Streetsblog Los Angeles

Halfway through this afternoon’s rally
in support of a new federal transportation bill, there came an
accidental but telling moment. A group of tourists, attracted by the
hundreds of orange flags planted in the National Mall for the rally,
walked through the event and whispered questions to attendees about its
purpose. Once their curiosity was sated, the group lost interest and
ambled away.

The tourists may well have been speaking for most senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill, where this week’s growing momentum
towards a six-month timetable for taking up the next long-term
infrastructure bill was abruptly squelched by GOP senators’ inability
to find consensus among their members.

As the subscription-only CQ reported today:

Efforts in the Senate
to take up a six-month extension of surface transportation law this
week appear dead, over objections by a few Republicans to passing it
without a full debate, said James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking
Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee.

… Inhofe said Tuesday that at least two Republicans objected
and that there is not enough floor time to finish a bill this week under
normal procedure. 

The Senate’s lack of progress means that officials working on the
nation’s transit, roads, bridges, and bike paths will likely have to
continue operating under a second short-term extension of the 2005 transportation law, this time lasting until December 18.

Despite
the prospects of continuing uncertainty on the local level, House
transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) remained upbeat
and focused on a singular goal: getting his colleagues to elevate
infrastructure to the top-of-mind status currently occupied by health
care (followed by financial regulation and climate change).

"Encircle
the White House," Oberstar advised the organizers of today’s rally, who
parked heavy-duty construction equipment along the sidewalk to
symbolize their plea for more transportation spending. "Encircle the
Senate!"

The economic stimulus law’s $48 billion in transport
aid, $8.4 billion of which went to transit, "will dry up" by spring of
next year, Oberstar added. He threw in a jab at Obama administration
officials who insisted on cutting stimulus transit spending to pay for tax cuts: "I don’t know of anybody who’s thanked me for their $250 tax credit … God only knows what’s happened to it."

Speaking to reporters after the rally, Oberstar said that extending
the 2005 transportation law until the holidays "will give us time
between now and Christmas to agree on a six-year bill."

But the Minnesotan’s push for taking up his $450 billion proposal
by year’s end has yet to be met with any enthusiasm from the White
House and senior Senate Democrats, who until recently had aligned with
Obama aides in favor of an 18-month delay.

Read more…

Halfway through the extra month
that Congress gave itself to resolve a long-simmering dispute over
funding the nation’s transportation system, Democratic leaders remain
deadlocked over whether — and how long — to wait before debating a
broad reform of federal infrastructure policy.

In one corner:
House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN), who has
enlisted most of his colleagues in the lower chamber in a push to pass
new legislation replacing the outmoded 2005 infrastructure bill — "a paean to the individual motorist," as Wired put it today.

But Oberstar’s enthusiasm has not yet been met with action by the panel he needs most, the Ways and Means Committee.

Why
is Ways and Means so important? The panel controls the funding source
for transportation legislation, and chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) has
yet to see enthusiasm for his colleagues for making tough choices about
raising revenue for infrastructure. Rangel told CQ this week:

Everyone is
excited about a robust transportation bill. The enthusiasm
is out there. We have not concluded that everyone
is willing to pay for it and call it an emergency. 

Oberstar has done his part to rally the troops, publishing an op-ed
in The Hill today that laments the "lack of political will" to tend to
the nation’s aging infrastructure, but little progress can be made
until Ways and Means shows an appetite for diving into the funding
question.

How much needs to be raised to pay for a new
bill? There is an estimated $140 billion gap between expected grosses
for the nation’s highway trust fund, which pays for federal spending on
transit as well as roads, and the investments envisioned in Oberstar’s $450 billion measure.

That
gap could be closed by a 10-cent per-gallon increase in the gas tax or
by other means, though the former has pitfalls both political
(Democrats have not worked on a counter-message to GOP pummeling on the issue) and practical (as Americans drive less in more efficient cars, the tax’s value is waning).

Read more…

House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) is readying
a proposal to extend current infrastructure law by three months — 15
months less than the delay preferred by the White House — and could introduce the legislation as soon as next week, his office said today.

"It’s
obvious that we’re running out of September," Oberstar spokesman Jim
Berard told Streetsblog Capitol Hill, noting that lawmakers have become
caught up by legislative battles over health care and climate change.

"We’re at a point where a decision has to be made: it’s either to extend for a short time or have the
whole system collapse," Berard added. "Under those circumstances of two
bad choices," Oberstar is prepared to back a short-term extension
rather than letting the 2005 federal transport bill expire at the end
of the month.

A three-month delay, endorsed last week
by Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-OR) would punt decision-making on
transportation reform until just after New Year’s. Even then,
revenue-raisers on the House Ways and Means Committee and Senate
Finance Committee are still likely to face considerable obstacles in paying for Oberstar’s six-year, $500 billion legislation.

Berard
acknowledged that the extension would have to be negotiated with House
leaders as well as the White House and the Senate, both of which have
already come out in favor of an 18-month delay. "We may, as early as
next week, introduce a bill and start the process," he said.

That bill would be a "clean" extension," in Capitol parlance — omitting data collection money and other small-scale reforms that the Obama administration has proposed.

In case any doubts
remained about his willingness to challenge the White House and the
Senate on prompt passage of a long-term infrastructure bill, House
transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar’s (D-MN) op-ed in the Politico this morning should clear them up:

Unfortunately, the administration and some in the Senate have suggested
an 18-month extension of the existing surface transportation programs.
This approach does little more than delay the critical reforms and
difficult choices that must be made now.

Under this approach, come March 31, 2011, we would find ourselves faced
with the same decisions, the same outdated and inefficient programs and
even more costly investment needs in all modes of our transportation
system. Moreover, given that the new deadline would come at the outset
of a new Congress, additional extensions are inevitable.

Worst of all, failure to pass a long-term surface transportation
authorization on time would bring significant uncertainty to states and
MPOs that must plan critical projects years in advance. They require
long-term funding assurances and stability from their federal partners
to proceed in this process.

Oberstar’s
commentary is strongly worded, but it stops short of vowing to stand in
the way of a shorter-term delay in taking up a new federal
transportation bill — an outcome that appears all but certain given
the 10 legislative days remaining until current law expires on
September 30.

"Delay for the sake of delay is
unacceptable," Oberstar concludes in the op-ed. That framing opens the
door, if slightly, to a compromise on a delay that would give Congress’
revenue-raising committees (Senate Finance and House Ways and Means)
more time to devise a stable funding source for the bill.

Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-OR), Oberstar’s chief subcommittee chairman, told The Hill on Friday
that he hoped to see a three-month extension, which would put off work
on a new bill until just after New Year’s. Others in the capital
believe a 12-month extension, as proposed by Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH), would have a stronger chance of success.

But
DeFazio reiterated that Oberstar has yet to weigh in with his preferred
timeframe. In the meantime, the chairman is getting backup from a broad
array of transportation interest groups that operate under the aegis of
the Freight Stakeholders Coalition.

The
Coalition held a press conference this morning to reiterate its support
for passage of a new long-term infrastructure bill this year. The
American Public Transportation Association (APTA) was absent from the
lineup, but representatives of the highway, rail, trucking, and port
lobbies were in attendance, as was the Association of Metropolitan
Planning Organizations.

Acrimonious opposition to health care reform has become the biggest political story of an otherwise sleepy August, but that doesn't mean grassroots lobbying on the House's six-year transportation bill has evaporated.

The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), which represents major construction companies, released a bulletin to members today urging them to connect with members of Congress in support of quick action on a long-term transportation bill next month.

Referencing lawmakers' reluctance to debate new funding sources for federal infrastructure investment, ARTBA suggested telling Congress to "make generating sufficient revenue for a $450 billion bill a priority."

That price tag matches the legislation released by House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) in June, which is headed for consideration by the full panel after Congress returns from its recess. Getting through to the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, as ARTBA mentions, is a crucial step for Oberstar allies; if that panel does not put forth recommendations on how to pay for the bill, the transport measure could stall before reaching the full House.

While ARTBA and Oberstar are aligned on the timeframe for proceeding with a new transportation bill, the construction group is not on board with all of the chairman's priorities. ARTBA opposes giving state and local governments the ability to "flex" highway funds into transit projects that are better suited for their needs.

ARTBA's transit policy also states that the 80-20 distribution of federal gas tax revenues to highway and transit projects "sets a fair modal balance which should be maintained." Oberstar's new legislation alters that balance only slightly, creating an estimated 78-22 split between highways and transit, respectively.

The construction industry isn't the only transportation player working on grassroots lobbying during the congressional recess. The pro-transit Transportation for America (T4A) is fanning out to contact lawmakers through its member groups and plans bulletins of its own in the coming days, spokesman David Goldberg said in an interview.

As for where T4A stands on the timing for a long-term transport bill, Goldberg added:

We want to pass a bill that contains the important, major reforms, and if it takes a few more weeks or months, we should take the time. What we don't want to see is a long delay where this falls off the radar. If there's going to be reform, we have to keep the conversation going.

Appearing this morning at the release of a new report
on transportation’s role in fighting climate change, House
transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) challenged the
Obama administration to back up their emissions rhetoric with action
and pass his six-year, $450 billion infrastructure bill.

After
U.S. DOT deputy secretary John Porcari and Federal Transit
Administrator Peter Rogoff delivered laudatory remarks about the Moving Cooler
report, a joint project of government agencies and environmental
groups, Oberstar took the stage with pointed words for the two senior
officials.

"They need to … catch up with the House" on transportation
policy-making, Oberstar said of Porcari and Rogoff, who were sitting
within spitting distance of the chairman.

"If you don’t
pass our bill, you’re not going to get a head start on these
strategies" for reducing the carbon footprint of the transportation
sector, Oberstar told the White House aides.

He added: "The president gets it — the crowd around him doesn’t."

The
White House continues to press for an 18-month postponement of the next
long-term transportation bill, which Oberstar asserts could drag reform
past the two-year mark and continue an inequitable system that favors
new highway construction over transit. 

"When highway
planners sit down to build a roadway," Oberstar said today, "they don’t
go through the gymnastics of a cost-effectiveness index," as transit
planners are currently required to do. "They sit down, get the money,
and build a road."

Expanding transit, the House chairman concluded, is difficult "if you’ve got a millstone around your neck."

Yet
the House bill has a millstone of its own obstructing movement: the
lack of revenue to fund a doubling in new transit investment and other
Oberstar priorities. As Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) acknowledged this
morning, hiking the federal gas tax — which has remained at 18.4 cents
per gallon since 1993 — will not be feasible until the recession
dissipates.

"We are going to raise gas and diesel taxes
sometime in the next decade," Blumenauer said, but "not while the
economy is in freefall."

Policy wonks across the capital are still poring over the 775-page bill released earlier today by Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House transportation committee. But searching the legislation for the key topics being debated by transportation reformers reveals new details and raises new questions.

The most common phrase in the bill may well be three innocuous words: "to be supplied." This is in no small part thanks to the uncertain future of funding for Oberstar's $450 billion plan, a problem compounded by a White House preoccupied with health care and in no mood to raise the gas tax.

Still, the sheer number of sections left "to be supplied" in the legislation makes it difficult to consider individual portions of the bill in the context of the nation's overall transportation investment.

For example, the section on performance targets for states receiving federal money to keep roads and bridges in good repair -- as opposed to building new projects -- leaves its minimum standards for structural adequacy blank.

The section that creates a program for the unique transportation needs of metropolitan areas has no blank areas, but it leaves major decisions in the hands of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and state DOTs.

The secretary is asked to look at certain performance areas when deciding on new projects, including traffic reduction, road safety, less dependence on single-vehicle trips, and access to public transit. But the task of setting actual goals in those areas, such as percentage-based reduction in local per-capita VMT, is left up to the state DOTs and local metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to decide alongside the federal government.

The tangible targets proposed by Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO), which include accountability measures that cannot be tweaked by individual states and localities, are nowhere to be found.

Read more...

Senior members of the House transportation committee today fired a warning shot at those pushing an 18-month extension of existing federal law, putting the Obama administration and key senators on notice that their $450 billion proposal would move forward this year.

Rep.
Jim Oberstar (D-MN), the transportation panel’s chairman, described a
delay in long-term funding as a risk to jobs and growth opportunities
that were created by the recent stimulus law.

And Oberstar made no attempt to hide his disdain for
the Obama economic advisers who helped trim transit’s share of that
stimulus plan. Holding up a red shovel for a phalanx of photographers,
Oberstar quipped: "There are folks in the economic gang at the White
House who never had a shovel in their hands or a callus on their
fingers."

His GOP counterpart on the committee, Rep. John
Mica (FL), vowed to join Oberstar in amassing House support for a
transporation bill that could clear the lower chamber of Congress by
the end of September — though even their allies concede that Senate
passage is a long shot.

"I view this as the most critical
jobs bill before Congress … we’re going to do it together, one way or
another, come hell or high water," Mica said, adding flourish as he
advised critics not to "underestimate Oberstar and Mica."

Several
advocacy and interest groups are joining the committee’s effort to push
a six-year transportation bill across the finish line. The Laborers’
International Union of North America released a statement that plainly
said, "We agree with Chairman Oberstar that the surface transportation
bill should not be delayed."

The American Public
Transportation Association (APTA), which represents the nation’s
transit agencies, also lent its voice in support. "Our members need
this bill to pass as soon as it possibly can," APTA President William
Millar told Streetsblog.

Yet the key for Oberstar and Mica
may be how many senators endorse their call for a long-term
transportation re-write this year. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood already has admitted
that the "reform" he called for as part of his 18-month extension would
have a slim chance of passing, given the contentious debate that’s
likely to erupt simply over averting bankruptcy for the nation’s
highway trust fund.

Read more…

(editor's note: Elana Schor has done yeoman's work analyzing the newly released white paper from Congressman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) which very well could end up being the framework for the next authorization of the Federal Transportation Trust Fund.  Oberstar's work on this issue really puts the "work" done by the Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee Chair, Barbara Boxer, to shame.  You can read all of Elana's coverage, including a look at the highways-transit split and funding for metro areas proposed by Oberstar at Capitol Hill Streetsblog.)

Rep. Jim Oberstar, the House transportation committee chairman is set to brief reporters this afternoon on his $450 billion, six-year federal transportation bill -- which he plans to pursue regardless of the Obama administration's push for an 18-month extension of existing law.

But Oberstar's early outline of the bill, which could get a vote in the committee as soon as next week, is already available. And it suggests that the Minnesota Democrat and Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-OR) have made good on their promises for a sweeping re-organization of the often debilitating federal transportation bureaucracy. Here are the highlights:

• The $450 billion price tag, which represents a 57 percent increase over the $286.5 billion bill approved in 2005, includes $87 billion in highway trust fund money for transit and $12 billion in transit cash from the Treasury's general fund. The 2005 bill gave transit less than $44 billion in highway trust fund money and $9 billion from the general fund.

• Oberstar isn't about to quietly accept Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's admonition that the 18-month extension is necessary to "face reality." In fact, the committee's outline of its bill warns that an extension could be devastating to state DOTs that have "been unwilling to invest in large, long-term projects until enactment of the reauthorization act."

• Highway funding would be consolidated into four funding categories, as would transit -- effectively eliminating 75 funding categories from the current system.
  
• Oberstar's bill would establish the National Infrastructure Bank proposed by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and other senior lawmakers, making the bank part of a broader metropolitan access program that would support urban areas in achieving "improved transit operations, congestion pricing, and expanded highway and transit capacity."

And that's not all. More details of the forthcoming House bill follow after the jump.

Read more...