BAF IN THE NEWS:
Politico: Morning Transportation
By Burgess Everett and Adam Snider, Featuring Jessica Meyers and Kathryn A. Wolfe
12/18/12
Building America’s Future: “Senator Inouye was a giant in the world of transportation and infrastructure for decades. He understood the importance of infrastructure for his home state of Hawaii and for the country at-large. He knew that transportation brought people together.”
USA Today: Column: Fixing the debt is a progressive cause
Between the two of us, we have spent 15 years running two of America's largest cities. We have balanced municipal budgets, improved public transportation, reduced crime, supported innovative local businesses and fought the scourges of urban poverty and homelessness.
NATIONAL NEWS:
Washington Post: A ‘fiscal cliff’ deal is near: Here are the details
All at once, a “fiscal cliff” deal seems to be coming together. Speaker John Boehner’s latest offer doesn’t go quite far enough for the White House to agree, but it goes far enough that many think they can see the agreement taking shape.
Washington Post (Associated Press Reprint): Senate opens debate on $60.4 billion Sandy aid package, Republicans say not so fast
WASHINGTON — Democrats on Monday began trying to push $60.4 billion in emergency spending for Superstorm Sandy victims through Congress by Christmas. Republicans responded: Not so fast.
Washington Post: Daniel K. Inouye, U.S. senator, dies at 88
Sen. Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, a highly decorated World War II combat veteran who used his status as one of the most powerful Democrats in Washington and the second-longest-serving senator in history to send billions of dollars to his home islands, died Monday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda. He was 88.
New York Times: The Deal Dilemma
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/the-deal-dilemma/
First things first: cutting Social Security benefits is a cruel, stupid policy — just not nearly as cruel and stupid as raising the Medicare eligibility age. But sometimes you have to accept bad things in pursuit of a larger goal: health reform should have included a public option — heck, it should have gone straight to single-payer — but a flawed route to universal coverage was better than none at all.
New York Times: Obama’s New Offer on Fiscal Crisis Could Lead to Deal
WASHINGTON — President Obama delivered to Speaker John A. Boehner a new offer on Monday to resolve the pending fiscal crisis, a deal that would raise revenues by $1.2 trillion over the next decade but keep in place the Bush-era tax rates for any household with earnings below $400,000.
The Hill: Retailers press the White House to help stave off port strike
Retailers are urging the White House to step in and help settle a dispute that could lead to a strike at ports from Maine to Texas and harm the economy.
FastLane: Redesigned www.dot.gov draws a crowd...and goes responsive
In October, we launched a redesigned and re-energized www.dot.gov to make it easier for you to find the information you need. The results from the past 60 days show we’ve made very good progress. And the best part? We’re just getting started.
MSN Money: Train travel makes a comeback
http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=41099341-9a5b-417e-a672-4885999f88bd
Train travel in the U.S. has long been derided as outdated, inefficient, expensive and a sad relic of America's past rail glories.
Streetsblog: Blumenauer: Let’s Stop Hiding in Fear of a Mileage Fee
http://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/12/17/blumenauer-lets-stop-hiding-in-fear-of-a-mileage-fee/
In June, the House of Representatives voted to ban U.S. DOT from even studying the viability of switching from the gas tax to a vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) fee. But the tide may be turning: The sponsor of the amendment, Rep. Chip Cravaack, has been ousted from Congress, the amendment itself is on the skids, and a new bill would actually require the government to study the VMT option.
Atlantic Cities: The Typical Municipal Budgeting Process Is Rigged Against Infrastructure Investments
Let’s begin with basic market economics for Dick or Jane: prices affect individual consumption behavior. Let’s next add to basic economics of building a city’s infrastructure for Dick and Jane: ribbon-cutting prices affect behavior. In the former case, Dick or Jane chooses to purchase or not purchase a good based on the price, its quality, and Dick or Jane’s preference to actually own the good. The good’s price is of course influenced by supply and demand and it’s also tied to the cost of production.
Politico Pro: Plenty of work teed up for next session
By Jessica Meyers and Burgess Everett
12/17/12
Transportation nerds need not worry about getting bored.
The 112th Congress may have reworked aviation law and handed the country a two-year surface transportation fix. But the 113th will face an even thicker slog of transportation priorities, funding fights and infrastructure reforms.
Lawmakers will tackle a long-delayed water resources bill, navigate rail issues ignored last session and consider another attempt to privatize the oft-maligned Amtrak. Congress will also jump back into a new transportation bill, resurrecting the question of how to pay for surface transportation priorities.
“These choices of how to finance and how much revenue to generate are in turn intertwined with question of what to finance and what the federal role in transportation investment should be,” industry watchers Patton Boggs wrote in its 113th Congress forecast.
Both the House and the Senate have promised to prioritize water infrastructure, namely the Water Resources Development Act. The authorization bill is supposed to pass every two years, but last made it through in 2007 over the veto of President George W. Bush. It deals with navigation, flood management and Army Corps projects.
Hurricane Sandy has helped reroute attention to water infrastructure needs and may propel the legislation forward. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the Environment and Public Works committee chairman, told POLITICO that it will be the committee's first piece of legislation. Boxer, who has circulated a draft bill, said she and incoming ranking member David Vitter (R-La.) hope to push it through the panel during the next session's first 30 days.
Vitter, who has had it out for the Army Corps since Hurricane Katrina, is keen to embed reforms that accelerate the project process and erase a backlog stretching decades.
Boxer said she’s spoken to incoming House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster about passing WRDA quickly and “they very much want to do that as well.”
Top House Transportation Democrat Nick Rahall (W.Va.) said he expects that committee to push the bill first, calling it “vitally needed.”
Writing it is another thing. The bill used to entail a list of specific projects selected by lawmakers, something now prohibited under Congress’s earmark ban. Boxer argues the moratorium thwarts the WRDA process and hands over power to the administration. But she maintains the committee will craft legislation based on standards rather than requests.
The House will prove even tougher.
“It’s going to be interesting to watch how our conference writes our rules and does the final rules for the House,” incoming House Republican Policy Chairman James Lankford (R-Okla.) said in an interview. “How do you do a WRDA bill without calling one of those things an earmark? Everything’s in a district.”
Outgoing House Transportation Chairman John Mica told POLITICO that Shuster “won’t face the same challenges” that he did with long-stalled aviation and surface bills.
He’ll have others.
"He’s got two challenges. One with WRDA because of the earmarking. And [passenger rail] can be controversial,” Mica said. “Those will be his challenges during this term.”
Congress last reauthorized Amtrak and set other rail policy in 2008. The House tried to include a rail title in the last transportation bill, an unusual move that failed. With Republican backlash over the administration’s high-speed rail focus, a push to privatize Amtrak and a 2015 deadline looming for a controversial anti-collision train technology, rail legislation will take some form next session.
Shuster has placed it on his priority list. The former rail subcommittee chairman has backed privatization of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, but sees a “middle ground” between lawmakers who push for more efficient spending and those who see a national passenger rail network as a public good that deserves subsidies.
The panel that will write most of the rail title in the Senate, the Commerce Committee, now hangs in flux. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), the presumed ranking member, just announced his resignation and current ranking member Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) is retiring.
Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) had planned to meet with DeMint before laying out the committee’s agenda, but now must wait on a replacement. That’s expected to fall to John Thune (R-S.D.), a Commerce aide said.
“Rockefeller prides himself on being bipartisan. And he had a good thing going with Kay Bailey,” the aide said, adding that only until Rockefeller talks to the next ranking member can any road map be laid out.
Lawmakers also will confront the most essential question: how to fund transportation.
“It’s the elephant in the room; we’re all thinking about it,” said Carolina Mederos, the transportation and infrastructure chairwoman for Patton Boggs.
The current transportation bill will expire at the end of 2014, and lawmakers will need to find a boost for thinning gas tax receipts. So far Shuster is saying all the right things, Boxer said, by indicating openness to the gas tax, tolling and a fee on miles traveled.
Shuster emphasized this point shortly after accepting the chairmanship.
“The biggest challenge we face today, the No. 1 challenge is: How do we pay for it?” he said. “And I think the most important thing we do is we look at all the options that are out there.”
But rhetoric must give way to action. And that’s becoming increasingly difficult, considering the raucous headlines and chamber fighting during this summer’s transportation conference.
Shuster and Rahall need to coordinate with Boxer, Vitter, Rockefeller and whomever flanks him to get anything done, not to mention leadership and the rest of Congress.
At least for now, the talk centers around doing just that.
“The experience we had the last time was positive and I hope to continue that, to build a relationship with her,” Shuster told POLITICO about Boxer, adding that he needs to also connect with Vitter and see where he and Rahall “can see eye to eye.”
A host of less obvious issues, including the future of a competitive transportation grant program despised by the House and funding for port infrastructure, also appear likely to bubble up.
But if there’s any lesson to learn from previous sessions, it’s the falsehood of predictions and the inevitability of surprise.
Politico Pro: Shuster pulling away from Mica’s reign
By Burgess Everett
12/17/12
A mountain of expectations awaits incoming House Transportation Chairman Bill Shuster, who’s taking the gavel from John Mica after two years of legislative success and partisan sniping.
Conservatives want to be sure the Pennsylvania Republican holds the line on taxes and spending. Democrats want to see a return to the bipartisan legacy of his father, Bud, who chaired the committee until 2001. And everyone expects Shuster to come up with some solution to the country’s struggling federal infrastructure funding structure.
Shuster says he’s up to the tough task and is already separating himself from Mica (R-Fla.), whose hardline stance on not raising the federal gas tax contrasts with Shuster’s openness. Shuster wants to explore — but not necessarily enact — a bevy of funding opportunities, including the gas tax, more tolling and a vehicle miles traveled fee, as well as tying energy production to infrastructure.
He’s also ready for the House to take the mantle of chief transportation-writing chamber of Congress.
The House’s reputation took a dive this year when the Senate’s bipartisan maneuvering outpaced Mica’s transportation bill, which Democrats boycotted and failed to attract 218 Republican votes. Shuster said in an interview he has good relationships with both liberal Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and House conservatives, which will help navigate the rocky politics that billion-dollar bills like those he will write are sure to elicit.
“Transportation is not inherently a partisan issue,” Shuster said.
With the White House, however, Shuster may continue Mica’s adversarial posture. Asked if he believes President Barack Obama needs to give formal direction to Congress on long-term legislation, which the White House has yet to do, Shuster said: “They haven’t taken the lead on much of anything around here in this town. So I’m not sure.”
Still, Shuster’s generally been a hit with Democrats. Boxer, in charge of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee that handles the most significant parts of the upper chamber’s transportation legislation, had nothing but praise for the new chairman. Boxer said they have a “very nice working relationship” and have already talked about sitting down to lay groundwork for the next bill, which both lawmakers hope will be longer than the 27-month law signed by Obama this summer.
“It seems like he thinks everything should be on the table, which is good, because we really have to open our mind to various ways to do this,” Boxer said in an interview.
And while Democrats like Boxer and House Transportation ranking member Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) laud Shuster’s flexibility, Republicans in the House believe the new chairman is also a friend of fiscal conservatism. Rep. Reid Ribble (R-Wis.), a vocal negotiator on the most recent transportation law, said Shuster is no squishy Republican.
“He’s not really viewed as a moderate Republican. He’s viewed as conservative,” Ribble said. “When he speaks to the conference, the conservative wing of the Republican Party, which I consider myself a part of, listens to him.”
One exception might be hardliners who want to wind down the federal gas tax and devolve transportation functions to the states. Shuster strongly opposes such a scenario, though Heritage Action for America said it expects to lobby him nonetheless.
“Mr. Shuster may not be a fan of turnback, but we anticipate having open and honest discussions with him about the proper role of the states in transportation,” said spokesman Dan Holler.
Shuster is also more tapped into House leadership than Mica, serving on the whip team, and one well-connected transportation lobbyist said that could deliver more autonomy.
"I think that he is motivated by using his position in the majority and with the blessing of leadership to really get something done,” the lobbyist said.
Rahall told POLITICO his relationships with both Shuster and his dad are “excellent” and that he hopes Shuster’s closeness with top GOP brass will give him the green light to run the committee his own way.
“By his own admission [Mica] didn't run the show. And I’m looking forward to Mr. Shuster running the show,” Rahall said. “It’s my hope that he will have more autonomy. I recall his father bucking the leadership on their side, i.e., Mr. [former House Speaker Newt] Gingrich, from the get-go. And winning.”
Words like “detail-oriented” and “reasonable” pop up when members of Congress talk about Shuster — but there’s a wait-and-see approach to whether Shuster’s chairmanship will include “bipartisan.” Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said Shuster’s already assured him of some level of cooperation with the minority — though Mica maintains he tried to work with Democrats as much as possible.
“He doesn’t want to do it the way it happened this last time where the Democrats get presented a finished bill written by some outside group,” DeFazio said, though neither he nor Rahall explicitly predicts two years of Kumbaya on the committee.
That’s because the to-do list is long and the political atmosphere in the Capitol over spending — unavoidable when infrastructure or transportation topics come up — is so toxic that there are bound to be stumbles. Shuster will oversee a water resources bill early next year and a new plan for passenger rail, not to mention the big one: a long-term effort to shore up the country’s roads, bridges and transit.
He will also have to find some way to pay for infrastructure without infuriating his own party and without earmarks, which previous chairmen like his father and Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) were able to wield in a way that eased passage of complex transportation bills. Mica has long said that passing the $118 billion surface bill without earmarks was one of his most difficult tasks — and no one expects it to get any easier in 2013.
Shuster says he feels the expectations, but it’s a job he’s always wanted and he’s ready for it.
“A lot of people look back at what my father was able to accomplish. So yeah, that adds extra pressure,” he told POLITICO. “But this is not your father’s Congress. And I have license to say that.”
Kathryn A. Wolfe and Adam Snider contributed to this report.
Politico Pro: 113th Congress to tackle transportation priorities
By Jessica Meyers and Burgess Everett
December 18, 2012
Transportation nerds need not worry about getting bored.
The 112th Congress may have reworked aviation law and handed the country a two-year surface transportation fix. But the 113th will face an even thicker slog of transportation priorities, funding fights and infrastructure reforms.
Lawmakers will tackle a long-delayed water resources bill, navigate rail issues ignored last session and consider another attempt to privatize the oft-maligned Amtrak. Congress will also jump back into a new transportation bill, resurrecting the question of how to pay for surface transportation priorities.
“These choices of how to finance and how much revenue to generate are in turn intertwined with questions of what to finance and what the federal role in transportation investment should be,” industry watchers Patton Boggs wrote in its 113th Congress forecast.
Both the House and the Senate have promised to prioritize water infrastructure, namely the Water Resources Development Act. The authorization bill is supposed to pass every two years but last made it through in 2007 over the veto of President George W. Bush. It deals with navigation, flood management and Army Corps projects.
Hurricane Sandy has helped reroute attention to water infrastructure needs and may propel the legislation forward. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee , told POLITICO that it will be the committee’s first piece of legislation. Boxer, who has circulated a draft bill, said she and incoming ranking member David Vitter (R-La.) hope to push it through the panel during the next session’s first 30 days.
Vitter, who has had it out for the Army Corps since Hurricane Katrina, is keen to embed reforms that accelerate the project process and erase a backlog stretching decades.
Boxer said she’s spoken to incoming House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster about passing WRDA quickly and “they very much want to do that as well.”
Top House Transportation Democrat Nick Rahall of West Virginia said he expects that committee to push the bill first, saying it is “vitally needed.”
Writing it is another thing. The bill used to entail a list of specific projects selected by lawmakers, something now prohibited under Congress’s earmark ban. Boxer argues the moratorium thwarts the WRDA process and hands over power to the administration. But she maintains the committee will craft legislation based on standards rather than requests.
The House will prove even tougher.
“It’s going to be interesting to watch how our conference writes our rules and does the final rules for the House,” incoming House Republican Policy Committee Chairman James Lankford (R-Okla.) said in an interview. “How do you do a WRDA bill without calling one of those things an earmark? Everything’s in a district.”
Outgoing House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica told POLITICO that Shuster “won’t face the same challenges” that he did with long-stalled aviation and surface bills.
He’ll have others.
“He’s got two challenges. One with WRDA because of the earmarking. And [passenger rail] can be controversial,” Mica said. “Those will be his challenges during this term.”
Congress last reauthorized Amtrak and set other rail policy in 2008. The House tried to include a rail title in the last transportation bill, an unusual move that failed. With Republican backlash over the administration’s high-speed rail focus, a push to privatize Amtrak and a 2015 deadline looming for a controversial anti-collision train technology, rail legislation will take some form next session.
Shuster has placed it on his priority list. The former rail subcommittee chairman has backed privatization of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, but sees a “middle ground” between lawmakers who push for more efficient spending and those who see a national passenger rail network as a public good that deserves subsidies.
The panel that will write most of the rail title in the Senate, the Commerce Science, and Transportation Committee, now hangs in flux. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), the presumed ranking member, just announced his resignation, and current ranking member Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) is retiring.
Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) had planned to meet with DeMint before laying out the committee’s agenda but now must wait on a replacement. That’s expected to fall to Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a Commerce aide said.
“Rockefeller prides himself on being bipartisan. And he had a good thing going with Kay Bailey,” the aide said, adding that only until Rockefeller talks to the next ranking member can any road map be laid out.
Lawmakers also will confront the most essential question: how to fund transportation.
“It’s the elephant in the room; we’re all thinking about it,” said Carolina Mederos, the transportation and infrastructure chairwoman for Patton Boggs.
The current transportation bill will expire at the end of 2014, and lawmakers will need to find a boost for thinning gas tax receipts. So far, Shuster is saying all the right things, Boxer said, by indicating openness to the gas tax, tolling and a fee on miles traveled.
Shuster emphasized this point shortly after accepting the chairmanship.
“The biggest challenge we face today, the No. 1 challenge is: How do we pay for it?” he said. “And I think the most important thing we do is we look at all the options that are out there.”
But rhetoric must give way to action. And that’s becoming increasingly difficult, considering the raucous headlines and chamber fighting during this summer’s transportation conference.
Shuster and Rahall need to coordinate with Boxer, Vitter, Rockefeller and whoever flanks him to get anything done — not to mention leadership and the rest of Congress.
At least for now, the talk centers around doing just that.
“The experience we had the last time was positive, and I hope to continue that, to build a relationship with her,” Shuster told POLITICO about Boxer, adding that he needs to also connect with Vitter and see where he and Rahall “can see eye to eye.”
A host of less obvious issues, including the future of a competitive transportation grant program despised by the House and funding for port infrastructure, also seem likely to bubble up.
But if there’s any lesson to learn from previous sessions, it’s the falsehood of predictions and the inevitability of surprise.
Politico Pro: Road to highway bill runs through bipartisanship
By Kathryn A. Wolfe
12/17/12
Bipartisanship was the grease in the last transportation bill’s gears, and it’ll likely have to be so again if lawmakers want to get the next one over the finish line. And the race has already begun.
Earlier this year, both parties came together and enacted a two-year, $109 billion transportation bill — ugly though it was — in what eventually was a bipartisan show of force. And though it was signed into law amid sighs of relief, most viewed the end result as barely good enough, an effort tied together with string and baling wire.
“Let’s remember that nobody was happy at the end result,” said one highway lobbyist. “Tell me a stakeholder out there that identified pension stabilization as their way to pay for the next transportation bill.”
In any case, as the gears begin to turn on the next session, a postmortem on the last transportation bill may serve as an object lesson for those who have to do it all over again over the next two years.
Lawmakers managed to put a bandage over flagging revenues into the Highway Trust Fund by scraping together a handful of mostly unrelated revenue offsets that won grudging approval. But once the bill expires, the same problems will be back, and likely worse.
Virtually everyone agrees what’s needed as lawmakers draft another bill against an October 2014 deadline is another bipartisan effort. But with the country’s finances still as touchy a subject as ever, the road to bipartisanship may first have to be paved with a deal on financing.
The upshot: The Senate worked on and passed a pared-down bill that had significant bipartisan support from start to finish. The House, in contrast, swung for the fences with a longer, more ambitious bill — but it was also fatally flawed, loaded up with poison pills that enraged Democrats, and which even some Republicans couldn’t support.
Those included an attempt to oust transit funding from its beachhead in the Highway Trust Fund, opening more offshore areas to oil and gas drilling, and language related to approving the Keystone XL pipeline, among others.
The House bill eventually died under the weight of the criticism heaped upon it, failing to win passage even in the House, where Republicans call all the shots on the floor. The default position then became the Senate’s bill, which was drafted from the start with intense bipartisan input and which, in uncharacteristic fashion, was voted out of the chamber while the House was still squabbling.
“The bill to be successful is going to have to be bipartisan; I think we saw that in MAP-21,” said one transportation source close to discussions.
“I think the reason we were able to perform a small miracle was because it was bipartisan and it was able to be clearly supported by a very strong conservative like Mr. [Jim] Inhofe and by a very strong liberal like Barbara Boxer. I believe to go forward we’ve got to have that. I don’t think a partisan bill is going anywhere. I think we’ve pretty well proven that.”
It’s a sentiment widely echoed on the Hill, even among some Republicans. One House Republican, who asked not to be named, called the House’s effort “a disaster ... where everything was last minute.” But he said lawmakers had learned a lesson.
“Given the election, I think people are frustrated with that. I still feel like that’s one of those areas where it can bring us together. I think it can be a bipartisan thing, a bicameral thing, a commitment to our infrastructure,” the lawmaker said.
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who served as a sort of mentor and liaison to young conservatives who might not be sold on infrastructure spending, said he believes the atmosphere for bipartisanship as part of a transportation bill will improve.
“The lessons learned are that I did a poor job of explaining to people why the conservative position was to have a transportation reauthorization bill as opposed to extensions,” Inhofe said. “So I plan to make sure that people understand that if we go beyond this 27-month [deadline] and we start going into extensions again, how much of the taxes raised at the pump are going to be thrown away? And I’ve been using the term of about 30 percent.”
But even if the policy portions of the bill are able to be crafted on a bipartisan basis from the beginning, no amount of agreement between the parties changes the fact that lawmakers also will need to find a solution to the financing puzzle.
At present, most federal surface transportation funding is financed through excise taxes, including an 18.4 cent-per-gallon tax on gasoline. The gasoline tax has not been raised since 1993, and the spending power of those receipts has declined. In 2012 dollars, it would take 29 cents to equal the buying power 18.4 cents had in 1993 -- nearly a 38 percent decline, according to the Department of Labor’s inflation calculator.
Another underlying complication for the revenue equation is the fact that people are driving less, and also driving more fuel-efficient cars, all of which contributes to flagging gas tax receipts. In 2005, for the first time since the 1980s, the amount of vehicle miles traveled per capita began to decline, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. In 2005, VMT per capita was 10,109. In 2010, the per capita VMT rate had dropped to 9,590.
“The recent drop in total VMT leaves federal and state governments shortchanged for current projects and potentially bankrupt for future ones. This situation will only get worse as these trends continue and as the demand for transportation dollars continues to rise,” reads a 2008 Brookings Institution report on driving habits.
Disagreement over how to deal with flagging gas tax receipts is what precipitated most of the angst over the transportation bill enacted earlier this year and remains the biggest hurdle to jump as lawmakers put their heads together on the next bill.
“It all turns on solving the revenue problem,” said one expert who’s been involved in the past few decades of transportation bills.
He said he hopes as part of the grand bargain that "somebody decides it is important to fix infrastructure and we do something about it, and then we can have a bipartisan bill to do it.”
So far, incoming Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) is open to looking at every option as he begins drafting the next transportation bill. But it’s still very early in the game.
“The number one challenge is: How do we pay for it? And I think the most important thing we do is we look at all the options that are out there,” Shuster said at a pen-and-pad with reporters shortly after he was installed as the next chairman. “We’ve got to figure out a way to finance the system and it needs to be done in a fiscally sound way, not borrowing a bunch of money and spending money we don’t have.”
Adam Snider and Burgess Everett contributed to this story.
Politico: Morning Transportation
By Burgess Everett and Adam Snider, Featuring Jessica Meyers and Kathryn A. Wolfe
12/18/12
LATE BREAKING — NAS to study backscatter machines for TSA: Susan Collins’s office broke the news last night that the TSA has contracted out a study into the health impacts of backscatter machines’ radiation. A contracting notice posted by the GSA says the National Academy of Sciences will issue a report on “whether exposures comply with applicable health and safety standards” and whether TSA’s screening process is “appropriate to prevent overexposures of travelers and operators to ionizing radiation.” Collins has written a bill to require an independent study into the machines said the TSA “has heeded my call to commission an independent examination into the possible health risks travelers and TSA employees may face during airport screenings.” Burgess’s story: http://politico.pro/U8SFwt
TSA responds: "Administrator [John] Pistole has made a commitment to conduct the study and TSA is following through on that commitment." TSA has dismissed the amount of radiation emitted as “negligible” and points to numerous studies on its website finding that the backscatter machines are safe. http://1.usa.gov/U5wUMU
THE YEAR AHEAD — TRANSPORT IN 2013: Our fine transportation team has some great stories looking ahead at our favorite topic in the next year. They’re all in a nice special section in today’s POLITICO paper, but MT has the highlights for you.
Busy agenda: There’s a lot on the congressional plate for next year, including a WRDA bill and an Amtrak bill that gives Republicans another chance to push for privatization of the national passenger railroad. Behind the scenes, staffers and members will be building the foundation of the next surface transport bill (due in 2014) with hearings and stakeholder meetings. Jessica and Burgess have more on the busy legislative year ahead: http://politico.pro/UMNDDb
Shuster at T&I: With a busy 2013 fast approaching, there’s a lot of scrutiny of those holding the transportation reins of power in Washington. Incoming House T&I Chairman Bill Shuster is already separating himself from his predecessor, John Mica, but he has a tough task: Conservatives want a check on government spending — a far cry from the grand re-envisioning of transportation policy and funding sources many are clamoring for. And while he likely won’t hold the flashy Amtrak and TSA hearings that Mica did, Shuster will be fiery on one front — the White House — which Shuster said hasn’t “taken the lead on much of anything around here in this town.” Burgess has much more: http://politico.pro/SH63Jg
Past is prologue: It’s an oft-used cliché, but proves very true on Capitol Hill: Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Looking back at MAP-21 can give lawmakers some useful guidance as they work to write successor legislation. Just like last time, funding will be the big issue. “Let’s remember that nobody was happy at the end result,” one highway lobbyist said. “Tell me a stakeholder out there that identified pension stabilization as their way to pay for the next transportation bill.” Kathryn takes it away with a Team MT assist: http://politico.pro/Wldd3q
QUESTION POSED — Gas tax and funding questions: AASHTO’s Jack Basso says “it’s close to a long shot whether they’ll increase the gas tax as a revenue solution. The whole gas tax issue has been so politically volatile.” “I don’t know that a gas tax increase would happen,” says Rep. Peter DeFazio. Jack Schenendorf of Covington Burling (and formerly T&I): “I think the chances of a long-term financing fix are good within the next Congress.” ARTBA CEO Pete Ruane put it this way: “There isn’t anyone in Washington who could answer it with any certainty. If there was, I’d ask them to pick my numbers for the next big Powerball jackpot.”
SANDY IN THE SENATE: It was a busy day for the $60 billion Sandy aid package in the upper chamber — senators formally started debate on the bill and a pair of influential conservative organizations urged members to vote “no.” Both Club for Growth and Heritage Action for America frowned on the bill and its $12 billion for transportation repairs and future storm mitigation efforts. Chuck Schumer took to the floor to rebut their arguments and said “there is no stimulus-type money here. There is mitigation … if, God forbid, another floor comes, the station won’t be flooded and we won’t have to spend the money all over again,” Schumer said on the floor, a photo of a flooded Subway station at his left. Schumer got back-up a few minutes later from the White House, which released a statement in support of the legislation. Citing previous disaster responses, the White House “supports the decision to not offset these funds,” as did Schumer. Also on Monday, the New York MTA released a document that described how their nearly $5 billion share of the bill might be spent: http://bit.ly/TWxfiA
‘Questionable’: GOP Sens. John McCain and Tom Coburn aren’t too happy with the Sandy package, saying in a Monday statement that the duo “identified many issues that need to be addressed in this legislation.” Included in that list: “$336 million for taxpayer-supported AMTRAK without any detailed plan for how the money will be spent.” The bill text says the money is to be used for “costs and losses incurred as a result of Hurricane Sandy and to advance capital projects that address Northeast Corridor infrastructure recovery, mitigation and resiliency in the affected areas.”
IN REMEMBRANCE: Appropriations Chairman and second-longest serving senator of all time Daniel Inouye died on Monday. The Senate canceled a roll call vote after the news and it was a somber day in the upper chamber, where MT watched senators learn the news from reporters. Kate Nocera has the obit: http://politi.co/T3feR6. And David Rogers got Bob Dole on the horn for his remembrance: http://politi.co/R2KdhC
Who takes Approps? The job is Patrick Leahy’s to turn down. If he were to do so and prefer to remain Judiciary chairman, the job would probably fall to Tom Harkin. WSJ: http://on.wsj.com/XBHeLb
A LONG RIDE: There’s a lot to sort through in the newly released 2007-2011 American Community Survey (readers, please do pass along any fun nuggets) but the number that gave us pause was 47.8. That’s the mean travel time to work for public transportation riders. Solo drivers are looking at 24 minutes and carpoolers just a few minutes more. The mean commute is about 25 minutes — but you all already know that number is generally higher in big cities. Example: Mean travel time to work is 42 minutes for D.C. and 24 minutes for Delaware. http://1.usa.gov/hQObm6
Inching: The Examiner has more on our region’s numbers, where the District transit usage rate is up to 37.5 percent, compared to 42 percent who drive. http://bit.ly/R2h71W
THE DAY AHEAD: 2 p.m. — Urban Land Institute webinar titled “Shifting Suburbs: Reinventing Infrastructure for Compact Development.” Register: http://bit.ly/U7HsvS
GROW OR DIE: Days after withstanding his final grilling by T&I chief John Mica, Amtrak CEO Joe Boardman took to Bloomberg over the weekend to talk about getting Amtrak out of “survival mode.” Part of that is changing the nomenclature, he said. “We can make this company pay for its operating costs in so many ways, but we’re not going to make this company be able to pay for the tunnels, the bridges, the infrastructure,” he said. “Investment in infrastructure is not a subsidy.” It’s a tough argument to win in Congress, but Boardman said the time to make it is now. “We either grow or we die,” he said of Amtrak. “And it’s time we grow.” http://bloom.bg/Utatzs
CTO: David Nichols, who started with Amtrak in 1979, will be the passenger railroad's new chief transportation officer, the railroad announced yesterday.
STATES NEWS:
Transportation Nation: Orlando MagLev Plan Gets Tentative Approval
http://transportationnation.org/2012/12/17/orlando-maglev-plan-gets-tentative-approval/
A private company aiming to build a 40-mile long, $800 million dollar magnetic levitation rail line through Orlando has the green light to move forward with its plan.
Los Angeles Times: Light rail plan for Los Angeles International Airport advances
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-light-rail-20121218,0,7377861.story
Plans to build a light rail connection to Los Angeles International Airport advanced Monday with the unveiling of four potential station sites that would link to a people mover serving passenger terminals.
CBS8.com: City Council creates standing committee to address infrastructure needs
SAN DIEGO (CNS) - The San Diego City Council voted unanimously Monday to create a committee to deal with a backlog of infrastructure improvements, including streets that need to be repaved and flood channels that need to be cleared.
The Examiner: Gov. Bob McDonnell proposes adding $211m to Virginia budget
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell on Monday proposed adding a net $211 million in new spending to the state's budget even as the state is coping with economic uncertainty created by looming federal tax increases and spending cuts.
Washington Post: Kirby: Big new transportation investment is not most important thing in eastern part of region
Ronald Kirby, Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, says we need to persuade the market to take advantage of opportunities in the eastern part of the region.