.S. DOT officials to incorporate
specific plans for a long-term revenue source into its rail plan.

Such
fiscal certainty is essential for states that must line up equipment
providers years in advance, he said: "You can’t start building a house
until you have enough money to buy shingles for the roof."

But
Busalacchi also acknowledged the rise of political infighting over
high-speed rail, which recently came to a head in his state with
conservative groups running ads against vulnerable Democratic lawmakers who support new train service.

"One
of the problems we have as a country is that we all continue to fight
with each other. … We spend a lot of our time defending this [$810
million] grant," he said, as critics charge that "it’s going to cost
taxpayers money because you’re subsidizing the line."

Meanwhile, the Wisconsinite noted wryly, U.S. taxpayers have long subsidized road projects without any political backlash.

Busalacchi’s
observations were echoed by Bruno Maestri, a senior lobbyist for the
freight railroad Norfolk Southern. "Even at the U.S. DOT, we see
fighting," Maestri said, adding that his company has "been shovel-ready
for months" on one federally funded rail project that has languished
due to conflicting statutes that govern highway spending (Title 23 of the U.S. code) and rail spending (Title 49).

If
high-speed rail can clear political hurdles on the federal and local
level, however, it has the potential to set the stage for future
national objectives that govern all modes of transportation, according
to Amtrak vice president for policy Stephen Gardner.

"Hopefully
it’s a model-setting activity," Gardner told fellow panelists
yesterday, citing the importance of local transit connections in
planning for inter-city train service. "There are many who feel the
time has come to look holistically across the entire sector, not just
surface [transport] … and manage it like we know what we’re doing."

The
legislation no longer includes its originally conceived "linked fee" on
motor fuels — which was quickly branded as a gas tax increase, alarming Graham and the White House while catching
many members of the transport industry off-guard. But how does the
Senate climate bill address the 30 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas
emissions that come from transportation?

The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin has an early look,
reporting that the transportation section makes room for a "cap" on
emissions but eliminates the "trade" aspect of the House-passed climate
bill:

The transportation sector will not have any allowance trading, sources
said. Instead, companies will have to buy quarterly carbon allowances
that would be based on the average price in the previous quarter; the
fee would be tacked on at a stage known in the industry as "the rack,"
which is after the fuel has left the refinery but before it reaches gas
stations.

The bill would put electric utilities first in line for a
sector-specific emissions cap, with other fossil fuel-using industries
to follow, according to a report in National Journal
that also includes a link to a leaked four-page summary of the measure.
That summary suggests that the transportation industry may be pleased
with the measure, referencing annual funding of "over $7 billion" for
infrastructure.

For more details on how the legislation would affect U.S. infrastructure, check this space tomorrow …

(Photo: TreeHugger)

At
an event in the capital’s Union Station, groups as disparate as the
American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and the infrastructure reform advocates at Transportation for America
linked arms to push for the maximum amount of federal funding, as well
as a dedicated long-term source of high-speed rail revenue.

"We
simply cannot afford a false start on high-speed rail," said John
Krieger, staff attorney at the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups
(PIRG), a consumer protection group and member of the rail coalition.

Nick
Martinelli, the legislative director to House rail subcommittee
chairman Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL), candidly assessed the resources
required to continue the bullet-train momentum that began when the
Obama administration added an $8 billion infusion to its stimulus bill last year.

An additional $1 billion for high-speed rail — the level that the White House requested
in its 2011 budget — "would not even cover planning costs" for states
that want to construct their own networks, Martinelli said.

That
robust demand for high-speed rail, as state transport officials often
note, is largely dependent on Congress agreeing to set aside funding
for such projects in the coming decades. But such dedicated revenue is
a question that must be resolved in a new six-year federal
infrastructure bill, which faces an uncertain future on the Hill amid widespread resistance to gas tax increases.

Martinelli
urged rail advocates to focus on the Senate, where appropriators
initially sought to give high-speed rail $1.2 billion before
compromising with the House, which had met the lobbying coalition’s $4
billion goal, on a $2.5 billion infusion.

"Clearly the Senate should be moving strongly" to support bullet train expansion, he said, citing the ambitious rail agenda
in Senate environment panel chairman Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA) home state.
"It’s fair to say that the House is generally disappointed with what
the Senate has done on transportation."

But Martinelli
also acknowledged the scheduling realities now confronting lawmakers,
many of whom will start focusing primarily on their re-election
campaigns by mid-summer. A final decision on federal high-speed rail
spending, he said, is likely to follow last year’s pattern and not emerge until after the November elections.

The
White House’s inter-agency task force on childhood obesity, developed
under the stewardship of First Lady Michelle Obama, today released a 124-page report
recommending dozens of policy shifts in health care, community
development, and transportation that it estimates can bring down
obesity rates among kids by 5 percent over the next 20 years.

During the February launch
of the task force, Mrs. Obama noted the public health benefits of
promoting biking and walking among U.S. kids, but today’s report goes
into far more detail about the link between non-motorized
transportation, local land use, and children’s rate of physical
exercise. Among the task force’s recommendations are an addition of "complete streets" design rules to the next long-term federal transportation bill and expanding the Safe Routes to School (SRtS) program to include high schools.

"Children’s
ability to be physically active in their community depends on whether
the community is safe and walkable, with good sidewalks and reasonable
distances between destinations," the report states in a section
entitled ‘The Built Environment’ that got an early plug from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

A chart featured in the White House report, viewable above, mirrors the assessment of a recent SRtS release
that found ample opportunities for families to transition their
children from school commutes via auto to trips by foot or bicycle.

The
task force also encourages local governments to conduct "Health Impact
Assessments," or HIAs, before building new developments. The HIA
concept, similar to environmental reviews
of federally funded transport projects that are currently mandated by
law, would evaluate the effect of construction and land-use decisions
on the physical activity of community residents.

The first
lady’s group also took a notably holistic approach to the effect of
neighborhood quality on children’s health. In a lengthy section on the
findings of a recent socioeconomic study published in the journal Health Affairs, today’s report states:

• Children
  living in unsafe neighborhoods or those characterized by poor housing
  and the presence of garbage and litter on streets had an approximately
  30-60% higher chance of being obese or overweight than children living
  in better conditions;
• Children with low neighborhood
  amenities or those lacking neighborhood access to sidewalks or walking
  paths, parks or playgrounds, or recreation or community centers had
  20-45% higher odds of becoming obese or overweight compared to children
  who had access to these amenities;
• The impact of the
  built environment was particularly strong for younger children (ages
  10-11) and for girls. Girls ages 10-11 living in neighborhoods with the
  fewest amenities had 121-276% higher adjusted odds of being obese or
  overweight than those living in neighborhoods with the most amenities

As a standard to measure the success of its proposed policy shifts, the
task force suggested aiming for a 50 percent increase in the share of
children walking or biking to school over the next five years.

"We
don’t need new discoveries or new inventions to reverse this
trend" of obesity that has manifested in an estimated one out of every
three American children, Mrs. Obama told reporters today. "Again, we
have the tools at our disposal to reverse it. All we
need is the motivation, the opportunity and the willpower to do what
needs to be done."

Rail and airline employees would face lowered barriers to unionizing
under a new rule announced today by the Obama administration that would
put union elections for workers in both modes of transportation on an
equal footing with other industries.

Rail workers would have an easier path to unionizing under the new rule. (Photo: TreeHugger)

The
rule, approved on a 2-1 vote by the National Mediation Board (NMB),
would end a decades-old practice of counting employees who abstain or
do not vote in union elections as "no" votes, thus making the process
of organizing workers more difficult.

The Senate labor committee’s chairman, Tom Harkin (D-IA), hailed the unionizing shift in a statement. “NMB’s long
overdue rule change ensures that all American workers will have a voice
in the workplace and a right to fair wages and work
conditions," said Harkin, who had joined more than three dozen fellow senators in endorsing the new rule in December.

In
practice, the NMB’s move is more likely to affect airlines than
railroads, where the majority of workers are already represented by
labor unions. Indeed, the Air Transport Association — which represents
the interests of leading domestic airlines — is already moving ahead
with a legal challenge to the new rule, the Associated Press reported today.

Nonetheless,
surface transportation labor interests joined Harkin in welcoming the
NMB announcement, published in today’s Federal Register. James Little,
president of the Transport Workers Union (TWU), said in a statement
that "today’s decision was long overdue" and would spur his group to
new organizing drives.

"TWU lost elections in the past
because many supposed voters were on leave or in the hospital or
unreachable – every non-vote was counted against our union," Little said.