NATIONAL NEWS
Huffington Post: Your Crumbling Roads And Bridges May Get Even Worse This Year
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/08/highway-trust-fund_n_5567804.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
An upcoming battle over funding for transportation projects could send America's infrastructure over the "highway cliff."
Roll Call: It’s a State-by-State Thing if the Highway Money Stops Flowing
As the summer heat builds in the nation’s capital, so does the pressure from governors, road builders, concrete firms, and others on Congress to find at least a short-term fix for the highway trust fund. But as CQ’s John D. Boyd notes, if there’s no remedy, the potential impact on drivers might depend on which state you live in or drive though.
The Hill: House proposes $10.5B, eight-month highway bill
http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/211625-house-proposes-105b-eight-month-highway-stopgap
The House Ways and Means Committee is proposing a $10.5 billion, eight-month transportation funding bill to push the debate over road and transit spending into the next Congress.
New York Times: Germany Proposes a Road Tax Aimed Primarily at Foreigners
The German government announced plans on Monday to charge a road-use fee on all cars using roads and highways in Germany, a measure aimed at the foreign-registered cars that make an estimated 170 million trips to and through the country each year.
STATE NEWS
Boston Business: Local Urban Planning Expert Pens Book on the Future of Cities
Boston-based urban designer David Dixon has authored a new book on the evolution of urban design, why and how it is reshaping cities today, and what it means for tomorrow’s cities.
Salt Lake City Tribune: A big step for rapid transit in Davis County
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/58158348-90/brt-bus-county-davis.html.csp
Farmington • Davis County officials took a big step Tuesday toward creating a rapid-transit corridor through Bountiful, Woods Cross and North Salt Lake to downtown Salt Lake City.
KARE: Deal struck for Southwest Light Rail project
There was a deal and a delay for the Southwest Corridor Light Rail (SWLRT) project on Tuesday. The $1.68 billion, 16 mile line from Minneapolis to Eden Prairie has been in transit limbo because of objections to part of the route through Minneapolis.
The Plain Dealer: Connections, from bike lanes to pop-up shops, are key in new downtown Cleveland strategic plan
http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2014/07/connections_from_bike_lanes_to.html
Property owners and advocates have been saying it for years: Downtown Cleveland can create successful pockets - the Flats, the Warehouse District, East Fourth Street - but we can't seem to link those lively patches into a cohesive center city stretching from the Innerbelt to the lake.
POLITICO MORNING TRANSPORTATION
By Adam Snider | 7/9/14 5:56 AM EDT
A FORK IN THE ROAD: The House and Senate are taking different approaches on how to pay for a Highway Trust Fund stopgap, raising the specter that legislative gridlock could lead to DOT having to slow down and cut highway reimbursements in just over three weeks. The House Ways and Means Committee meets Thursday to mark up a bill that taps customs fees and pension changes to raise $10 billion — but it also extends policy until next May, removing any incentive that Congress pass a long-term bill in the lame duck. “What troubles me most about a December 31, 2014 date are those using it as a ploy to stick the American people with a massive increase in the gas tax — just about the worst tax increase Congress could hit hardworking Americans with,” Chairman Dave Camp said in a statement. “So, I am seeking the reasonable middle ground of the end of May 2015.” Pro Tax’s Brian Faler has more: http://politico.pro/1lS5qVc
The details: $6.4 billion comes from pension “smoothing” and $3.5 billion is from customs fees, both of which have gotten strong Senate votes in the past, Camp’s office noted in a release. The bill also includes a $1 billion transfer from the LUST Trust Fund to the highway account. For your perusal, here’s the text of Camp’s draft bill (http://1.usa.gov/VW4OZU), the Joint Committee on Taxation description (http://1.usa.gov/TR3cyJ), the JCT budget estimate (http://1.usa.gov/1znyYEq) and the JCT’s chart of general and trust fund effects (http://1.usa.gov/1znyZZ1).
Not sold: AEM official Nick Yaksich said the group is “pleased” by looming action, but with a caveat: “However, we wish to voice our continued dismay toward Congress’s inability to rally around common-sense solutions to sustainably finance the trust fund for the long term.” Heritage Action’s Dan Holler had this to say: “This spend now, pay later bailout is not serious. The Republican-controlled House should not succumb to the Obama administration’s reckless rhetoric.”
Meanwhile, in the upper chamber: Senate Finance leaders are pushing to get a bipartisan deal of their own, and there could be an announcement with more details coming today. Sen. Bob Corker, who wants to a see a gas tax hike, wasn’t too fond of the House’s proposal: “This disgraceful practice of borrowing money to cover a few months of spending and paying for it over a decade is nothing more than generational theft,” he said. “It's shameful for a nation of our greatness to be handling infrastructure funding the way that we are.”
Tick tick tick: There are 23 days left until DOT has to both pro-rate highway reimbursements to states and send them less often.
Food for thought: “A Metropolitan Transportation Policy for National Growth,” by former top DOT official Emil Frankel for the American Action Forum (http://bit.ly/1xOjreY). “Congress Must Deal With the Highway Trust Fund” by longtime T&I staffer and transpo expert Jack Schenendorf on a Covington blog (http://bit.ly/1oFfaqt). And a conservative Star-Ledger columnist rails against tolls in a pieced headlined “Highway robbery: Gas tax alarmists are really just toll advocates” (http://bit.ly/1qHXMD6).
MIDWEEK: WEDNESDAY, JULY 9. Thanks for reading POLITICO’s Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on trains, planes, automobiles and ports, where on this day in 1776 the brand new Declaration of Independence was read aloud to George Washington’s troops in New York. Please drop me a line: asnider@politico.com. There’s more on Twitter: @AdamKSnider and @POLITICOPro.
“I’m gonna ride my bike until I get home…” http://bit.ly/1n4tLr7 (h/t Devon Barnhart)
APTA CELEBRATES TRANSIT ACT ANNIVERSARY: The Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 turns fifty years old today, and APTA is using the occasion to once again call on Congress to address the Highway Trust Fund with a long-term solution. The mass transit act, signed on this day a half-century ago by President Lyndon Johnson, offered grants and created the Urban Mass Transportation Administration — now known as the Federal Transit Administration. “Just like 1964, it’s time for Congress to demonstrate leadership through a significant, sustained investment in public transportation so that future generations of Americans can rely on public transportation to provide mobility, build communities and power economic opportunity,” APTA head Michael Melaniphy says in a statement going out today. See the original bill signed by Johnson courtesy of the National Archives: http://1.usa.gov/1vYcsxl
AS IF CONGRESS DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH TO DO: Ryan Hutchins at our Big Apple sister pub Capital has the story: “With thousands of employees threatening to walk off the job and Governor Andrew Cuomo declining to get involved, M.T.A. chairman and chief executive Thomas Prendergast on Tuesday asked Congress to intervene in the ongoing Long Island Rail Road labor dispute. In a letter to the leadership in both houses, Prendergast says a strike — which could come as early as July 20 — would ‘paralyze the nation’s largest regional economy.’ He will travel to Washington on Wednesday to meet with members of Congress to discuss how they could prevent the eight unions from shutting the railroad down.” There’s more in the story (http://bit.ly/1pY26jQ) or read the letter for yourself (http://politico.pro/1mdwl2w).
HAHN’S FREIGHT FUND BILL: T&I member Janice Hahn will drop her freight bill today, according to her office. It would create a dedicated freight network trust fund that would get 5 percent of CBP import duties — around $1.9 billion a year — and would offer grants for freight improvement projects. It would also call on DOT to update the national freight network every five years.
THE PICKS ARE IN: The Senate Commerce hearing next week on General Motors’ faulty ignition switches and the high-profile recall has formal a witness list, including GM CEO Mary Barra, victims’ fund manager Ken Feinberg and Anton Valukas, who led the automaker’s internal probe of what went wrong. GM general counsel Michael Millikin and Delphi CEO Rodney O’Neal will also testify at the hearing next Thursday. http://1.usa.gov/1mwpuRz
THE KEYSTONE CONNECTION: Talia Buford reports: “The push to make oil train shipments safer could end up setting back efforts to win the Obama administration’s approval for the Keystone XL pipeline. The rail industry says tighter safety rules could choke off their shipments of Canadian oil — a scenario that Keystone opponents say would make TransCanada’s proposed pipeline a crucial artery for the crude, undermining the State Department’s view that the pipeline would cause only modest environmental damage. Most of the crude produced from Alberta’s oil sands is transported by existing pipelines, but the expected growth in output could put up to 800,000 barrels of the thick sludge on the rails in the coming years.” http://politico.pro/1ohxwLb
DELTA & EX-IM REAUTHORIZATION: POLITICO Influence reports that Delta Airlines has hired Capitol Counsel to work on issues including the Export-Import Bank reauthorization that’s drawn so much scrutiny in recent weeks. “Former Eric Cantor aide Kyle Nevins, Senate veteran John O'Neill and former Ron Wyden chief of staff Joshua Kardon are working the account. The company has previously objected to Ex-Im financing for Boeing widebody aircraft and is pushing for reforms in the reauthorization process,” PI reports (http://politi.co/1jm5tOK). Meanwhile, a Standard & Poor’s report shows that Boeing would lose sales to Airbus and face long-term credit problems if the bank’s charter lapses (http://bit.ly/1k2K73C).
PICTURE PERFECT: The NTSB will hold a course this fall on how to photograph accident sites. “Students will have the opportunity to practice the skills they learn through a hands-on wreckage documentation exercise,” the NTSB said in announcing the new class at its center in Ashburn, Va. More: http://1.usa.gov/1nbnTRB
FLYING HIGH: The FAA has proposed a fine of nearly $300,000 for SkyWest Airlines for violating drug and alcohol testing rules. The agency said the airline didn’t include over 150 safety-sensitive workers in its random testing program and didn’t receive certified negative tests for two employees in safety positions. “SkyWest is scheduled to have an informal conference with the FAA this month to discuss the matter,” the FAA said. More on the proposed $295,750 fine: http://1.usa.gov/1qSfKVd
THE AUTOBAHN (SPEED READ)
- The NYPD says a drone got within 800 feet of one of its helicopters on Monday; two people have been arrested. TPM: http://bit.ly/1nc62dl
- GBTA quarterly outlook shows business travel predicted to rise 6.8 percent to $292.3 billion this year. http://bit.ly/U1bjZQ
- Ford is recalling over 100,000 vehicles for various problems. The AP: http://abcn.ws/1oz1kEn
- New York still doesn’t have a full slate of members for a special panel looking at the Port Authority. Capital: http://bit.ly/1jcrOxZ
- Uber clamps down on surge pricing during disasters, a tactic that’s drawn criticism before. Forbes: http://onforb.es/VGR0Sv
- The FAA will decide on the legality of plane-sharing apps that let you book tickets on private planes. TechCrunch: http://bit.ly/1jctnfk
THE COUNTDOWN: There are 23 days until DOT has to slow highway reimbursements to states because Congress hasn’t addressed the Highway Trust Fund. MAP-21 expires and DOT funding runs out in 84 days. FAA policy is up in 449 days. The mid-term elections are in 118 days and the 2016 presidential election is in 853 days.
THE DAY AHEAD: 9:30 a.m. — Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board holds a meeting, July 7-9. Access Board Conference Room, 1331 F Street NW, Suite 800.
10 a.m. — The American Soybean Association holds its annual Legislative Issues and Education Forum. Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill, 400 New Jersey Avenue NW.
CABOOSE — Mario Shuster? A funny invite from Holland & Knight shows Senate EPW leaders Barbara Boxer and David Vitter, Finance Chairman Ron Wyden and House T&I’s Bill Shuster and Nick Rahall as Mario Kart characters thanks to some intro-level Photoshopping. If you’re familiar with the game, MT will let you decide if it’s an editorial statement that Shuster is depicted as Mario and Rahall as Wario. See the invite via the Hill: http://bit.ly/1ncErc3
Stories from POLITICO Pro
House sets up highway bill clash with Senate
Tighter oil train rules could hurt Keystone push
House sets up highway bill clash with Senate back
By Brian Faler | 7/8/14 6:24 PM EDT
The House Ways and Means Committee plans to take up legislation Thursday to fill a budget hole in the highway trust fund in a surprise move setting up a clash with Senate Democrats.
Chairman Dave Camp announced Tuesday that his panel will mark up legislation that would raise about $11 billion through a combination of “pension smoothing,” customs fees and by transferring money from a leaking underground storage tank program. It would tide the road maintenance program over until May 2015.
The plan amounts to seizing the initiative from Senate Democrats who had been pushing to mark up their own competing legislation that would keep the program running until the end of this year.
“This is the only package with a proven history of getting big bipartisan votes in both the House and Senate,” Camp said in a statement. “I know these policies are not perfect, but they are viable, have been used by the House and Senate before and should pass both the House and Senate quickly. With these policies, we can steer clear of another crisis showdown, and we should.”
He said a Senate plan to extend the program through the end of this year “will only lead to another backroom deal during the lame-duck session where only a very few members are present or have any say in the matter.”
A spokeswoman for Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wyden had been pushing to cover the budget gap through a combination of tax compliance measures and by clamping down on so-called stretch IRAs, though he had been struggling to win Republican support. Experts warn that Congress must act by its August recess to avoid crimping highway construction projects across the country, which could be a significant hit to the economy.
The pension smoothing provisions represent a lowest-common-denominator solution lawmakers have turned to before to cover highway funding shortfalls, but is one that Wyden, the top Finance Republican Orrin Hatch and others have repeatedly said they do not want to tap again. Critics complain it could lead to companies underfunding their pensions, increasing the risk the government will eventually have to bail them out.
Lawmakers have considered and rejected an array of other ideas over the past two months, from giving multinationals a tax break on overseas profits to increasing the gas tax. The pension provisions, projected to raise about $6.4 billion, have the political advantage of companies wanting them.
“Pension stabilization is important to a number of companies and should be considered regardless of whether it’s a revenue raiser or a revenue loser — it’s the right policy,” said American Benefits Council President James Klein.
Despite earlier qualms, Hatch said on Tuesday he could support the proposal “if that’s what it takes.”
They raise money because companies get a tax break for socking away money for their employees’ retirement. So if they make fewer contributions, their taxable incomes go up, which increases tax receipts. Camp’s plan would raise another $3.5 billion by extending customs fees. About $1 billion would come from transferring money from the Leaking Underground Storage Tanks Account, which Camp noted was included in the last highway funding bill.
The Camp plan could make it harder to extend unemployment benefits, because some lawmakers were hoping to use pension smoothing to defray those costs.back
Tighter oil train rules could hurt Keystone push back
By Talia Buford | 7/8/14 4:29 PM EDT
The push to make oil train shipments safer could end up setting back efforts to win the Obama administration’s approval for the Keystone XL pipeline.
The rail industry says tighter safety rules could choke off their shipments of Canadian oil — a scenario that Keystone opponents say would make TransCanada’s proposed pipeline a crucial artery for the crude, undermining the State Department’s view that the pipeline would cause only modest environmental damage.
Most of the crude produced from Alberta’s oil sands is transported by existing pipelines, but the expected growth in output could put up to 800,000 barrels of the thick sludge on the rails in the coming years.
Following several accidents involving trains carrying crude oil — mostly from the Bakken field in North Dakota — Washington is considering new rules that would lower speed limits and impose stricter safety protocols on the industry.
Railroad companies, however, are displeased and have warned that increased regulations would hogtie the industry, cut train capacity and make it harder for railroads to move people — as well as oil and other products — along the nation’s railways.
In its final environmental impact statement on the Alberta-to-Texas pipeline released in January, the State Department said that rail was a viable alternative to Keystone, writing that “while short-term physical transportation constraints introduce uncertainty to industry outlooks over the next decade, new data and analysis … indicate that rail will likely be able to accommodate new production if new pipelines are delayed or not constructed.”
But green groups and pipeline opponents contend if rail can’t handle the rising oil shipments, the oil sands’ development will depend on the Keystone pipeline, making the project’s environmental impact substantial, particularly from the release of huge amounts of carbon dioxide.
“It’s an Achilles' heel in the analysis,” said Jamie Henn of 350.org. “It’s another reminder that this pipeline isn’t inevitable and [it is] really key for the industry plans to expand.”
When he unveiled his climate plan last year, President Barack Obama said he would support the Keystone pipeline only if it didn’t significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions.
Mistakes in the Keystone assessment have already forced the State Department to revise higher the expected number of deaths to 28 from six that would occur from rail accidents if the pipeline wasn’t built.
Those revisions — and the potential impact of the railroad safeguards — should warrant another look at State’s analysis, Henn said.
“We should play closer attention to the outside analysis by economists and others,” he said. “State needs to go back and look at these numbers again.”
Last month, BNSF argued that lowering the trains’ speed limit would cause “severe” impacts to both oil and grain shipments, including a six-hour delay for freight trains. And it would require the company to add 11,280 tank cars to its crude oil tank fleet in order to keep up with demand.
“The fact is the administration is faced with a choice between the profitability of the entire energy sector — including the tar sands and the Bakken — and guaranteeing that the communities through which these trains pass through are safe,” said Lorne Stockman of the anti-fossil fuel group Oil Change International.
“If they were to implement what will really make it safe, the industry will not be comfortable. If you have the regulations to ensure public safety, crude oil by train won’t be viable. These regulations, if they were to be implemented, would cost the industry and they’ll fight them tooth and nail,” Stockman added.
Experts at ClearView Energy Partners said it was too soon to know if State’s analysis should be revised, since the effect of any new safety rules on rail shipments was not certain.
“No one has proposed that rail movement could go to zero,” said Christine Tezak, ClearView’s managing director. “To get to a point where State would have to ‘revisit it’s assumption’ we would have to assume that rail (capacity) goes to zero, that Canada will never use another pipeline.”
“We just have to take a breath and put into context what’s going on,” she added. “It could be a reduction, but is it so catastrophic that it changes the basis of the study?”
Because of the long delays for the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, TransCanada CEO Russ Girling said he was considering building rail capacity from Alberta to meet customers’ demand for the oil, although the company was still planning to proceed with the pipeline.
“The pipeline will get built,” Girling said in a May interview with POLITICO, but he added that “the second we get a permit to get the pipeline, [customers] will abandon the rail situation.”
Pipeline opponent Jane Kleeb of Bold Nebraska said shipping oil by rail was an empty threat.
“When TransCanada lifts up rail as this threat, that if it doesn’t go by pipeline, it’s gonna go by rail, honestly, it’s a lie,” Kleeb said. “They don’t have the capacity. It’s not going to be economically feasible.”
The State Department analysis found that as of 2013, about 700,000 barrels per day of oil was being shipped from North Dakota’s Bakken field and it calculated there was a capacity to load over 900,000 bpd.
But the crude from the oil sands is different from the light crude from the Bakken field. Special equipment — insulated storage tanks, heating equipment and heating pipelines — is required to load oil-sands bitumen onto rail cars. And 40 million barrels of crude oil traveled by train from Canada to the U.S. in 2013, up from 1.6 million barrels in 2011, according to the Congressional Research Service.
“If America puts these safeguards in place — which, I would argue and lots of families that live near these railroads would argue is important, especially at these speeds as they’re coming through towns — it’s going to make it more economically unfeasible for TransCanada to transport tar sands through rail,” Kleeb said.
TransCanada has not made a decision on whether to ship the fuel by rail, but Girling said he expected more “clarity” on the company’s path forward by mid-July. Reached recently, a spokesman for TransCanada reiterated the company’s support of the pipeline, even amid the rail concerns.
“Our first priority has always been to build an oil pipeline to move product for our customers to U.S. refineries,” said Shawn Howard, a TransCanada spokesman. “The need for Keystone XL hasn’t changed, despite delays in the regulatory process.”
The delay, Henn of 350.org said, works in the favor of opponents.
“That’s part of the strategy: slow this thing down until the world comes to its senses. If we can keep slowing down pipelines and holding them back long enough for us to get a price on carbon or other regulation, we will have done our jobs. We know we can’t stall climate change one pipeline at a time, but keeping them on the defensive gives the public long enough to come to its senses and make the right call.”back
NATIONAL NEWS
Huffington Post: Your Crumbling Roads And Bridges May Get Even Worse This Year
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/08/highway-trust-fund_n_5567804.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
An upcoming battle over funding for transportation projects could send America's infrastructure over the "highway cliff."