NATIONAL NEWS
The Hill: Durbin to Boehner: Pass highway bill before you hit the road
Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin said Thursday that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) should bring a long-term highway bill up for a vote before he leaves office.
STATE NEWS
New York Times: Early planning for new Hudson rail tunnel is underway, U.S. transportation secretary says
The federal transportation secretary said on Thursday that officials were taking important initial steps to accelerate long-stalled plans to build a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River.
Progressive Railroading: NTSB makes ‘urgent’ request for FRA to oversee WMATA rail safety
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) yesterday issued an "urgent" call for the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to take direct oversight of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's (WMATA) operation of the Metrorail system.
WESA: Private-public partnership to look at transportation in region
http://wesa.fm/post/private-public-partnership-look-transportation-region
The newly launched Regional Transportation Alliance of Southwestern Pennsylvania (RTA) is hoping it will be able to improve connectivity – and with that also improve the quality of life in the region.
Press of Atlantic City: Our view: Time to raise gas tax, if better use made of revenue
The chief reason New Jersey has cheap gasoline - $1.86 a gallon at the Wawa nearest The Press office in Pleasantville this week - is that it has the lowest gas tax in the continental U.S. Only Alaska is a couple of cents less; New York and Pennsylvania take triple what New Jersey does.
POLITICO Morning Transportation
By Jennifer Scholtes | 10/02/2015 05:45AM EDT
With help from Lauren Gardner and Kathryn A. Wolfe
BICAMERAL PTC NEGOTIATIONS BEGIN: Now that transportation leaders in both chambers have staked their stances on extending the positive train control deadline, it's time to belly up to the negotiating table. After a bipartisan huddle on Thursday, Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune says the lawmakers want to work through their differences in the next few weeks and clear that extension by month's end. While all four of these guys - Thune, Sen. Bill Nelson, and Reps. Bill Shuster and Peter DeFazio - are pretty much in agreement on extending the year-end deadline through 2018, they're not settled on a plan for dealing with railroads that need even more time.
Up for debate: The language the Senate passed in July within its long-term transportation funding bill includes three years of leniency for railroads to get the technology installed but doesn't stipulate when they need to have the systems fully operational. The version the House leaders introduced this week has the same end-of-2018 extension but is also arguably vague about what happens afterward, with those on the Republican side saying DOT would have the authority to kick the deadline out for one or two more years beyond 2018 for all railroads and DeFazio arguing that the bill is really intended to offer those additional extensions only for certain railroads, or groups of them. So it's a battle now between those gunning for up to five years of "blanket" exception and those who want the last two years of leniency to be granted on a case-by-case basis.
Eliminating ambiguity: Thune says that - given the debate about what the bills actually say - a main aim of the negotiations is to emerge with a final product that doesn't leave any room for interpretation. "I hope that whether we end up with ours or some combination of the two," he says, "that everybody kind of knows that it's very clear what the deadlines are, who's in charge of enforcing, what the various metrics are, and that there isn't ambiguity."
IT'S FRIDAY: Good morning and thanks for reading POLITICO's Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on trains, planes, automobiles and ports.
Reach out: jscholtes@politico.com or @jascholtes.
"I took three days to drive down one street. ... Invisible planes, crackin' the concrete." (H/t Chris Andrichak)
VW BIGWIG, EPA OFFICIALS FACE CONGRESSIONAL INTERROGATION: Preparing to answer to federal prosecutors in nearly every first-world country on the planet, VW's executive team will get some practice being in the hot seat next week during Congress' first hearing on the automaker's confession to rigging roughly 11 million vehicles with technology intended to fool emissions tests. This intense grilling is set to go down on Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight panel, with testimony from Volkswagen Group of America President and CEO Michael Horn and EPA officials. "The American people want to know why these devices were in place, how the decision was made to install them, and how they went undetected for so long," Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Tim Murphy said in a statement. "We will get them those answers."
NOT JUST A VEHICLE: For a member of Congress, it's usually not good news to learn that your bill has been chosen as the legislative vehicle to carry more paramount provisions, like a stopgap spending measure, because so often the original language gets plucked out in the process. But this surrogate situation worked out pretty well for Rep. John Katko, whose TSA-related legislation was picked to host the much-more-pressing instructions that government funding get drawn out through Dec. 11. Not only did the TSA language remain intact all the way to the president's pen this week, but Katko's little-known legislative effort has gotten way more attention due to its partnership with the shutdown-preventing spending bill.
Added perks: Katko's name is still listed as the primary sponsor, even though he had almost nothing to do with the funding language. Although the bill is now called the "Continuing Appropriations Act, 2016," its original title ("TSA Office of Inspection Accountability Act of 2015") popped up throughout the entirety of its congressional journey. And Katko hasn't been shy about patting himself on the back for this one, sending out a press release Thursday night noting that he is "currently the only freshman member of Congress who has had two bills signed into law."
The mandate: So reporters, lobbyists and Hill aides alike have had to skim through TSA provisions they'd probably never pay attention to, just to get to the meat of the funding language. At the top of this important new law, there's a mandate that all agency employees receiving premium pay and benefits due to their titles as TSA investigators have to spend at least half of their time actually doing criminal investigations. The legislative push follows a two-year-old inspector general report that found that "these employees received premium pay and other costly benefits, although other employees were able to perform the same work at a lower cost," and that the agency could rack up $17.5 million in extra costs over five years without changes to the number of criminal investigator positions.
INDIVDUAL PTC REVIEWS MEAN BIGGER FRA BURDEN: It was only two weeks ago that acting FRA Administrator Sarah Feinberg told lawmakers she's "anxious about the prospect of entering into negotiations with 40 different railroads on a case-by-case basis" for extensions of the positive train control deadline. And still, several top lawmakers keep saying "case-by-case basis" and "year-by-year review" in describing the deal they hope to strike. Those routes would surely prove more laborious than providing authority for the agency to extend the deadline beyond 2018 for all rail operators, and so the need for additional FRA resources is getting some thought.
'Significant responsibility': "It's something obviously we'll have to take a look at, to make sure they're able to do what we're asking them to do in the legislation," Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune says. "They're going to have a pretty significant responsibility, if you consider all the freight and commuter railroads around the country." Congress' staunchest opponent of a "blanket" deadline extension - Sen. Richard Blumenthal - acknowledges that the FRA needs to be well-equipped to do those yearly evaluations but says "we're not talking about massive amounts of evidence or some kind of administrative trial, but just a review, year-by-year, stating what the timeline is, imposing some basic discipline."
WEIGHING TRANSPO INVESTMENT FOR BETTER JOB ACCESS: Steeped in data, as usual, Mineta just published a new report this week analyzing how transportation access influences a person's economic status. Michael Smart, one of the report's authors and an assistant professor of planning and public policy at Rutgers, sums up the conclusion pretty well: "Improving job access continues to be one of the most important priorities for transportation planners," Smart stated with the release of the report. "But policymakers and researchers debate whether this goal is better served by investments in public transportation or increasing access to vehicles. The answer can be murky. Cars are costly to own, although they do improve chances for employment. At the same time, the role of public transit in improving economic outcomes is less clear."
DOT WARNS COPYRIGHT OFFICE AGAINST CAR CODE EXEMPTION: DOT is cautioning the Copyright Office against green-lighting an exception to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that allows consumers to tinker with the software that runs their cars. The departmentsaid in a letter last month that "modifying motor vehicle software can create safety and cybersecurity risks."
FORGET CADILLACS: In Denmark, they're worried about Teslas. Morning Tax explains today that buyers of the high-end car will gradually see their tax breaks go bye-bye, or hej-hej as the Danes say. In fact, Forbes reports , the Danish government intends to eliminate all tax breaks for electric cars by 2020. What are they worth to a Tesla buyer? "According to Tesla's Danish website, available incentives for the Model S include exemptions from green taxes and exemptions from the vehicle registration tax of 180 percent. The site notes that the latter exemption is only good through December 2015. The move by Denmark's government to eliminate the exemption will definitely change the pricing on the car: Without the exemption, the price of the Model S would increase from about 650,000 kroner ($97,233 U.S.) to around 1.8 million kroner ($269,262 U.S.)." You could buy three tricked-out Cadillacs for that amount of money, or eight bare-bones models.
DEBRIEF FRIDAY PREVIEW: Every Friday, the Agenda's Debrief catches you up on the policy conversation for the week ahead. In two minutes. This week on the Friday Preview: Kevin McCarthy, Russia's campaign in Syria, and the Supreme Court's new term.
THE AUTOBAHN (SPEED READ):
- FMCSA starts to crunch data on HOS restart study. POLITICO Pro.
- Low gas prices could give toll roads a financial boost. Route Fifty.
- Japan advances on self-driving road. The Wall Street Journal.
- GM warns the Valley: Prepare to compete over driverless cars. The Associated Press.
- Angry Metro riders overjoyed at more oversight: 'Hell yeah. Bring in the feds.' The Washington Post.
- Obama's new ozone standard has greens seeing red. POLITICO Pro.
THE COUNTDOWN: Highway and transit policy expires in 28 days. DOT appropriations run out and the FAA reauthorization expires in 182 days. The 2016 presidential election is in 402 days.
THE DAY AHEAD:
10 a.m. - DOT's Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology holds its fourth workshop on assessing GPS adjacent band compatibility to discuss its draft test plan and questions prior to the close of the public comment period. 1150 18th St. N.W., Suite 910, NBAA/Colson Room.
10:30 a.m. - The Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association hosts a Capitol Hill briefing on advanced vehicle safety technologies and the results of its new study. B-318 Rayburn House Office Building.
Did we miss an event? Let MT know attranspocalendar@politicopro.com.
NOW AVAILABLE: POLITICO PRO EUROPE BRIEF - POLITICO Pro now has a product dedicated to making sense of European policy and politics through an American lens. Drawing on POLITICO resources in both Brussels and in D.C., POLITICO Pro Europe Brief will track and analyze European policy from taxes to trade to mergers and acquisitions, energy and financial services as well as pull back the curtain on who's influencing who when it comes to politics and regulatory issues. Contact us or your Account Manager to learn more about POLITICO Pro Europe Brief.
Stories from POLITICO Pro
FMCSA starts to crunch data on HOS restart study Back
By Kathryn A. Wolfe | 10/02/2015 05:45AM EDT
FMCSA has finished collecting data for its much-awaited study of the health and fatigue impacts of some parts of a new hours of service restart regulation for commercial drivers, the agency said today.
The study, which was mandated by Congress, compared five-month work schedules for drivers to evaluate crashes and near-crashes, fatigue and alertness, and short-term health impacts to drivers operating under two hours' of service restart provisions in place between July 1, 2013, and Dec. 15, 2014.
The two provisions, which have been suspended pending the results of the study, require a commercial driver who wants to restart his weekly window of eligibility for driving to take two consecutives periods off-duty from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. as part of a 34-hour restart. That 34-hour restart can be used only once every seven days.
FMCSA says it expects the final report on the study, which included more than 220 drivers, by year's end. So far the agency does not have any preliminary findings, but said it's "pleased with the high volume of data collected from participating drivers and expects this data will help inform future activities by the agency as well as the current study."
Obama's new ozone standard has greens seeing red Back
By Alex Guillén | 10/02/2015 05:45AM EDT
The Obama administration handed a win to industry groups Thursday on a fiercely debated rule for smog-causing ozone pollution - leaving green groups feeling betrayed once again and threatening legal action.
The new EPA standard is stricter than one the George W. Bush administration had set in 2008, but it's far laxer than what environmental and public health groups consider necessary to lessen illnesses like childhood asthma.
Thursday's action came four years after the White House abruptly squelched an earlier EPA attempt to tighten the ozone rule, a move that greens still regard as one of the great betrayals of Obama's presidency.
David Baron, the managing attorney with Earthjustice, called the standard "weak-kneed" and "a betrayal of the Clean Air Act's promise of healthy air." He said it is likely his group and other environmentalists would sue.
"Lowering the smog standard ... is a modest step in the right direction, but it doesn't go far enough to protect the millions of Americans living in communities with dangerously high levels of smog pollution," said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune.
The EPA set the limit at 70 parts per billion, below the Bush-era standard of 75 parts per billion, a cut that represents a win for business and industry groups that lobbied and advertised furiously against tightening the standard at all, saying stricter rules would wipe out jobs, drive businesses overseas and even put national parks at risk of violating the law.
But, realizing the Obama administration was likely going to lower the standard somehow, those groups urged the administration to at least go no further than 70 ppb.
That's not stopping them from joining the chorus of critics against the rule.
National Association of Manufacturers President and CEO Jay Timmons acknowledged that "the worst-case scenario was avoided."
"However," he added in a statement, "make no mistake: The new ozone standard will inflict pain on companies that build things in America - and destroy job opportunities for American workers."
American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard urged Congress to kill the rule, saying the administration "ignored science by changing the standards before allowing current standards to work."
But EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said research showed that moving standard lower was justiified.
"The science clearly tells us that the 2008 standards of 75 ppb are not adequately protective of public health and needed to be revised," she told reporters.
Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) told POLITICO ahead of the rule's release that he is planning a vote to block the rule under the Congressional Review Act, a rarely used law that allows a simple majority to reject major regulations. That effort will almost certainly have to overcome a veto from Obama, and Inhofe may lack the votes he needs to succeed.
But others said the EPA seemed to have found a middle ground that would benefit the environment, even though neither business groups nor environmentalist were pleased.
Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, said in a statement that EPA "threaded the needle" at 70 ppb.
"By following the expert advice of its independent science advisors, EPA has set the stage for state and local air pollution control agencies to begin implementing this important program," he added.
Obama himself raised eyebrows among environmentalists last month by expressing what seemed like less than overwhelming enthusiasm about taking on ozone again. In an address to told business leaders, he contrasted his administration's aggressive regulatory push on climate change - which he said "was hatched by us" - with ozone, which he said the administration is legally required to deal with "based on the science that's presented to us."
Environmentalists also complained that the White House's regulatory czar, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administrator Howard Shelanski, attended recent meetings with the NAM and Marathon Petroleum Corp., but not any of the meetings with environmental or health groups at OMB. Shelanski and his deputy spoke by phone with API's Gerard about the ozone rule on Tuesday.
Under the Clean Air Act, EPA is supposed to reconsider the ozone standard every five years, though there is no requirement to change it.
Industry opponents have long portrayed lowering the ozone standard as a costly regulation.
Areas that are not in compliance with the lower threshold have to figure out where to lower emissions. In a worst-case scenario, that can mean manufacturers and other industrial groups avoid areas that are in violation and may decide against locating new ventures in those places, and potentially delay or cancel transportation projects.
NAM put out an analysis pegging a 65 ppb standard, the lowest end of EPA's proposed range, to a $1.7 trillion hit, and dubbed it the "most expensive regulation in U.S. history." NAM did not model a 70 ppb standard.
But the White House again dismissed the claim that pollution regulations were a drag on the economy. Spokesman Josh Earnest said today that the "EPA for more than four decades has been working with state and local agencies to cut air pollution, and in that same period of time they have succeeded in cutting air pollution by 70 percent, and at the same time the economy has tripled."
Still, EPA raised its projection that 14 counties outside of California would be in violation of the 70 ppb requirement by 2025, up from the nine counties it had originally forecast.
Still, lawmakers who oppose the tighter ozone rule said EPA had lowered the limits too far.
"This doesn't make any sense at all when you have so many states that haven't met the threshold they already have," Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said. "But it's nothing new, this is the way EPA has been operating from day one."
Darren Goode and Eric Wolff contributed to this report.