NATIONAL NEWS
Bloomberg: Senate Committee Said to Agree on Highway Trust Funding
Lawmakers on a Senate committee reached a compromise over providing a short-term infusion of cash for the U.S. Highway Trust Fund, according to two Senate aides.
Bloomberg Businessweek: House’s $10 Billion Highway-Fund Boost Shows Split Congress
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-07-08/republicans-propose-10-billion-highway-fund-boost
House Republican leaders are pressing ahead with a $10 billion infusion to the U.S. Highway Trust Fund, highlighting divisions in Congress over how to replenish the main source of federal money for state road, bridge and mass-transit projects.
Roll Call: GOP Plan to Save Highway Trust Fund May Win By Default
http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/highway-trust-fund-gop-plan-default/?dcz=
The House Republican plan to prevent, through the middle of next year, the looming insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund is drawing grumbles from both the left and the right, but there is increasing recognition that Congress has little choice but to enact it, or something like it.
The Oregonian: David Sarasohn: Earl Blumenauer's road-funding plan
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/07/david_sarasohn_earl_blumenauer.html
Earl Blumenauer has a major reason why he thinks his plan to avoid a transportation funding collapse could work.
City Lab: Transportation Projects Don't Need to Take as Long as They Do
Why are new car models released every calendar year? How come there's a new iPhone every 6 to 12 months? And, why do those apps on your phone download updates every few days? These consumer products are the outcomes of a design and production process that values prototyping, rapid iteration, and a learn-from-mistakes approach to production that minimizes the costs of design while increasing the end value to users. These concepts represent what has come to be known as "lean production," or simply "lean."
STATE NEWS
The Hill: Biden doubles down on LaGuardia criticism
http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/211748-biden-doubles-down-on-laguardia-criticism
Vice President Biden doubled down on his criticism of New York's LaGuardia Airport on Wednesday during a pitch for Congress to approve a new round of transportation funding.
Wall Street Journal: City Bike-Sharing Programs Hit Speed Bumps
http://online.wsj.com/articles/city-bike-sharing-programs-hit-speed-bumps-1404959467
At offices, parks, intersections and a pedestrian bridge across the Tennessee River, people here can rent bicycles from solar-powered stations to zip around, using extra-low gears on steep streets.
The Atlantic: The California High-Speed Rail Debate—Kicking Things Off
A little more than a year ago, when I did an article on the successful second-act governorship of Jerry Brown, I said that among his major ambitions for the state was to create a north-south High-Speed Rail project, or HSR.
WBUR: Why Massachusetts’ Outdated Zoning Act Has To Go
http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2014/07/09/community-development-joseph-a-curtatone-andre-leroux
Our cities and towns deserve a modern set of tools to plan ahead for growth. We must be able to ensure that development takes place wisely, spares tax dollars from waste and protects our environment. Development proposals should be based upon community values and local planning priorities. But in too many communities, smart, community-minded development proposals are subject to legal wrangling and costly delays. Meanwhile, lower-quality proposals speed through, abetted by outdated regulations.
Miami Today: Suburban sprawl also hits waistlines, UM research finds
http://www.miamitodaynews.com/2014/07/09/suburban-sprawl-also-hits-waistlines-um-research-finds/
In Miami-Dade County, the farther away from the central business district you live, the less likely you are to walk.
Governing: Why Would You Have a Highway Run Through a City?
http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/gov-highway-through-city.html
Robert Doucette, a developer in Syracuse, N.Y., often commutes to work by walking or biking from his house near Syracuse University to his office downtown. The route is little more than a mile long, but it requires crossing one major obstacle: a hulking highway viaduct that cuts a large swath through the center of the city.
POLITICO MORNING TRANSPORTATION
By Adam Snider | 7/10/14 5:51 AM EDT
With help from Scott Wong and Kevin Robillard
THE GREAT HIGHWAY TRUST FUND RACE: For several weeks, the Senate looked primed to act first on the looming Highway Trust Fund shortfall — but now the House is set to take the lead. Today the Ways and Means Committee marks up a bill offering nearly $11 billion through pension smoothing, customs fees and a LUST fund transfer. It will be on the floor next week, Speaker John Boehner said yesterday at a presser where he called the measure “a truly solid bill” (http://politi.co/1nf6vM3).
Senate Finance ranking member Orrin Hatch, who had been in touch with Camp, said he wasn’t given a warning on the lower chamber’s course of action. “I was surprised he came out with his plan,” Hatch said. “We had chatted but he didn’t tell me what he was going to do.” The Utah Republican is now left hanging in between Camp and Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, who continues to work toward a bipartisan consensus and could convene the panel today — or could postpone it if an agreement seems close but not at hand. “I have no idea,” Hatch said of Wyden. “Whatever he does, I’ll try to support it if I can.” Kevin has the latest: http://politico.pro/VMh9zj
Text time: Read the substitute amendment for the House bill (http://1.usa.gov/1pZFYWd) and the “green sheet” for the Joint Committee on Taxation’s description of the substitute (http://1.usa.gov/1w1xJpR).
Long-term bill on the ropes? The element of Camp’s bill that got the most pushback from the Senate and those looking for a lame-duck reauthorization was the extension into next May, which they said would remove any incentive to get it done this year. But the plan for lame duck action banks on Transportation Chairman Bill Shuster having a long-term bill ready — and that’s up in the air. “We don’t know at this point,” Shuster told Bloomberg while noting that the stopgap needs to be dealt with before he can chart a path forward. “We want to make sure we get through this first and then decide in coming weeks.” http://bloom.bg/1oDoo4Y
Tracking the states: ARTBA is tracking comments from state DOTs about what they plan to do about the funding shortfall. It includes statements from 31 states, and is updated every morning: http://slidesha.re/1r9fZZA
HARSH REACTIONS TO HOUSE PLAN ON THE HILL — Senate EPW Chair Barbara Boxer: The California Democrat called the House plan “ill-conceived” in a statement, and in a press conference said that pushing a long-term bill into 2015 would backfire because “the politics is all over this baby.” “The more I think about their plan, which would take us to May, now we’re already talking about the next election — it’s called the presidential election,” Boxer said, adding that the presidential candidates will get asked “Well, what kind of funding do you want?”
Sen. Bob Corker, supporter of a gas tax hike: “I'm going to go back and I'll say to my Republican friends, we lambasted the president over his healthcare bill for taking six years’ worth of costs and spreading it over 10 years,” Corker told reporters. “We called that generational theft. This is six months’ worth of spending spread out over 10 years. It's even worse. It's orders of magnitude worse and it's all out of political cowardice. People want to be reelected and we're willing to throw future generations under the bus.”
House T&I highways and transit panel Chairman Tom Petri: “Traditionally, our highway program has been funded by user fees, but the gas tax has not been increased since 1993, and we have had to rely on general fund transfers for many years now. … At some point we need to tackle the issue head-on and get back to the goal of finding a long-term, self-sustaining financing plan for our nation’s infrastructure.”
HEY HEY, THURSDAY. IT’S JULY 10. Thanks for reading POLITICO’s Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on trains, planes, automobiles and ports, where it’s been 52 years since Nils Bohlin, who had been hired by Volvo four years prior, won a U.S. patent for the three-point safety belt in everyday cars (it had previous been used mostly in racing cars). Please drop me a line: asnider@politico.com. There’s more on Twitter: @AdamKSnider and @POLITICOPro.
“I got a song stuck in my head walking down street No. 9…” http://bit.ly/1n8XPXn
‘RAISE THE DAMN TAX’: The White House Business Council held a talk with around 75 government and business leaders on transportation funding yesterday, including an appearance from Vice President Joe Biden. One unidentified participant voiced what many in the transportation community wish they could tell the administration: “Raise the damn tax, let's get on with it,” the official said, according to a pool report of the meeting. National Economic Council senior advisor Greg Nelson replied that “over the course of the next month we will likely to see a bit of a bubble to have this conversation because of the inevitability of the Highway Trust Fund running low.” Pro’s Amy Sisk has more on the administration’s push to get the business community involved: http://politico.pro/1sz0iLa
IN TODAY’S PAPER: Kevin reports on the Highway Trust Fund political jockeying in today’s POLITICO paper: “Hoping to ramp up pressure to get a deal, Democrats are making direct comparisons between the trust fund’s problems and the government shutdown, arguing Republican extremism would deal another unnecessary blow to the economy and damage the GOP’s political fortunes ahead of the midterm elections. Conservative groups, led by Heritage Action for America, laugh off such comparisons and predict any highway spending slowdown would be much ado about nothing. Congressional Republicans buy neither argument, seeing economic problems but not political doom in the future.” http://politico.pro/1rTZL9e
ROUGH RURAL ROADS: Today TRIP rolls out a new report on rural roads, finding that crashes and deaths on rural roads are nearly three times higher than other streets. “Rural traffic fatality rates remain stubbornly high, despite a substantial decrease in the number of overall fatalities,” TRIP says in a release on the report today. The study, “Rural Connections: Challenges and Opportunities in America’s Heartland,” will get social media and other support from AEM, AAA and the Farm Bureau, including a #RuralRoads push on Twitter.
FLIRRTING WITH DISASTER: Kathryn A. Wolfe reports on the outcome of the meeting between MTA head Thomas Prendergast and the New York congressional delegation: “With the threat of a union strike on the Long Island Rail Road looming in less than two weeks, the New York House delegation delivered a message to negotiators: Don’t expect Congress to step in. Negotiations between New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and LIRR’s unions have dragged on since 2010, but the ‘cooling off’ period negotiations are currently operating under will expire on July 20, the earliest date the union could strike.” http://politico.pro/1lUylIl
Let’s get on with it: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the verdict from the Hill should help move things along: “The outcome of this meeting was clear: the New York delegation strongly believes that the MTA and labor must return to the bargaining table to resolve the present impasse,” he said. “With no realistic prospect for congressional action, both parties must work around the clock to secure a final deal that can avoid a strike. Mr. Prendergast says the parties are close to a deal. I hope that’s true, because the clock is ticking.” And if a strike does happen, the MTA wants Long Islanders to work from home when possible. Capital Pro: http://bit.ly/1qW93Bs
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER LETTER: Law enforcement groups continue to weigh in on both sides of the debate over trucker rest rules. The latest is the National Sheriffs’ Association, which wrote Senate appropriators to “express our concerns” over language that would suspend two key parts of the 34-hour restart rule that governs when a driver can reset the weekly work limits. A number of police groups have spoken up in recent weeks, with the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the National Trooper Coalition opposed to changing the current rules and the National Fraternal Order of Police supportive of the language from Sen. Susan Collins. See the NSA letter: http://politico.pro/1r8Mffc
THE AUTOBAHN (SPEED READ)
- Washington Post transportation reporter (and frequent biker) Ashley Halsey replies to Courtland Milloy’s rant against bikers: “It’s time to tone down the tirades against bicyclists.” http://wapo.st/1r9rNLb
- Former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood tapped to lead search for new Chicago aviation commissioner that will oversee Midway and O’Hare airports. Sun-Times: http://bit.ly/1w1XaaT
- Moody’s says a loan to help pay for the new Tappan Zee Bridge won’t impact New York’s credit rating. Capital Pro: http://bit.ly/1jeeGIF
- DOT reports U.S. airlines had a 76.9 percent on-time arrival rate in May, down from previous figures; 1.9 percent of flights were cancelled, another increase from past levels. http://1.usa.gov/1n7WGe3
- Not surprising: The FAA is investigating videos of fireworks filmed by a drone. National Law Review: http://bit.ly/1lUJiJZ
- A lawsuit filed last week alleges United Airlines bumps passengers’ luggage for cargo shipments. Bloomberg Businessweek: http://buswk.co/1mgTXnc
- Delta points to GAO report on widebody airplane financing to argue for Ex-Im Bank reform. Release: http://bit.ly/1mhacR8
THE COUNTDOWN: There are 22 days until DOT has to cut highway reimbursements to states because Congress hasn’t addressed the Highway Trust Fund. MAP-21 expires and DOT funding runs out in 83 days. FAA policy is up in 448 days. The mid-term elections are in 117 days and the 2016 presidential election is in 852 days.
THE DAY AHEAD: 10 a.m. — House Transportation Committee special P3 panel holds a hearing on “Public Private Partnerships for America's Waterways and Ports.” 2167 Rayburn House Office Building.
10 a.m. — House Energy and Commerce subcommittee markup of H.R.4013, the Low Volume Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Act of 2014 and H.R.4450, the Travel Promotion, Enhancement, and Modernization Act of 2014. 2123 Rayburn House Office Building.
10 a.m. — House Ways and Means Committee marks up legislation including H.R.5021, the Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2014. 1100 Longworth House Office Building.
11:45 a.m. — The Wharton Club of D.C. holds a Green Business Forum on “efficiencies in building, shipping, trucking” plus “renewable jet fuels and smart islands.” 2000 K Street NW.
CABOOSE — 18th and U: We’ll end up hitting every neighborhood of D.C. with old-school transportation pictures before long — today’s comes from U Street near Adams Morgan in around 1922, featuring a pedestrian, a streetcar and some autos. Shorpy: http://bit.ly/1w3B6gd
Stories from POLITICO Pro
House committee poised to strike on HTF patch, with Senate action iffy
Administration rallies businesses as HTF clock ticks
Transportation funding drama kicks into high gear
N.Y. delegation: Congress won’t jump into LIRR dispute
House committee poised to strike on HTF patch, with Senate action iffy back
By Kevin Robillard | 7/9/14 7:10 PM EDT
House Republicans have seized the initiative on patching the Highway Trust Fund, leaving Senate Democrats to appear in disarray Wednesday afternoon.
The situation represents a remarkable reversal from before the Fourth of July recess, when Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) appeared on the verge of striking a bipartisan agreement with ranking member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). Meanwhile, in the lower chamber, a GOP leadership-backed plan to drum up highway and transit revenue by cutting most Saturday mail delivery had died amid heavy opposition throughout the Republican ranks.
But now, the House’s tax-writing committee appears poised to strike this week, followed by anticipated floor action next week, while there are lingering questions about whether the Senate Finance Committee will act at all.
“Anything less than a long-term solution this year is an absolute disaster,” Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said at what she called a “mayday” press conference.
Transportation and business advocates share Boxer’s goal, with many of them hoping a gas tax hike and a six-year surface transportation bill could pass on the backs of departing House lawmakers during the lame-duck session this fall.
But House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) all but blew up that dream on Tuesday when he rolled out a plan to extend the HTF until May 2015 by drawing $11 billion from pension smoothing, the Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund and higher Customs fees. Camp’s committee is set to mark up his proposal Thursday morning.
Earlier in the week, Wyden had said his committee would also mark up a bill on Thursday, but no official announcement had arrived as of Wednesday evening. An aide to a Finance Committee member said the markup was still on, but the time was in flux. In general, Finance sets its markups at 10 a.m.
“There is a still a possibility,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said of a Thursday Finance markup. “I think everybody is talking.”
Hatch, who has met with Wyden each of the past three days, said he wasn’t sure whether he would back whatever plan Wyden develops. He also didn’t endorse Camp’s plan, but he did note Democrats had supported all of its components in the past.
“It’s a tough thing to do, because you have everybody and their dog. … You have a lot of different viewpoints about what needs to be done,” Hatch told reporters. “Dave Camp is doing what he thinks is in the best interest of the House — and the Senate. And Chairman Wyden is trying to do the same.”
Regardless of what happens, Camp’s move to close the door on any type of lame-duck transportation bill throws a wrench in the gears for the long-term action many transportation advocates crave.
Reps. John Mica (R-Fla.) and Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), and prominent outside advocates like former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, had all suggested trying to craft a long-term deal during the lame duck.
Such a deal would have relied on the votes of members like Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wis.), who chairs the House Transportation subcommittee on highways and transit and hinted he could support a gas tax hike in a statement criticizing Camp’s plan. Petri is retiring.
“You have to ask, ‘Which is the more responsible approach: budget gimmicks or raising revenues?’” Petri said, adding: “We certainly need to keep the economy going and transportation moving — and those are bipartisan goals. But we are playing games with the budget by using offsets unrelated to transportation and others that will not be realized until 2024 to fund our current needs. That only kicks the can down the road. At some point, we need to tackle the issue head-on and get back to the goal of finding a long-term, self-sustaining financing plan for our nation’s infrastructure.”
But advocates of a big deal may end up having to take what they can get. Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.), a senior member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said he hadn’t reviewed Camp’s proposal but was willing to consider a package that lasted into 2015.
“I would prefer a shorter rather than a longer fix,” Bishop told POLITICO. “But I’m not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
At the press conference, Boxer said she feared Camp’s plan would bump into the looming presidential campaign, preventing Congress from reaching a lasting solution next year. Boxer’s committee has passed a six-year surface transportation bill that has so far lain fallow amid jockeying over a short-term solution.
“The more I think about their plan, which would take us to May, now we’re already talking about the next election — it’s called the presidential election. And now you’re gonna have the presidential candidates [asked], ‘Well, what kind of funding do you want?’” she said, adding: “And the politics is all over this baby.”
Politics may already be playing a role — if the next opportunity to fix the trust fund comes in 2015, Republicans may have seized control of the Senate. But Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) said he didn’t think that was the case.
“If I were a Republican, I’m not sure I’d want the first thing on my doorstep to be to try to figure out how to fund a $100 billion transportation program,” Carper told reporters. “There are other things I’d probably want to start with.”
Scott Wong contributed to this report.back
Administration rallies businesses as HTF clock ticks back
By Amy R. Sisk | 7/9/14 5:52 PM EDT
With the Highway Trust Fund clock ticking, the Obama administration took the case for action to the business community Wednesday, hoping they will help press Congress for a solution.
As part of the blitz, the White House Business Council convened Wednesday to talk about the state of the fund. At the confab, Vice President Joe Biden stressed to business leaders and government officials the importance of acting before summer’s end. He said not acting would put 700,000 jobs at risk while 112,000 highway and 5,600 transit projects would be delayed.
“We need your help,” he said. “We need you to remind your representatives in both parties that when they fail to invest in infrastructure, we’re putting America behind almost every leading country in the world.”
On the same day the White House was hosting business leaders, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx was also out on the stump. He joined a conference call with business leaders Wednesday afternoon hosted by nonprofit group Business Forward.
Biden also lamented that transportation spending is no longer a bipartisan issue.
“Since when did it become a bad investment?” he asked. “Since when did it become something we view as Big Government? When did that happen?”
Biden’s comments came on the same day House Speaker John Boehner announced that the House plans to take up a bill next week that would patch the HTF through May.
Biden’s remarks were apparently well-taken, as business leaders at the White House meeting also stressed the need for a more lasting fix.
One attendee not identified by pool reports said finding funding was not “rocket science” and required “political will on the parts of both parties.”
“Raise the damn tax, let’s get on with it,” he said.
Greg Nelson, senior adviser for the National Economic Council, said the next month should provide an opportunity to talk about a long-term solution.
“There might be a short-term fix, but that shouldn’t stop us” from talking about the bigger issue, he said.back
Transportation funding drama kicks into high gear back
By Kevin Robillard | 7/9/14 3:45 PM EDT
Transportation projects dodged a bullet during last year’s government shutdown, mostly because of the unique way they’re funded — but this time around, their luck may be about to run out.
Without congressional action, federal reimbursements to states for highway construction and repair projects will slow to a trickle in early August, and the authority to spend and collect the tax money that keeps those projects humming will end in October.
Hoping to ramp up pressure to get a deal, Democrats are making direct comparisons between the trust fund’s problems and the government shutdown, arguing Republican extremism would deal another unnecessary blow to the economy and damage the GOP’s political fortunes ahead of the midterm elections. Conservative groups, led by Heritage Action for America, laugh off such comparisons and predict any highway spending slowdown would be much ado about nothing. Congressional Republicans buy neither argument, seeing economic problems but not political doom in the future.
Meanwhile, tax-writing committees in both chambers continue posturing and negotiating over a potential short-term patch for the Highway Trust Fund, while members and outside groups have begun warning about the economic and political fallout from a shutdown.
Both Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have relentlessly warned about “the transportation equivalent of a government shutdown” in recent weeks. The Obama administration has estimated 700,000 jobs would be put at risk.
“A highway shutdown will have a similar effect on [Republicans] as the government shutdown,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Democrats’ messaging guru, said on a conference call with reporters earlier this week.
Senate Budget Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said the transportation funding crisis amounts to “another shutdown” during a floor speech on Tuesday.
“The last thing, I can tell you, that the American people want to see right now is another countdown clock on the evening news,” she said.
While President Barack Obama hasn’t directly linked highway funding to the government shutdown, he has made the GOP’s decision to ignore his 4-year, $302 billion transportation plan part of his “economic patriotism” message in recent weeks.
“Rather than invest in roads and bridges to create construction jobs and help our businesses succeed, they’ve chosen to preserve and protect tax loopholes for companies that shift their profits overseas that don’t do anybody any good,” Obama said on Wednesday while traveling in Denver.
The economic warnings, if not the political prognosticating, are echoed by business groups ranging from the Association of Equipment Manufacturers to the Chamber of Commerce. Many of these groups support hiking the 18.4 cents per gallon gas tax to pay for a five- or six-year transportation bill.
The American Road and Transportation Builders Association says the federal government pays for 52 percent, on average, of state highway and bridge spending. That group claims the slowdown has already started: Half of all states have awarded fewer road construction contracts this year and 28 have warned they would have to cancel or delay projects if Congress doesn’t find a solution.
But conservative groups, led by Heritage Action for America, have been arguing the slowdown isn’t as dire as warnings suggest. They cite Congressional Budget Office numbers showing the federal share of transportation spending is 25 percent. They also point to Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx’s own estimate that the slowdown would cut federal funding by a 28 percent to argue that a mere seven percent cut would be shrugged off by most of the public.
Heritage’s numbers include projects typically outside the purview of the federal highway program. DOT said federal funds include 44 percent of all capital spending on highways in the country. Foxx’s 28 percent number came from comparing what states requested in August, September and October last year to the estimated amount available to states over the next three months this year.
“If Schumer wants to go around and say ‘Hey, you’re going to see less construction-related traffic on your holiday travels,’ I’m not sure that’s a winning political line for them,” Heritage Action spokesman Dan Holler told POLITICO.
But Heritage stands mostly alone in disputing the severity of the problem, with few congressional Republicans willing to join them in jumping off a transportation cliff.
“This is not a partisan issue. I think it’s bipartisan recognition that we have to do something,” Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) said in an interview. “All of us have key infrastructure issues in our districts that need to be addressed. There may be disagreements on how we pay for it, but I think we all agree we got to get this done.”
Boustany is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which unveiled a plan to use $11 billion worth of pension smoothing and higher customs fees to keep the trust fund solvent through May 2015. The committee is set to mark up the plan Thursday. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden is working on a Democratic proposal that will fund the program through the end of 2014.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the chair of the Senate Republican Conference, noted the economic impact would be worse in northern Plains states like his with abbreviated construction seasons.
“If [DOTs] start getting prorated payments, obviously they’re going to have to dial back the projects that they’re doing, and that’s not good for the economy or for jobs,” Thune said. “That’s problematic.”
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), perhaps the loudest Republican advocate for infrastructure investment in the upper chamber, said conservative groups predicting a minimal impact were “wrong.” But he also didn’t think his party would take the blame for a slowdown.
“They shouldn’t,” he said. “It depends on how biased the media is. How many times has Obama said he wanted to fund road construction, highway construction, infrastructure and then he never does it?”
The 16-day October shutdown sent GOP approval levels plummeting to 28 percent, the lowest Gallup had ever recorded for either major political party. But Thune didn’t think the public would point the finger at his party.
“If it shuts down, it’s not going to be because of Republicans,” he said. “Democrats, most people think, for all intents and purposes, run Washington. … If the House of Representatives passes something that extends the Highway Trust Fund and I think they will, the Republicans will have done their part.”back
N.Y. delegation: Congress won’t jump into LIRR dispute back
By Kathryn A. Wolfe | 7/9/14 2:41 PM EDT
With the threat of a union strike on the Long Island Rail Road looming in less than two weeks, the New York House delegation delivered a message to negotiators: Don’t expect Congress to step in.
Negotiations between New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and LIRR’s unions have dragged on since 2010, but the “cooling off” period negotiations are currently operating under will expire on July 20, the earliest date the union could strike.
Hanging in the balance are LIRR’s 300,000 daily commuters, who could face severe disruptions during peak times that could mean hours-long waits.
The MTA and some state politicians have suggested that the unions on the other side of the bargaining table are relying on a potential Congressional intervention as a bargaining position.
But on Wednesday, the region’s House delegation — including New York Reps. Charlie Rangel (D), Peter King (R), Steve Israel (D), Carolyn Maloney (D), Tim Bishop (D), Grace Meng (D) and Gregory Meeks (D) — were united in saying negotiators need to go back to the table immediately and not to look to Congress for a solution. The lawmakers met for an hour Wednesday on Capitol Hill with MTA head Tom Prendergast.
“Nobody wants a strike, and the point that we made to Chairman Prendergast was the same point that we made to the union, that both sides should be at the table, that neither side should anticipate Congress be involved,” King told reporters Wednesday following the meeting. “This is ultimately a state responsibility. We’re not going to do anything to interfere with the negotiating process whatsoever.”
He also said he‘d made House Speaker John Boehner aware of the situation.
“His advice to me was one sentence: ‘Tell them to be at the table,’” King said.
Israel said there was “a bit of a breakthrough” during Wednesday’s meeting, “because all of us urged MTA to stay at the table.”
Lawmakers are demanding that the unions involved present a counteroffer tomorrow, Israel said, and that MTA “be at that meeting and receive that counteroffer.”
“We are demanding that both the MTA and unions negotiate … 24-7, bring in the cots, get this solved,” Israel said.
Prendergast told reporters that “the parties are close” and that MTA would be at the table. King said the unions had assured him that they would be there as well.
A strike’s impact to commuters and to New York’s economy “is something that we cannot sustain,” Prendergast said. “We need to do everything we can, all parties working together, to resolve this at the collective bargaining table.”
He acknowledged that Congress could act under the authority it has as part of the Railway Labor Act to impose a solution, extend the cooling off period or some other action, but that possibility was remote.
He said his visit to Capitol Hill Wednesday was to “send a very clear message to people that if they think Congress … imposing a solution was something they could pursue, the likelihood of that happening is exceptionally low.”
NATIONAL NEWS
Bloomberg: Senate Committee Said to Agree on Highway Trust Funding
Lawmakers on a Senate committee reached a compromise over providing a short-term infusion of cash for the U.S. Highway Trust Fund, according to two Senate aides.