Infrastructure in the News: April 22, 2015
BAF IN THE NEWS
National Journal: Why Is Rand Paul Working With Barbara Boxer on a Hated Transportation Policy?
"If one candidate brings this up at debates or in speeches, the others have to respond and lay out some sort of proposal," said Marcia Hale, president of Building America's Future. "We want to get people on record with creative ideas. This is a hard subject, but with this diverse group and all the states they're running from, they know it's a problem we have to address."
TechWire: Bloomberg’s ‘What Works Cities’ Initiative Targets 100 Mid-Sized Metros
https://www.techwire.net/bloombergs-what-works-cities-initiative-targets-100-mid-sized-metros/
Cities want to do new and exciting things with their data, and now they’re getting some extra help to do just that.
NATIONAL NEWS
Washington Post: The rise of singles will change how we live in cities
Over the last half-century in America, it's become acceptable, then increasingly common, then entirely unremarkable, to live alone. Women who once lived with their families until their wedding day now live alone. Men delaying marriage later into their 20s live alone. Divorcés, more common today than in 1950, live alone. And seniors who live longer now than ever before — and who are less likely to spend those years in a retirement home — increasingly live alone, too.
City Lab: 8 Critical Rail Projects That Amtrak Can't Afford
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/04/8-critical-rail-projects-that-amtrak-cant-afford/391038/
There's a new report out from the Northeast Corridor advisory commission, established by Congress to help improve the most critical stretch of rail in the United States, and it isn't pretty. The commission—made up of officials from states, the U.S. DOT, Amtrak, and commuter rail agencies—has outlined a "first-of-its-kind" coordinated 5-year plan for major projects between Washington and Boston via New York. It's effectively a construction wish list for 2016-2020:
STATE NEWS
Minn Post: Why streetcars are losing their appeal as a mass transit option
There seems to be a requirement somewhere in the catechism of America’s streetcar advocates: that once a day they must genuflect in the direction of Portland, Oregon.
Washington Post: Larry Hogan’s transportation crucible (Editorial)
FOR MARYLAND Gov. Larry Hogan (R), decision time is approaching for the proposed Purple Line transit project, an east-west light rail link that would run inside the Beltway north of the District. The governor’s verdict, expected next month, will signal whether he attaches more importance to reviving the state’s struggling economy — as he pledged to do as a candidate — or appeasing his mainly rural and exurban political base, for whom transit is no priority.
Denver Business Journal: EXCLUSIVE: Bill to raise $3.5 billion for highways coming to Colorado Legislature
Business leaders and legislators are working on a plan to renew the state's transportation bonds first sold in 1999 and generate $3.5 billion to be spent on expanding Colorado highways over the next 20 years.
Dallas Morning News: Dallas Morning News poll finds strong opposition to Trinity toll road
Dallas residents who have made up their minds about whether the city should continue trying to build Trinity Parkway overwhelmingly oppose the project, according to a poll conducted by The Dallas Morning News.
POLITICO MORNING TRANSPORTATION
By Jennifer Scholtes | 4/22/15 5:42 AM EDT
FOXX DELIVERS FUNDING PITCH AHEAD OF APPROPRIATIONS SEASON: During Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx’s exchange with Senate appropriators this morning, the DOT head is expected to rehash the Obama administration’s dreams for fiscal 2016 funding, laying out how he wants Congress to track its forthcoming DOT appropriations with the goals of the department’s six-year, $478 billion Grow America plan.
Legislators on the transportation subcommittee are likely to disagree with Foxx, as usual, on the administration’s proposal to fold rail programs into the Highway Trust Fund. The secretary will likely field questions about the White House’s request to pare back funding for new efforts to help shore up crude-by-rail safety. And Foxx is expected to make the case for boosting spending on transit, asking appropriators to fulfill the administration’s request for $18.4 billion for the Federal Transit Administration, which is a more than $7 billion jump from the roughly $11 billion FTA received in fiscal 2015.
Tune in live at 10 a.m.: http://1.usa.gov/1OcgRLA. The Obama administration’s fiscal 2016 budget request: http://politico.pro/1KkmMHb.
IT’s EARTH DAY! — AND WEDNESDAY: Good morning and thanks for reading POLITICO’s Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on trains, planes, automobiles and ports.
Send me your Earth Day transpo photos — anybody riding a pogo stick to work will get an H/t tomorrow for sure. You know what to do: @jascholtes or jscholtes@politico.com
“I pulled over to the side of the highway and watched his taillights disappear.” http://bit.ly/1HsdASX
UBER’S BREAKTHROUGH IN EUROPE: On a continent where governments have been largely opposed to ride-sharing services, Brussels could soon drive change by becoming the first city to embrace Uber. POLITICO Europe reports that the move could be “a small victory with large symbolism. … Legislation currently being drafted by Brussels mobility minister Pascal Smet, and expected to be passed by January 2016, would turn Uber’s 700 drivers into independent contractors, who would pay income taxes. ... While Brussels (with about 1.1 million inhabitants) is a relatively small capital city, the move is bold and reverses the city’s ban on Uber last year. The California-based company has faced violent protests in Brussels, as well as in Paris, Madrid and Berlin. Last month, a German court banned Uber and said it would slap lawbreakers with heavy fines.” More from POLITICO’s new hub in Belgium: http://bit.ly/1HgpmRM
NEW CERTIFICATION CONTROLS COMING IN FAA BILL? The FAA reauthorization bill senators are crafting just might include new mandates aimed at keeping certification rules consistent across the country for aviation products and planes. Sen. Kelly Ayotte hinted at that possibility on Tuesday, saying it is “problematic” that implementation of certification rules sometimes differs among regions, and adding that “this is something we can fix and we must fix.” Our Kathryn A. Wolfe has more: http://politico.pro/1DblsBY.
DOT OFFICIALS ‘DON’T REALLY GET’ CONGRESSIONAL FUNDING HABITS: Peter Rogoff, DOT’s undersecretary for policy, railed on Congress while talking to port authority officials on Tuesday. The top policy wonk said DOT officials find it “very depressing” that lawmakers are willing to pay the political price of digging up money to provide temporary transportation funding but won’t go all out in making long-term infrastructure investments. “We disagree with the policy. But frankly, we don’t understand the politics either,” he said. “What we don’t understand is people who want to say, all right, we have to take the bullet or rip off the Band-Aid — or use whatever metaphor you want — to actually go in and raise real revenue for transportation, but we should only raise enough to ensure that conditions continue to deteriorate.” http://politico.pro/1bh9S1X
MCCAUL: EUROPE’S WEAK TRAVEL SECURITY IS ‘ACHILLES HEEL’: House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul is calling on the Obama administration to work with European countries to step up their use of watch lists to prevent aspiring terrorist from making their way to the United States. In an op-ed for Fox News, the chairman writes: “EU law forbids blanket screening of citizens, meaning that EU nationals are rarely checked against terrorist watchlists when they travel — even though thousands of them have fought alongside extremists in Syria. Compare this to America, where a U.S. citizen flying home is checked run against the watchlist at multiple stages. … To protect America, we must push our border security outward. That means working with our foreign partners in Europe and beyond to urgently fix their security deficiencies — before more extremists leave the battlefield and set their sights on our city streets.” http://fxn.ws/1yM7FXf
U.S. AIRLINES SWING AT GULF CARRIERS WITH FINANCIAL ROUNDUP: The Partnership for Open and Fair Skies released its own rundown this week of subsidies it claims Qatar and Etihad airlines are taking from their governments, building up the group’s argument for the U.S. to reopen negotiations under Open Skies agreements with Qatar and UAE. “The information in the financial records already in the possession of the U.S. government provide indisputable proof that Qatar and the UAE are funneling massive amounts of money into their state-owned airlines in a calculated effort to undermine Open Skies policy and any semblance of fair competition,” Jill Zuckman, chief spokesman for the group, said in a written statement. “We believe that the $42 billion in subsidies and other unfair state benefits that our investigation uncovered is just the tip of the iceberg.” The group’s report: http://bit.ly/1GgsqKI.
The Air Line Pilots Association also chimed in with criticism of the Gulf carriers: “It’s time for the United States to tell the UAE and Qatar that a deal is a deal,” the group’s president, Tim Canoll, said in a statement. “We need our government alongside us in the fight for a strong and vibrant U.S. airline industry.”
The anti, anti-consumer: On the other side of the fight, Business Travel Coalition Chairman Kevin Mitchell wrote Tuesday that “DOT needs to see these hyper-aggressive airline behaviors and strategies for the anti-consumer activity that they represent.” The Gulf carriers stimulate demand in the U.S. travel market, offer consumers more choice, lower fares and pressure U.S. airlines to improve their services, Mitchell argues. “These are all telltale signs of a functioning competition and an Open Skies policy delivering anticipated outcomes.”
BLUMENTHAL PLANS BILL TO TAKE ON GM ‘INJUSTICE’: Likely cobbling together several ideas he proposed last Congress, Sen. Richard Blumenthal plans to introduce a bill he says will take on GM’s “injustice” in providing compensation to those injured or whose family members died in accidents after faulty ignition switches failed to trigger airbag deployment. Our Heather Caygle has more: http://politico.pro/1OctjLi.
SENATORS URGE UNIFORMITY IN TRANSIT SAFETY STANDARDS: Senate Banking Committee lawmakers are calling for more uniform federal safety standards to address issues highlighted by the smoke incident that killed one Metro passenger and sent dozens to the hospital in January. "There ought to be some level of common standards," Sen. Mark Warner told acting FTA Administrator Therese McMillan on Tuesday. The senator said he hopes to address the issue in a multiyear transportation reauthorization this year. Heather’s got the details: http://politico.pro/1G4M7CC.
BP’S CEO TRUMPETS SCALE AND SPEED OF GULF SPILL RESPONSE: POLITICO’s Darren Goode, reporting from Houston this week, writes that BP CEO Robert Dudley pushed back Tuesday at criticism that the Gulf of Mexico isn’t recovering as fast as the company contends. “While not perfect, no company has ever done more faster to respond to an industrial accident,” Dudley said at an energy conference. http://politico.pro/1brKhUU
LOBBYING MOVEMENT: POLITICO Influence reports that Georgetown Rail Equipment and American Rivers have just started new lobbying contracts. NORCAL Water Jobs Liberty has registered as a PAC. And these clients have just logged lobbying terminations: Southwest Airlines, the Los Angeles Airport Peace Officers Association, Air Canada, the Arizona Department of Transportation, the American High Speed Rail Alliance, the Mississippi State Port Authority of Gulfport, and the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. The details: http://politi.co/1GgkDzg.
MT MAILBAG: Knowing lawmakers are thinking now about what they want to put in their FAA reauthorization plans, airport industry leaders sent a reminder note this week about their request for Congress to raise the cap on passenger facility charges that fill the Airport Improvement Program fund used to spiff up the nation’s flight hubs. “Because every flight in the United States begins and ends at an airport, it is essential that airport priorities are included in any plan to transform air traffic control in order to prevent any negative impact on an airport’s ability to serve their customers through well-documented infrastructure development needs,” leaders of the American Association of Airport Executives, as well as the Airports Council International — North America, said in the letter. The groups sent their request to both House and Senate lawmakers. The House version: http://politico.pro/1cYMZl5
THE AUTOBAHN (SPEED READ):
— Connecticut Indian tribe to build casino at Korean airport. AP: http://trib.in/1IFhmXP
— BP should buy Tesla and its batteries. Bloomberg Business: http://bv.ms/1Pe7aJE
— Lawsuit alleges driving danger from smartwatches. The Chicago Tribune: http://trib.in/1K3nHNN
— Judge: Pro-Israel group can post 'killing jews' ads on buses. AP: http://abcn.ws/1JrYfAn
— Trinity’s guardrails said to be at center of federal criminal probe. Bloomberg Businesss: http://bloom.bg/1DAb3QK
— NHTSA prepares steps to speed up Takata, Jeep recalls. Automotive News: http://bit.ly/1yQ9TVO
— Op-ed: A danger on rails: Transporting highly flammable crude oil. The New York Times: http://nyti.ms/1EnOhSQ
— NYC subway ridership grows to highest point in 65 years. AP: http://abcn.ws/1E98Ksz
— 8 critical rail projects that Amtrak can't afford. CityLab: http://bit.ly/1Eqnvcs
— D.C.’s streetcar won’t be a free ride for long when it eventually gets rolling. The Washington Post: http://wapo.st/1HSzb7v
— Low wages, trade deals luring auto plants and jobs to Mexico. AP: http://abcn.ws/1OcZM49
— Lockheed boosts 2015 forecast as aircraft margins improve. Bloomberg Business: http://bloom.bg/1K3mJB9
— German industry body says train strikes may cost 100 million euros a day. Reuters: http://reut.rs/1yQjIDh
— Uber complies with German ban on unlicensed cab drivers. Reuters: http://reut.rs/1FcGSEJ
— Clay modelers shape the future of auto design. AP: http://trib.in/1aQsrtj
— State’s Hochstein: Energy production won’t be foreign policy lever. Pro: http://politico.pro/1bht2ol
— Wisconsin Senate OKs ride-hailing regulations. AP: http://trib.in/1yNAL8A
— Mexico competition watchdog probes airline sector. Reuters: http://reut.rs/1FcHrOU
THE COUNTDOWN: Highway and transit policy expires in 39 days. DOT appropriations run out and the FAA reauthorization expires in 161 days. The 2016 presidential election is in 567 days.
THE DAY AHEAD:
All day — The American Association of Port Authorities wraps up its spring conference with a series of meetings with lawmakers and federal officials. 1127 Connecticut Ave NW.
All day — The Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors holds its annual meeting. 2168 Rayburn House Office Building.
10:00 a.m. — The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee holds a hearing on the Obama administration’s fiscal 2016 budget request for the Army Corps of Engineers and the Tennessee Valley Authority. 2167 Rayburn House Office Building.
10:00 a.m. — The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies holds a hearing to review the Obama administration’s fiscal 2015 budget request for the Department of Transportation, with testimony from Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. 138 Dirksen Senate Office Building.
Until tomorrow.
Stories from POLITICO Pro
BP CEO defends Gulf spill response
State’s Hochstein: Energy production won’t be foreign policy lever
BP CEO defends Gulf spill response back
By Darren Goode | 4/21/15 4:01 PM EDT
HOUSTON — BP CEO Robert Dudley defended his company’s response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster and Gulf of Mexico spill Tuesday and pushed back at criticism that the Gulf isn’t recovering as fast as the company contends.
“While not perfect, no company has ever done more faster to respond to an industrial accident,” Dudley said at IHS CERAWeek.
The company has spent or provisioned more than $44 billion in response to the accident, which was the biggest spill in U.S. maritime history, including $14 billion to compensate those harmed and another $14 billion for response and cleanup efforts, he said. It “has changed our company profoundly” and the results “are encouraging,” Dudley said.
The impact on many species in the Gulf, he said “was of relatively short duration, primarily in 2010,” he said, echoing a controversial report the company released last month claiming that the Gulf’s “environment [is] returning to pre-spill conditions.”
Officials for the Deepwater Horizon National Resource Damage Assessment — a joint effort by federal agencies and Gulf states to assess the ongoing damage in the region tied to the accident and spill — said BP’s assessment was “inappropriate as well as premature.”
Dudley dismissed that criticism on Tuesday, saying said that five years of data “shows no evidence that people’s worst fears have been realized, nor is there evidence of a looming disaster in the future.”
But a National Wildlife Federation report paints a dour picture for up to 20 species in the Gulf, and notes that endangered sea turtle nests are on the decline and that the spill may be a factor in killing dolphins off the Louisiana coast at four times the historic rate.
“Slick television ads cannot change the scientific facts — wildlife continue to suffer because of BP’s ‘gross negligence,’” NWF President and CEO Collin O’Mara said. “Rather than spending money on expensive public relations campaigns, the company should accept full responsibility for its recklessness and put things right in the Gulf.”
“I would just say … you just have to look at the science, I mean really, look at the science,” Dudley told reporters here Monday night. “I’m not saying it’s all pre-spill, but I can tell you fish levels and fish stocks are way above in many cases.”
He said the harm to oyster populations “had nothing to do with BP and the data actually shows that the dolphin populations were affected before the spill. That’s the science.”back
State’s Hochstein: Energy production won’t be foreign policy lever back
By Darren Goode | 4/21/15 7:13 PM EDT
HOUSTON — The State Department’s top energy diplomat said Tuesday that the U.S., unlike some countries that own and operate energy companies, doesn’t use energy production as a lever for the country’s foreign policy goals.
“We don’t control our own energy production and we don’t use it as weapons or tools or leverages for pursuit of other policies,” State Department energy envoy Amos Hochstein told POLITICO at the IHS CERAWeek Conference. “It doesn’t mean that countries that used to be our suppliers now don’t look at us in a different light, that there’s not new opportunities for cooperation.”
Several companies are developing plants to export liquefied natural gas, but the conversation is still in the early stages on whether Washington should lift the 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports.
“I think the gas export debate is over,” Hochstein said. “We will be an exporter in the coming months and that will increase over time as the facilities are built. That debate is over. The United States will be a gas exporter. We will have completed the transformation from a significant importer to neutral to an exporter.”
But Hochstein urged some caution on oil exports.
“From my part, I think it’s important for us to listen and understand what it all means, what the implications may be. And to approach this cautiously,” he said.
The oil majors and independent oil producers joined with Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski in making the oil export ban a major topic of discussion here. The Alaska Republican told the conference Monday she is planning to introduce a bill that would end the export ban, although the timing and strategy for moving it are unclear, including whether her legislation would phase out the ban or just lift it altogether.
Murkowski and oil CEOs — including Hess Corporation’s John Hess and Harold Hamm of Continental Resources — kept up the drumbeat by citing the potential lifting of sanctions against Iran’s oil exports are another reason to end the U.S. export ban.
“It’s high time that we lift the self-imposed sanctions on U.S. crude exports,” Hess said Tuesday.
But Hochstein said it is far too early to predict the effect of lifting the Iran sanctions, or whether the sanctions will even being lifted at all.
“In this conference at CERAWeek, that subject seems to come up once every 30 minutes and I tend to get a lot of questions,” Hochstein said. “And it’s hard to go to any conference on any topic, I can go to a conference on Southeast Asia energy and be asked, ‘Well, what do you think about Iranian sanctions?’”
But, he said, “We’re putting the cart before the horse. … The talks continue and there is no agreement yet.”
“So we have to wait and see kind of deal we’re able to reach, if we are able to reach one,” he added. “Take a deep breath and calm down.”back
POLITICO Pro Transportation Whiteboard: Senators: Deadly Metro accident shows need for uniform safety standards
4/21/15 12:12 PM EDT
The smoke incident that killed one Metro passenger and sent dozens to the hospital in January highlights the need for more uniform federal safety standards, several senators said today.
Members of the Senate Banking Committee, particularly Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, pressed FTA Administrator Therese McMillan about what the agency was doing to improve transit safety across the country in light of January's accident.
Warner ticked off a list of issues related to the deadly accident — including radio interoperability, evacuation and ventilation — and said it was unclear why minimum federal protocols don't exist in those areas.
"There ought to be some level of common standards," Warner said, adding it was an issue he hoped to address in a multiyear transportation reauthorization this year.
"We need some uniformity when it comes to safety," Senate Banking Chairman Richard Shelby chimed in afterwards.
McMillan said the FTA was still implementing new safety oversight provided to the agency in MAP-21 and was continuing to sort out which protocols should apply nationally versus safety standards that should be agency specific.
Additionally, the FTA is still conducting a previously announced inspection into WMATA's safety standards and plans to release a report in the coming months.
— Heather Caygle
To view online:
https://www.politicopro.com/go/?wbid=52088
POLITICO Pro Transportation Whiteboard: Blumenthal plans bill to address ‘GM injustice’
4/21/15 1:33 PM EDT
Sen. Richard Blumenthal plans to roll out legislation aimed at addressing what he called General Motors’ “injustice,” referring to how the automaker treated victims of its ignition switch recall.
Blumenthal’s announcement comes after a federal judge ruled last week that GM was shielded from liability in lawsuits centered around recall issues that occurred before the automaker entered bankruptcy in 2009.
“GM knew then and now that it was deceiving the government of the United States in seeking bankruptcy and the shield that comes with it,” Blumenthal said at a press conference today.
The Connecticut lawmaker said he’s still working to build bipartisan support for the bill, which will likely cobble together several ideas he rolled out in the last Congress.
He was joined by Senate Commerce Ranking Member Bill Nelson, who met with the chairman of GM’s board yesterday on a different topic but brought up the company’s treatment of recall victims.
“We don’t want to embarrass GM but until they make it right, they need to be,” Nelson said. The ignition switch defect has been linked to 87 deaths so far.
Nelson and Blumenthal were joined by the family of Jean Averill, the first known victim of the defective switches. Averill’s family went more than a decade without knowing her death was caused by the defect until they were told by a New York Times reporter last year.
“If GM had taken her accident seriously…a lot of lives could’ve been saved,” said her daughter-in-law Susan Averill.
— Heather Caygle
To view online:
https://www.politicopro.com/go/?wbid=52109
POLITICO Pro Transportation Whiteboard: Ayotte: Inconsistent FAA certification needs to be addressed
4/21/15 4:27 PM EDT
Sen. Kelly Ayotte hinted that addressing how different FAA regions handle certification issues may well be part of an eventual FAA reauthorization bill in the Senate, saying it’s a “problematic” area.
When it comes to certifying new products, Ayotte noted that FAA regional offices sometimes interpret regulations differently, boosting costs to industry and creating more delays.
“I think this is something we can fix and we must fix,” Ayotte said today during a hearing of the Senate Commerce aviation panel she chairs.
Aviation product and plane manufacturers have long complained about inconsistent interpretations and application of FAA rules, and the last FAA bill mandated the agency form a committee to study how to improve the process. According to the Government Accountability Office, the committee recommended that the FAA develop procedures to make sure its policy and guidance materials are consistent with regulations. The GAO says the FAA plans to have this completed by October.
— Kathryn A. Wolfe
To view online:
https://www.politicopro.com/go/?wbid=52151