National News
Wall Street Journal: What Happened When Gasoline Prices Plunged? We Bought More Gas
What was the American response to cheap gasoline? Buy more gasoline. That’s at least part of a fairly nuanced picture the J.P. Morgan Institute found after analyzing (anonymized) transaction records from 1 million of the bank’s credit and debit cards.
New York Times (AP): Bill to Boost Airport Security, Ease Lines Gets Green Light
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/07/06/us/politics/ap-us-aviation-bill.html
House and Senate lawmakers announced an agreement Wednesday on an aviation bill to boost airport security, reduce screening lines and require airlines to refund fees to passengers whose bags are lost or delayed. The bill would also extend the Federal Aviation Administration's programs and policies through Sept. 30, 2017. The FAA's current operating authority is set to expire July 15.
New York Times: U.S. Safety Agency Investigates another Tesla Crash Involving Autopilot
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/business/us-safety-agency-investigates-another-tesla-crash-involving-autopilot.html?_r=1
The nation’s top auto safety regulator said on Wednesday that it had begun an investigation of a second crash involving a Tesla Motors car equipped with Autopilot technology, a system designed to let vehicles drive themselves for brief periods.
Wall Street Journal: Air Cargo Volumes Dip in North America, Asia
http://www.wsj.com/articles/air-cargo-volumes-dip-in-north-america-asia-1467831481
The air cargo business in North America and Asia has taken a hit this year, as retailers and manufacturers shift shipments toward lower-cost modes of transportation. For the first five months of this year, airlines based in the Asia Pacific region carried 3.4% less cargo compared to the same period in 2015, according to the latest data from the International Air Transport Association.
Wall Street Journal: Heavy-Duty Truck Orders Fall to Lowest Since 2010
http://www.wsj.com/articles/heavy-duty-truck-orders-fall-to-lowest-since-2010-1467823241
Orders for new heavy-duty trucks hit a nearly six-year low in June, indicating that trucking companies expect little relief from a weak freight market and sluggish economic growth. Trucking companies ordered 13,100 Class 8 trucks, which are used for long-haul routes, the fewest orders since the third quarter of 2010 and a more-than 30% drop from last year, according to preliminary numbers from ACT Research released Wednesday.
The Hill: Memorial Bridge, ports among projects slated to get transportation grants
The Department of Transportation (DOT) has selected over a dozen transportation projects to receive funding from a newly created competitive grant program, quickly drawing the praise of lawmakers who represent districts or states that will benefit from the fresh injection of infrastructure cash.
USA Today: TSA takes to Facebook Messenger to answer fliers' questions
Wondering what hours the Transportation Security Administration’s PreCheck lanes are staffed at your local airport? Or whether you can bring an obscure item through airport security? You can now get the answers to those questions and many more by asking the TSA directly through Facebook’s Messenger function.
State News
Reuters: Rail service cut in Philadelphia ahead of Democratic convention
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pennsylvania-railroad-idUSKCN0ZM294
The Philadelphia-area commuter rail service abruptly removed a third of its cars from service after discovering defects, but said it has plans in place to accommodate the roughly 50,000 people expected later this month for the Democratic National Convention. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) announced on Sunday that it would remove all 120 Silverliner V regional rail cars out of its 300-car fleet after officials found cracks in the main suspension system last week.
Burlington County Times: NJ Transportation Shutdown List Includes Dozens of Burlington County Projects
http://www.burlingtoncountytimes.com/news/local/nj-transportation-shutdown-list-includes-dozens-of-burlington-county-projects/article_b20f8b58-43ca-11e6-8206-3f61b06704a3.html
Work on dozens of road and bridge repair projects and transit improvements in Burlington County will be suspended for at least a week beginning midnight Friday as part Gov. Chris Christie's executive order to ration the few remaining dollars in the state's depleted Transportation Trust Fund.
Baltimore Sun: No federal funding for two Baltimore transportation projects
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-md-fastlane-baltimore-20160706-story.html
Baltimore came up empty-handed Wednesday when the federal government turned down Maryland's request for $231 million to fund two large transportation projects.
Detroit Free Press: Gov. Rick Snyder pushes Congress on need for new Soo lock
Gov. Rick Snyder this week sent a letter to members of Michigan’s congressional delegation asking them to support efforts to build a new super-size navigation lock at a key shipping chokepoint on the Great Lakes. Snyder’s letters underscored the uncertainty caused by the potential for problems at the so-called Soo Locks in Sault Ste Marie: Only one lock is capable of handling the largest freighters and if it goes out of service for any long duration during the shipping season, it could decimate the U.S. economy, experts say.
The Kansas City Star: At two months, KC streetcar is averaging more than 6,000 riders a day
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/kc-streetcar/article88036952.html
Two months after it opened, the Kansas City streetcar continues to report robust ridership. Average daily ridership is more than 6,000 passengers. The monthly report for June shows ridership is often especially strong on Fridays and Saturdays.
Lincoln Journal Star: Beutler details two-year plans for transportation, infrastructure
http://journalstar.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/beutler-details-two-year-plans-for-transportation-infrastructure/article_004f551e-e3d1-54ec-9054-655555bd1dba.html
Mayor Chris Beutler says his two-year budget plan will continue aggressive street construction, expand bus service and speed up the replacement of water mains. "A growing community is a community that invests in infrastructure," he said Wednesday at the first of two news conferences set for this week.
USA Today: Can Green Bay afford to fix its infrastructure?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2016/07/07/can-green-bay-afford-fix-its-infrastructure/85569168/
When it comes to debt, Green Bays is rather vanilla. That could be good news for people anxious to see the city take a bite out of a mountain of infrastructure needs, estimated at nearly $200 million for streets and sewer repairs alone.
The Republic: State gets $60M grant to complete project between I-10, I-49
http://www.therepublic.com/2016/07/06/la-traffic-projects/
Louisiana is getting a $60 million federal grant that will allow the state to complete a nearly 15-mile pavement replacement and lane addition project between the Interstate 10 and Interstate 49 interchange and the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge.
Politico Morning Transportation
By Jennifer Scholtes and Lauren Gardner | 07/06/2016 05:38 AM EDT
With help from Brianna Gurciullo and Kathryn A. Wolfe
THE PANDA IS HERE: Lawmakers unveiled a 14-month bill extending FAA policy and funding through September 2017 on Wednesday afternoon. Team Transpo brought you the details early and often as they broke - here are some highlights:
Aviation security: The bill borrows heavily from the Senate-passed measure by plussing up the number of dogs patrolling unsecure areas in airports, growing TSA's PreCheck program to improve the flow of travelers at screening checkpoints and creating stricter airport worker vetting requirements.
Consumer protection: Airline lose your luggage that you paid to check? It'll have to reimburse you those fees for bags that are lost or "unreasonably" delayed. Airlines will generally have to make sure kids 13 years old and younger are seated next to parents or older children traveling with them on flights. Airports and carriers will also have to review training and best practices for making air travel easier for persons with disabilities.
Safety: The legislation establishes processes for locating and mitigating the unauthorized flying of drones near airports and other critical infrastructure. It speeds up the process for completing the pilot records database required after the 2009 Colgan Air crash in Buffalo, N.Y. It also addresses the hiring process at the FAA for air traffic controllers, after concerns were raised during a hearing last month.
ABOUT THAT OTHER THING: So what does it all mean when it comes to Rep. Bill Shuster's "transformational" air traffic control overhaul? While it's back on the shelf for now, he's shown no signs of relenting on the proposal, and the extension unveiled Wednesday leaves off several priorities other members wanted to get done - enough leverage for everyone to come back to the negotiating table next year, Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune told MT after praising the bill as a major win for senators who wanted to get at least some significant policy changes to President Barack Obama's desk.
But Shuster is going to have an uphill climb to convince the myriad tax writers, appropriators and Democrats who opposed his effort that his idea is the kind of change FAA needs - especially given the impact his unyielding stance has had on the contours of this year's deal. From your Pro team triple-threat : Opponents "are blaming the chairman for ruining their chances of bipartisan agreement on a slew of other FAA policy provisions. ... Rep. Peter DeFazio said Shuster's dream of revamping the nation's air traffic control system lives on to the detriment of efforts to overhaul the FAA's certification process, something the Oregon Democrat says 'would have created jobs and benefited U.S. manufacturers.'"
"And that's being held hostage to the vain hope that the next Congress will decide to privatize the ATO, which I think is absurd because the manufacturers very clearly did not take a position. So why stick it to them?" DeFazio told POLITICO. "Unfortunately that's what happened."
IT'S THURSDAY: Good morning and thanks for tuning into POLITICO's Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on all things trains, planes, automobiles and ports.
Reach out: lgardner@politico.com or @Gardner_LM, jscholtes@politico.com or @JAScholtes and bgurciullo@politico.com or @brigurciullo.
NO YA NEVER GONNA GET IT: Sen. Bill Nelson seemed pretty confident Wednesday that Shuster's ATC plan won't ever take off, and he says it's the military that would never allow it. MT reached out to the Pentagon for comment, but a spokeswoman didn't respond by press time.
"That's not going to happen, and the reason it's not going to happen is that the Department of Defense that controls ... 20 percent of the airspace, there's no way the Department of Defense is going to agree to privatization of air traffic controllers directing U.S. military aircraft," he told reporters. "I mean, that's just not going to happen."
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoaaaa: T&I Republican Rodney Davis begs to differ. "I don't think that proposal was doomed by the Department of Defense as much as it was by other committees that didn't want to give up jurisdiction, which wasn't nearly as much as the jurisdiction the T&I Committee was going to give up," he told our Brianna Gurciullo. "But it's the only way I see for us to actually see the improvements in our air traffic control system that people want, that the FAA has tried time and time again, they're not able to actually complete."
TESLA AGAIN UNDER THE MICROSCOPE: NHTSA is investigating a second crash involving a Tesla vehicle that the driver said was operated under Autopilot mode, The New York Times reported Wednesday. Earlier in the day, the Detroit News reported that the automaker is hardening its position that Autopilot was not to blame for that July 1 accident in Pennsylvania, stating that data it obtained show "no reason to believe that Autopilot had anything to do with" it.
LIFE IN THE FASTLANE ... GRANT PROGRAM: Stealing DOT's thunder by way of legislative mandate, Congress' transportation leaders made sure they were the first to tell the world about the department's picks for $759 million in freight and highway project grants. The FASTLANE cash comes by way of the FAST Act, of course. And under the FAST Act, Congress required DOT to give lawmakers a 60-day heads-up so they could review the grant awards before the money is doled out. With that lead, congressional transportation leaders decided they'd be the ones to spill the beans on the 18 projects DOT picked.
Winner, winner: The smallest award: $5 million for the city of Tukwila, Wash., for a road extension and grade separation. The largest: $165 million to the Virginia Department of Transportation for a project to "unlock" the I-95 corridor. Those winners were among 212 applications for projects totaling roughly $10 billion.
CDC: U.S. SLOW TO STOP CRASHING: The motor vehicle crash death rate in the United States decreased 31 percent from 2000 to 2013, but the average decline among 19 other high-income countries was almost double that, according to a new CDC report . The U.S. drop was the smallest among the nations, which on average saw a drop of 56 percent.
In 2013, the U.S. crash death rate was 10.3 per 100,000 - the highest among all 20 countries surveyed - which worked out to 90 deaths every day on American roads. The United States also fared poorly in seat belt use compared to its peers and had the second-highest percentage of crash deaths involving alcohol.
RED MEANS STOP: The FTA is investigating a possible case of a Metro train running a red light. "It is a serious safety concern and would be the latest of such an occurrence that is all too frequent on the WMATA Metrorail system," an FTA spokesman said. "FTA is conducting a larger investigation into the issue, reviewing more than 50 WMATA stop signal overrun incidents, and anticipates releasing a report this summer."
A train possibly ran a stop signal near the Red Line's Glenmont station on Tuesday at 7:15 p.m., The Washington Post's Martine Powers (and former MT scribe!) reports . The train operator was removed from service.
LAC-MEGANTIC THEN AND NOW - A SAD COMPARISON: Three years ago this week, a 74-car train carrying Bakken crude exploded upon derailing in Lac-Mégantic, setting the Quebec town on fire. Marking the anniversary of the disaster, Jonathan Poet of The Associated Press took to Twitter this week to post Google map views showing the town before and after the fire.
SLICE OF PI: Our friends at POLITICO Influence report that Holland & Knight is lobbying for drone information provider AirMap on FAA reauthorization and transportation appropriations for FY2017. The team includes Michael Friedberg, former staff director of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Rail Subcommittee and professional staffer for the House Appropriations Committee.
The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers retained Daly Consulting Group's Justin Daly, former senior counsel to the SEC, and Erik Johnson, former assistant policy director of federal relations for the office of Gov. John Kasich, to lobby on climate change disclosure. Oil companies are fighting against shareholder pressure to reveal the business risks of global warming.
THE AUTOBAHN (SPEED READ):
- One of Metro's new board members has potential conflicts of interest. The Washington Post.
- Tesla's Autopilot Vexes Some Drivers, Even Its Fans. The Wall Street Journal.
- Driverless cars need infrared technology to be safe, says auto supplier. Reuters.
- New Jersey to Shut Down Hundreds of Transportation Projects. The New York Times.
- AAA auto club says not all gasoline is the same. The Associated Press.
THE COUNTDOWN: DOT appropriations run out in 87 days. The FAA reauthorization expires in 9 days. The 2016 presidential election is in 124 days. Highway and transit policy is up for renewal in 1,549 days.
THE DAY AHEAD:
10 a.m. - The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency holds a hearing on misconduct at TSA. 311 Cannon House Office Building.
10 a.m. - A House Homeland Security subcommittee will join a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee to hold a hearing on the risk of nuclear smuggling at U.S. ports. 2167 Rayburn House Office Building.
Did we miss an event? Let MT know at transpocalendar@politicopro.com.
To view online:
https://www.politicopro.com/tipsheets/morning-transportation/2016/07/faa-extension-lands-018145
Stories from POLITICO Pro
Thune: Beefed-up FAA extension a win for the Senate
By Lauren Gardner | 07/06/2016 03:50 PM EDT
Sen. John Thune Wednesday touted a forthcoming deal on a bulked-up FAA extension as a bipartisan victory for senators who pushed for policy changes, despite bicameral discord over a House proposal to dramatically alter the agency's responsibilities.
The legislation "represents the most comprehensive set of aviation security reforms that we've seen in a decade," he said, while also wrapping in some consumer protection and safety-related provisions. Thune (R-S.D.) chairs the Senate Commerce Committee.
The bill will include provisions to ensure airport workers with access to secure areas are better vetted, to expand TSA's PreCheck program so that travelers in unsecured public airport areas get screened more quickly, and to increase the number of dogs patrolling aviation hubs, Thune said.
It also contains measures to "modernize our security systems in airports and do a better job in the future of making sure that we keep people who travel safe," he said.
"I think this bill represents probably the best that we could do under the circumstances, and we'll take another run at it next year and see what issues emerge at that time and whether or not there's a different level of support" for House Transportation Chairman Bill Shuster's (R-Pa.) proposal to spin air traffic control operations off from the FAA, Thune said.
When asked about last-minute hold-ups on the bill, Thune said there were some requests for 11th hour inclusions that needed to be handled.
"It always seems around the time you whack all the moles, some other thing pops up," he told reporters. "But, you know, it's kind of getting the House comfortable with something that they think they can move on suspension, and then there's always a last-ditch effort to add elements to that discussion, and I think we've gotten it in place now where it's confined to FAA substance and policy."
While Democrats and Republicans in both chambers wanted to use the legislation as a vehicle to extend some energy tax benefits left off a bigger tax package last year, Thune said they backed down in the interest of meeting the July 15 deadline, when the FAA's current authorization will expire.
Bulking up an extension with substantive policy language means lawmakers risk losing momentum next year to find a truly long-term solution to FAA policy.
But Thune told POLITICO he thinks enough pieces of the larger bill with bipartisan interest were left off the deal - like certification standards for aircraft and more comprehensive work on drone policy - that lawmakers will want to take another crack at writing a longer authorization bill in 2017.
"We got a lot of the stuff that we felt was time-sensitive included in here, and security- and safety-sensitive, but I still think there's enough leverage," he said. "There are a couple of things that got left out that I think are going to provide a lot of pressure to do a fairly comprehensive bill next year, and I know that's what the House wanted. They wanted to have some things that would build momentum for addressing this issue again."
Lawmakers heap criticism on FAA ATC staff numbers, hiring
By Lauren Gardner | 06/15/2016 01:26 PM EDT
The FAA's Air Traffic Organization has met its hiring goal for fiscal 2016 and expects to surpass it, the agency told lawmakers today during a hearing focused on its air traffic controller staffing levels and hiring tactics.
"We've already met the goal [of 1,619], and we expect to exceed it by any number of applicants, probably in the high 1,600s for this fiscal year," ATO Chief Operating Officer Teri Bristol said during a House Transportation Committee hearing.
Still, members skewered the agency for missing hiring targets for the previous six years and for suddenly changing its hiring process in 2013, which they say has turned away highly qualified candidates with prior experience and training. DOT's inspector general criticized FAA's air traffic control staffing plan in a January report.
The assessment "seems to be designed to determine whether you have the temperament to be a controller or not, so if someone has gone to the [training] school, successfully completed the school, and is working without reservation, without problems, as a military air traffic controller, is that test valid?" asked ranking Democrat Peter DeFazio.
Rickie Cannon, FAA's deputy assistant administrator for human resource management, defended the questionnaire and said it is "producing results."
Committee Chairman Bill Shuster continued to advocate for his air traffic control overhaul legislation (H.R. 4441).
"Imagine, if we don't have the flow of the air traffic control, the lines will be not in the airports, the lines will be on the tarmacs," he said.
FAA extension grounds Shuster's air-traffic control vision - for now
By Kathryn A. Wolfe, Jennifer Scholtes and Lauren Gardner | 07/06/2016 06:09 PM EDT
Congress has set in motion plans to extend the FAA well into next year, putting a controversial plan to separate air traffic control from the FAA in chocks - but only for now.
Rep. Bill Shuster, the main architect of a bill (H.R. 4441) that would have placed the air traffic control system under the authority of a nonprofit corporation governed by a board mostly made up of the aviation industry, held out until the last minute, insisting that support was still picking up steam.
Shuster's continued support, along with backing from Airlines for America, means his "transformational" dream may be down - but not out. With Congress set to endorse an extension through September 2017, that gives Shuster more than a year to redouble his efforts.
But he has his work cut out for him. Though his bill won the key backing of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association - a union that has been behind previous failed attempts at privatization - in the end, it wasn't enough.
Beyond opposition from other corners of the aviation industry - chief among them, the business aviation sector, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, and Delta Air Lines - Shuster has also faced a wall of opposition from Democrats, and segments of his own party.
Now those opponents are blaming the chairman for ruining their chances of bipartisan agreement on a slew of other FAA policy provisions.
Shuster's Democratic counterpart, Rep. Peter DeFazio , said Shuster's dream of revamping the nation's air traffic control system lives on to the detriment of efforts to overhaul the FAA's certification process, something the Oregon Democrat says "would have created jobs and benefited U.S. manufacturers."
"And that's being held hostage to the vain hope that the next Congress will decide to privatize the ATO, which I think is absurd because the manufacturers very clearly did not take a position. So why stick it to them?" DeFazio told POLITICO on Wednesday. "Unfortunately that's what happened."
More than 90 percent of the House and Senate FAA proposals "were identical or close enough that they could have easily been conferenced," DeFazio said. But because Shuster continues to hold out, he added, negotiators were only able to agree upon "some minimal provisions in there here and there - this and that."
Those against the chairman's plan say the cost of pursuing that vision is not just what was left on the table this time, but what's at stake if Shuster continues pressing it through the end of September 2017.
"I think it has obvious pitfalls in terms of getting things done, in terms of accomplishing a viable bill," Sen. Richard Blumenthal said on Wednesday. "And I'm hopeful we can reach some conclusion, because we need to move forward."
Appropriators from both parties in both chambers also have repeatedly balked at the idea of ceding any of their turf - a sentiment that's unlikely to change over the course of the new extension.
Also, members on the House Ways and Means Committee have repeatedly groused about being cut out of negotiations, and are still wary of the idea even after months of "education."
"[I'm] not there yet," Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) told POLITICO in June. "Open to the reforms, but when we talk about revenue and having that jurisdiction on the committee, I'm very sensitive to that and making sure that we are fully engaged in that discussion."
"It's kind of like really smart farmers - they start whispering to their children from a very young age: 'Never sell land. Never sell land.' Never give up jurisdiction," said Rep. George Holding (R-N.C.).
And if that wasn't enough, the Senate made it clear early on that it had no intention of touching any plan to remove air traffic control from the FAA, ultimately passing a bill completely devoid of such a thing.
Instead, Congress will punt for just over a year, extending the FAA's programs - along with a handful of policy provisions from the larger bill negotiated informally between the two chambers.
According to a summary , the extension includes a host of measures to improve pilot performance, including provisions related to mental health screening following a 2015 Germanwings crash; and provisions related to cockpit automation and manual flying skills following a 2013 Asiana crash in San Francisco.
It also seeks to expedite the creation of a long-delayed pilot records database, originally mandated in 2010 following the crash of a 2009 regional jet over Buffalo, N.Y.
And the summary notes that the bill "streamlines and improves the air traffic controller hiring process," and "creates new processes to detect, identify and mitigate" drones operating unlawfully around airports.
As Sen. Bill Nelson previously forecast, the legislation also includes so-called "third-class medical reform" language that would exempt some recreational pilots from having to get medical certificates.
The bill includes a number of security provisions senators pushed, like beefing up the vetting process for airport workers and expanding TSA's PreCheck program.
The House is expected to take up the bill later this week, with the Senate expected to follow soon after.
It remains to be seen what impact the beefed-up extension may have on the will of lawmakers to slog through another round of negotiations on aviation policy in just a year's time.
"I think we'll see whether or not by this time next year he feels like he has the necessary support to move that concept in the House. I mean, I don't think it exists today, and it doesn't exist in the Senate today, so we'll see," Sen. John Thune said. "Time will tell whether or not that will get re-litigated next year."
Bernie Becker contributed to this report.
Nelson: DOD will never agree to air traffic control spinoff
By Lauren Gardner | 07/06/2016 01:45 PM EDT
The top Senate Democrat negotiating an FAA extension said today he doesn't think an air traffic control overhaul proposal will come up again next year because the military would never sanction such a change.
"That's not going to happen, and the reason it's not going to happen is that the Department of Defense that controls, that has, 20 percent of the airspace, there's no way the Department of Defense is going to agree to privatization of air traffic controllers directing U.S. military aircraft," Sen. Bill Nelson told reporters. "I mean, that's just not going to happen."
Nelson also gave some additional details about what will be contained in an FAA extension, to be unveiled later today. The bill, which is expected to extend the FAA's authorities through September 2017, will include a pilot study on keeping drones from interfering with airport operations, Nelson said.
"We did that in a pilot study so that we could reasonably approach this issue. Whether or not you want to take over a drone and kill it, whether you want to take over a drone and fly, whether you want to set up an electronic fence around an airport - all of those things need to be studied," he said.
What the bill won't have, Nelson said, is a study on spinning air traffic control away from the FAA.
Nelson said the extension will have "most" of the airport security provisions that were included in the Senate's FAA bill, which passed in April.