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At first it was slated to emerge by June 1.
Then its release was said to slip to this week. House Transportation
and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) now plans to
release his version of the six-year federal transportation bill by the end of the month, with a full House vote unlikely to come before Congress leaves for its annual August recess.

The
uncertainty over Oberstar’s time frame is making for quite the guessing
game among transportation advocates, lawmakers and journalists. The latest bit
of insider chatter, mentioned by van-pool lobbyist Chris Simmons on
Twitter, has Oberstar releasing a "white paper" — or briefing paper,
in D.C. parlance — on his plans later this month before the complete
federal bill emerges sometime in July.

Simmons has even suggested a betting line on when the House bill would finally see the light of day.

Oberstar
spokesman Jim Berard confirmed to Streetsblog that the chairman’s
current goal remains to release his bill by the final week of June,
although the constantly shifting congressional schedule ensures that
nothing is set in stone.

Perhaps the most crucial question,
then, is whether the timing of Oberstar’s bill will have any effect on
the Senate’s willingness to take up the critical issue of
transportation before the 2005 federal bill expires on September 30.

At
yesterday’s Bipartisan Policy Center transportation forum, few if any
of the lawmakers and policy experts on hand believed the Senate could
take up and pass its federal bill by the October deadline. Former GOP
Sen. Slade Gorton (WA) quipped that "to believe the entire Congress is
going to finish this transportation bill by September 30 .. is truly a
triumph of hope over experience," while current Democratic Sen. Mark
Warner (VA) was equally skeptical about his chamber’s chances.

Warner,
who sits on both committees with major jurisdiction over the Senate’s
transportation bill — Banking and Environment and Public Works — said
only that the latter panel is "very, very focused on climate change
first … I’m not sure I can give you an exact time."

The
slowdown of progress on the federal reauthorization bill could be a
blessing in disguise for transit and environmental advocates who want
to see a wholesale re-examination of the irrational structure that has
long governed Washington transportation policy.

But it also underscores the need to find a sustainable new revenue source for transportation funding, one that can stave off the looming bankruptcy of the highway trust fund while guaranteeing that money will be available to pursue much-needed reforms on the federal level.

Are
any readers prepared to take Simmons’ challenge and place a bet on the
House bill’s release date? I’ll put the over-under at June 30…

You’ve likely been hearing a lot, on this blog and others, about the coming expiration
of the federal transportation bill. Come September 30, Congress has to
have a plan in hand to fund the nation’s trains, buses, bikes, bridges
and roads — or pass an extension of the 2005 federal bill, locking in the same spending patterns that have nurtured Americans’ addiction to the automobile.

But
the odds are that you haven’t heard much about how the process works.
What has to happen in order for Congress to meet that September
deadline? Well, if you’re a fan of unnecessarily complicated Washington
jargon, the federal DOT has a flow chart on the subject (pictured on
the right):

Let’s break it down a bit. The hardest step in
the transportation policy-writing process will be getting past the
chart’s third box, out of the congressional committees.

Remember that immortal Schoolhouse Rock tune, "I’m Just A Bill"?
The Bill famously sang that "it’s a long, long week when I’m sitting in
committee," but it’s almost certain to take longer than a week to get
the transportation bills onto the floors of the House and Senate.

There
are two reasons for the delay. First, Republicans in Congress are
salivating at the opportunity to rap Democrats for the local projects
they prioritize in the bill — what you often hear called earmarks or
"pork."

Now, what looks like "pork" to some looks like
progress to others; House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
Chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) took heat from
reporters in his own state for using earmarks to expand bike trails and
commuter rail. But Republicans love starting earmark fights, no matter
how counter-productive they are, and this year’s federal transportation
bill will be no exception. (In fact, the process is already starting.)

The
second reason that the transportation bill is almost sure to be delayed
is money. Few people on Capitol Hill are ready to debate raising the
gas tax or imposing a tax on vehicle miles traveled (VMT), although
those are the only two concrete options on the table for bringing
much-needed new money to the federal transportation trust fund.

But
higher gas taxes and a VMT tax are good ideas, you may be thinking.
Members of Congress, meanwhile, are thinking one thing: Why should we
support new taxes on driving when President Obama doesn’t?

So getting out of the chart’s third box is going to be the hardest step. Still, that’s only the beginning.

Read more…

Energy and Commerce Committee, has just struck a deal on his long-awaited climate change bill -- and though the agreement makes a number of concessions to polluters, it also takes a step forward towards popularizing the cause of "complete streets".

The House climate bill requires every state and metropolitan area with more than 200,000 residents to devise plans for reducing transportation-related carbon emissions. The bill directs states and localities to draft plans that "consider transportation and land use strategies" that encourage transit use, walking and bike riding, as well as equal access by all users.

In short, the House climate bill officially sets "complete streets" principles as planning goals for state and local transportation officials. The DOT and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would enforce the deadlines for each state and local transportation emissions-reduction plan and hand out grants to help areas implement innovative strategies for diminishing auto dependence.

The funding for those grants would have to come from future spending bills, not from the auctions of carbon-emissions permits to polluting industries -- the so-called CLEAN TEA plan that Transportation for America and other advocacy groups have been hoping for.

Today's deal would auction only 15 percent of the emissions permits, giving the rest away free to coal companies, electric utilities and the auto industry. Why did CLEAN TEA fall by the wayside? Sadly, Democrats from coal- and oil-dominant states were prepared to bring down Waxman's bill unless their hometown industries got emissions permits for free. Even those Democrats who are still fighting to make polluting industries pay for their permits want the revenue to go back to the public in the form of tax credits, rather than to green transportation.

As Waxman's climate bill takes flak from environmentalists who (rightly) lament its giveaways to industry, should the very presence of "complete streets" language in the bill be considered a minor victory? Or is the climate deal just another example of Congress kowtowing to Big Carbon?

Could Washington's long, unhealthy love affair with the automobile be coming to an end? An encouraging sign of change came today from two powerful Democratic senators who released a proposal that sets out progressive goals for the upcoming federal transportation bill.

Today's proposal, sponsored by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (WV) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (NJ), is what's known on Capitol Hill as a "marker" -- a set of principles intended to help guide the drafting of major legislation. The Rockefeller-Lautenberg marker, which got some early love from the Washington Post, states that the next federal transportation bill should accomplish the following:

• Reduce national per-capita motor vehicle miles traveled on an annual basis;
• Cut national motor vehicle-related fatalities in half by 2030;
• Cut national surface transportation-generated carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030;
• Reduce surface transportation delays per capita on an annual basis; 
• Get 20 percent more critical surface-transportation assets into a state of good repair by 2030;
• Increase the total usage of public transit, intercity passenger rail and non-motorized transport on an annual basis.

The question of how to monitor and enforce these targets remain unanswered. (And the last target risks looking behind the times, given that transit use is already increasing each year.) But the very fact that Rockefeller and Lautenberg have laid out their priorities is a good thing, given that there may not be the political will to pass a federal transportation bill at all. The more lawmakers talking about reducing emissions and auto use, the better.

Editor's Note: We’re happy to announce the premiere today of our new Streetsblog Capitol Hill reporter, Elana Schor. Elana has rich experience covering Washington as a reporter for The Hill, the Guardian UK and Talking Points Memo. With major transportation, climate, and energy legislation before Congress this year and in 2010, she’ll help bring outside-the-Beltway readers inside the legislative process, break stories, and make Streetsblog Capitol Hill an engaging and entertaining must-read.  Welcome aboard, Elana.

Speaking to members of the National Retail Federation earlier today, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood sidestepped what's becoming one of the peskiest unanswered questions on the Hill: Will Congress delay the federal transportation bill until next year?

In his address to the retailers' group, LaHood stuck mostly to his department's progress in allocating its $48 billion share of the economic stimulus bill. That stimulus money would create so many jobs by summertime, LaHood predicted jokingly, that many Americans would be "irritated" by the sight of "people putting up orange cones" on roads slated for repair.

When the topic turned to the timing of the forthcoming transportation bill, however, LaHood offered few specifics. The former GOP congressman declined to address a report in today's CongressDaily, a subscription-only Capitol newsletter, that the six-year transportation bill "is almost certain to be punted to next year, if not significantly scaled back."

LaHood did little to quell rumors of a delay in his remarks about the uncertainty surrounding new funding sources for the bill. "There is going to be a huge debate" over covering the predicted shortfall in the federal highway trust fund, he said. "At some point there will be a bill that'll come out of Congress" that will address the funding question.

So far, the Obama administration has ruled out raising the federal gas tax as well as imposing a tax on vehicle miles traveled (VMT), deeming both options politically unpalatable during an economic recession. Asked by one retailer about alternative funding options, LaHood mentioned increasing tolls on highways, expanding public-private partnerships, and acting on the president's proposal for a national infrastructure bank -- originally conceived as a $60 billion endeavor, but given $26 billion in the recent White House budget.

The details of Rep. Jim Oberstar’s plans for the next federal transportation bill are starting to come into focus. Last Friday, The Infrastructurist ran an item about a document on the subject that has made its way into the public eye:

Oberstar has recently been circulating a “two-page handwritten outline” around the Hill, according to the BNA’s Daily Report for Executives, which obtained a copy of the document. They report the following tidbits:

>
The outline calls for “transit equity.” Right now the feds pay 80
percent of highway projects and 50 percent of transit projects. That
would change.

> It would create DOT agencies focused on a “national strategic plan” and on “mega- rojects.”

>
“DOT’s 108 programs [will be consolidated] into four “major formula
programs”: critical asset preservation, highway safety improvement,
surface transportation program, and congestion mitigation
and air quality improvement.”

> The document seems to call for more transparency with transportation data.

Leaves you wanting more, doesn’t it?

Yesterday, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation held a hearing
about the future of national surface transportation. This much isn’t in
doubt: Current policies need a major overhaul. What to change and,
especially, how to pay for it are very much in question.

Several
panelists spoke about the need to reform the nation’s transportation
priorities and set firm goals, like reducing car dependence and traffic
deaths. Shifting away from policies that emphasize highway capacity and
reward gas consumption didn’t sit that well with senators from states
like South Dakota and Texas, but there was a broad sense that the next
surface transportation bill must reverse years of underinvestment in
the nation’s infrastructure. Nevertheless, Secretary of Transportation
Ray LaHood reiterated the Obama administration’s opposition to a
promising funding solution — raising the gas tax — and obeyed the directive from up top to never again mention a tax on vehicle miles (VMT).

At
around the same time, a very different story was unfolding in the
House, where James Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee, pushed for his preferred funding solution, a
VMT tax. Asserting that the technology to implement this solution is
already available, he asked his committee to rapidly advance the timetable:
"Why do we need a pilot program? Why don’t we just phase it in?" Since
Oberstar has taken a leading role in shaping the next transportation
bill, this may mean that a VMT tax will be included in the first draft.

Read more…

Editor’s note: This year’s reauthorization of the federal transportation funding bill will be one of the most important opportunities in history for the nation’s advocates of livable streets, sustainable transportation and smart growth. But it’s going to be a complicated process. We’d like to demystify it for you, and to that end we’ll be featuring regular posts from Yonah Freemark, an independent researcher currently working in France on comparative urban development as part of a Gordon Grand Fellowship from Yale University. He is also the author of Streetsblog Network member blog The Transport Politic.

For Streetsblog, Freemark will break down the legislation, explain its progress through Congress, and fill us in on some of the people working to shape it. His first post looks back at the current transportation funding bill, called the "Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users" (SAFETEA-LU), which was approved in late July 2005 after a year of infighting in a sharply divided Congress.

* * * * * * *

Ultimately, SAFETEA-LU’s greatest failing may have been its failure to articulate a truly multi-modal vision for the nation's surface transportation network. Essentially a continuation of 1950s-era policies, it repeated the same-old same-old about a need to complete the Interstate highway program, directing billions of dollars to state DOTs to pour asphalt and expand roadways. Nowhere did the legislation suggest a need to adapt to a future in which American dependence on automobiles and fossil fuels must be dramatically reduced. That's the challenge faced by Congress today.

Transportation funding from Washington has been heavily weighted toward highway spending ever since President Eisenhower first proposed the Interstate Highway Act in 1956. SAFETEA-LU, 2005’s federal transportation bill, was no exception. It provided $244.1 billion over five years, its revenues raised by the federal gas tax and directed to the Highway Trust Fund, which has both highway and mass transit accounts. $40 billion a year went to highways, most of which was used to expand and upgrade the Interstate highway system; some $10 billion went annually to mass transit.

The $10 billion in public transportation funds is distributed by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) for a variety of uses. The FTA administers the urban areas program, which allocates money to metropolitan areas for transit system capital expenses, as well as a rural areas program that helps states pay for rural transit. SAFETEA-LU also included a fixed-guideways formula, aimed at keeping mostly older rail transit systems like those in Chicago or Boston in working condition. Finally, the New Starts/Small Starts program allowed the FTA to fund competitive grants for major capacity expansion such as new subway or bus rapid transit lines.

SAFETEA-LU provided for $40 billion in annual funding from the highway account, the traditional federal source for financing Interstate highways. But under the law, money from the account could actually be spent on more than just roads. Roughly $6.5 billion per year was allocated to the "Surface Transportation Program." States were allowed to use this money to fund transit and "bicycle transportation and pedestrian walkways." The "Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program" -- about $1.7 billion a year -- went to projects likely to reduce pollution, and specifically forbade funding "a project which will result in the construction of new capacity available to single occupant vehicles."

There's one problem, though. The federal government may allow such funds to be spent on non-auto uses, but that's rarely the case.

Read more...