Staten Island Congressman Michael Grimm touts his support for transit on his website and represents a district where 38 percent of people take transit to work. Will he support the anti-transit, anti-urban House transportation bill? Image: house.gov

It isn’t only Democrats blasting the House Republican transportation bill, which would eliminate dedicated federal transit funding, cost the MTA up to $1 billion a year and slash bicycle and pedestrian funding. In the transit-dependent New York region, some Republicans are balking at the ferociously anti-urban legislation. But many of their colleagues remain studiously silent.

Newly elected Republican Congressman Bob Turner, who represents parts of Queens and Brooklyn, said in a statement that he wouldn’t vote for any bill that doesn’t allow New York City to meet its own infrastructure needs, which include mass transit. Long Island Representative Peter King, the senior-most Republican from the New York delegation, is also expressing some serious doubts about the Republican legislation.

But most of New York’s Republican congressmen, including some who present themselves as strong supporters of transit, are staying curiously silent. These are politicians who should, based on their districts and history, oppose what Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, himself a former House Republican, described as ”the worst transportation bill I’ve ever seen during 35 years of public service.”

Not all area Republicans are being so timid, however. In a letter sent to the top Republican and Democrat on the House Transportation Committee, Turner specified exactly what his urban district needs, including both transit funding and pedestrian safety programs. “The City’s ability to continue to serve as home to 45 Fortune 500 companies — more than double the number of the next three U.S. cities combined, is dependent on maintaining and improving its unique public transportation network,” he wrote. He also celebrated federal support for projects that have reduced traffic fatalities for senior and child pedestrians.

“We cannot underestimate the importance of providing efficient, safe, mass transit, roads, bridges and tunnels to the people who live and commute in New York City,” said Turner in his statement. “As this bill evolves, I will continue to work with my colleagues both in Congress and New York to find the best approach in meeting our infrastructure needs. However, I will not support any bill that does not allow New York City to sufficiently meet those needs.”

More than 46 percent of Turner’s constituents take transit to work.

King, too, is focused on the harm the House bill would do to the region’s transit system. “The congressman has serious concerns about this legislation and the impact it will have on mass transit both on Long Island and New York City,” a spokesperson told Crain’s earlier this week.

A regional consensus is starting to form that the House transportation bill would be a disaster for the entire New York metro area. The New York Times, the New York Daily News, and the Newark Star-Ledger have all editorialized against the House transportation bill. “This monstrosity must die,” wrote the News. “Uniquely terrible,” said the Times.

MTA chief Joe Lhota, himself a Republican, called the bill “the worst piece of legislation you could ever imagine.”

Across the region, Republicans represent constituents dependent on commuter rail lines and suburban bus systems. In Nan Hayworth’s district in New York’s northern suburbs, seven percent of people take transit to work, many on the Metro-North railroad lines that are vital links to Manhattan. Around eight percent of Leonard Lance’s New Jersey constituents commute via transit. That’s tens of thousands of voters.

Neither Hayworth nor Lance’s offices have responded to Streetsblog inquiries, nor have the offices of Republicans Chris Gibson, Scott Garrett, Frank LoBiondo or Chris Smith.

Perhaps the region’s Republicans are still deciding whether to vote with their transit-riding constituents or cave to the Republican leadership.

John Mica and John Boehner would have you believe their bill is a blessing for transit. It isn't.

Republicans are not anti-transit, but we do recognize that the Highway Trust Fund is paid for by highways users, and cities and local governments must look at developing a similar user fee system for transit users.

This bill gives more flexibility to states to fund their most critical transportation needs, and under this bill states can also use the funds authorized under the highway program for transit systems if they so choose.

Because of the struggling economy, changing driving patterns and more fuel efficient vehicles, the Highway Trust Fund is in repeated danger of running dry. The Republican bill stabilizes the Trust Fund for the next five years, ensures states have the ability to fund their most critical transportation needs, and also guarantees transit funding.

Transportation myths die hard, and here the House GOP is trotting out a bunch of them — plus a few new sadistic rhetorical flourishes — to justify what’s quickly becoming known as the worst transportation bill ever. A quick primer on how the Republican leadership is lying about their bill:

1. The House GOP is not guaranteeing transit funding. They’re eliminating guaranteed transit funding.

Ask anyone who works in public transit, and they’ll tell you this bill would wreak havoc as soon as it is passed. By ending the policy begun by Ronald Reagan of funding federal transit programs with gas tax revenue, House Republicans would cast a pall of uncertainty over just about every transit agency in America. The Republican “guarantee” is nothing but a guarantee of more haggling over limited dollars as transit programs go up against other spending priorities in the general fund. Without the certainty that gas tax revenues provide, transit agencies will immediately move to cut service and raise fares, exactly what Americans don’t need while gas prices are rising and jobs are still scarce.

2. Highways are not “paid for by highway users.”

Gas taxes and tolls don’t cover the cost of highways, not by a longshot. In 2007, for example, user fees only covered 51 percent of highway costs, according to Subsidyscope. In other words, roads are subsidized — on a much larger scale than transit.

3. The House GOP bill does nothing to “stabilize” the Highway Trust Fund.

The bill relies on one-shot fees from gas and oil drilling to make up for the deficit in the Highway Trust Fund. While this would ensure that highways are subsidized even more than they are now, it’s a completely inadequate way to pay for transportation infrastructure, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

4. There’s already a “user fee system for transit users.”

It’s called the farebox.

5. “Changing driving patterns” are not endangering the Highway Trust Fund.

The truth is that even though Americans are driving less, the nation’s transportation funding system would be on solid footing if the federal gas tax kept pace with inflation. But since the gas tax is much lower in inflation-adjusted dollars than it was in 1993, the last year it was raised, the Highway Trust Fund is depleted. Congress and President Obama could solve the problem by taking another page from Reagan and adjusting the gas tax.

(The other Orwellian touch here is that the House bill doesn’t actually include any policies to adapt to “changing driving patterns.” In fact, it seems to have been drafted with 1950s-era driving patterns in mind. A bill that accounts for changing driving patterns would reflect the steadily increasing number of American transit riders, cyclists, and pedestrians, and the decline of driving per capita. Instead, the House bill puts all its resources into infrastructure for driving.)

6. States already have the “flexibility” to spend their highway funds on transit — the problem is they don’t like to.

States have had the flexibility to spend their highway funds on transit for decades. But highways are what they know, so highways are what they build.

When the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act passed in 1991, it was supposed to mark the end of an era, says Deron Lovaas, Federal Transportation Policy Director for the Natural Resource Defense Council. The interstate highway system was finished, and federal transportation money would go to increasingly to other things — dedicated funding for bike/ped projects, an expanded transit program, a larger program for congestion mitigation and air quality improvement, all part of an enlarged Surface Transportation Program. States could “flex” STP funds however they wanted. “Unfortunately, the track record for flexing STP has been very poor,” said Lovaas. “State highway agencies focus on highways.”

If the House GOP really cared about local control of transportation funds, they could draft a bill that distributes federal funding to cities and towns. The problem for John Boehner and the oil companies who back this bill is that cities and towns spend transportation dollars on things like transit, biking, and walking.

Steven LaTourette, an Ohio Republican, said he opposes the House transportation bill as it is currently written. Photo: Cleveland.com

So there’s a chance that House leadership will fail to round up the 218 votes needed to pass this bill. Based on Streetsblog’s initial conversations with House GOP members, the bill could be too anti-transit and too hostile to street safety to pass, even in this extremely partisan political climate.

Streetsblog began reaching out to House GOP members this morning to see where they stand, and already we’re finding representatives who think the current bill is too extreme. One Republican with misgivings is Ohio Rep. Steven LaTourette, who represents rural and suburban areas in the northeast part of the state, east of Cleveland.

LaTourette has been a supporter of common-sense transportation reforms in the House, co-sponsoring national complete streets legislation as well as a bipartisan measure that would have increased flexibility with federal funds for struggling transit agencies.

Through his chief of staff, Dino DiSanto, LaTourette’s office had this to say about the bill:

In its current formation there are lots of things we don’t like about it. If it’s not changed drastically, we’re not going to support it.

What they’re doing to highway funding — removing [Transportation] Enhancements, not allowing more flexibility for transit agencies? There’s no reason [transit agencies] should be able to buy buses but not operate them.

Infrastructure used to be something that was widely popular among both parties, and for some reason over the last few Congresses, they’ve become highly polarized.

Meanwhile, Bob Turner (R-NY), whose district encompasses parts of Queens and Brooklyn, has reservations as well. In a statement, Rep. Turner indicated his disapproval, specifically for the portion of the bill that would eliminate dedicated funding for transit:

Now that the House bill is taking shape, I have concerns about how the funds will eventually be allocated. We cannot underestimate the importance of providing efficient, safe, mass transit, roads, bridges and tunnels to the people who live and commute in New York City. As this bill evolves, I will continue to work with my colleagues both in Congress and New York to find the best approach in meeting our infrastructure needs. However, I will not support any bill that does not allow New York City to sufficiently meet those needs.

Another GOP representative from New York, Peter King, told Crain’s via his spokesperson that he “has serious concerns about this legislation and the impact it will have on mass transit both on Long Island and New York City.”

The House and Senate transportation bill proposals are both expected to go up for votes next week. Streetsblog will be tracking the positions of key House Republicans throughout the week.

Congress members Joe Crowley, Charlie Rangel, Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney joined MTA chief Joe Lhota to decry the House Republicans' attempt to end dedicated federal funding for transit. Photo: Noah Kazis

Four New York City members of Congress joined the chairman of the MTA today to bluntly denounce the House GOP’s anti-transit transportation bill.

“It’s the worst piece of legislation you could ever imagine,” said MTA chief Joe Lhota, a Republican who served as the city’s budget director during the Giuliani administration.

“The worst transportation bill we have ever seen,” agreed Representative Jerry Nadler, a liberal Democrat.

Though the Republican proposal includes a number of other reasons for New Yorkers to hate it, such as eliminating the Safe Routes to School and Transportation Enhancements programs, which fund bicycle and pedestrian improvements, today’s presser focused on the attack on dedicated transit funding.

Currently, about 20 percent of federal gas tax revenues are devoted to transit, which provides the MTA $1 billion per year in dedicated capital funding. The transit agency gets another $400 million a year from the federal general fund. Under the Republican proposal, all transit funds would come from the general fund, where they’d have to compete with defense, health care and other spending priorities.

That $1 billion a year is absolutely necessary for the MTA to continue repairing the system and building expansions, and it could disappear entirely. Charlie Rangel, former chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, which passed the anti-transit provision, said he asked influential House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan where the money to pay for transit would come from in the general fund. “The answer was they did not know at that time,” said Rangel.

The four Congress members in attendance did not mince words about the House bill. “Not even worth a warm bucket of asphalt,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney. Nadler said the bill exposed the attitude of the Republican Party toward transit riders: “You’re second class citizens. We don’t give a damn about you. Just disappear.”

Queens Representative Joe Crowley, who set up the event, argued that the Republican proposal revealed the hypocrisy of his Republican colleagues’ rhetoric. In arguing against Democratic policy changes, he said, conservatives cited the need for “the certainty to invest” and “the certainty to hire.” By making transit funding dependent on the yearly priorities of Congress rather than predictable gas tax receipts, the Republican proposal eliminates all certainty for transit agencies.

Even where the House Republicans have kept transit programs in place, they’ve added an extreme anti-urban tilt to what remains. A change to the bus and bus facilities grant program, Maloney noted, would bar funds from going to any transit system that also operated any kind of rail line. No more grants for New York City from that pot.

The future of the House bill remains to be seen. Its radical provisions have inspired widespread opposition, not only from pro-transit organizations but also traditionally road-friendly groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AASHTO. According to Politico, the arch-conservative Club For Growth is working to defeat the bill from the right, while no Democrats are expected to support the legislation.

If it does pass the House, it seems unlikely that the Democrat-controlled Senate would accept the most extreme provisions of the Republican package, setting Congress up for another round of partisan brinksmanship. For its part, the Obama administration is also opposing the Republican proposal in no uncertain terms. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, himself a former House Republican, called the House proposal “the worst transportation bill I’ve ever seen during 35 years of public service.”

Even so, House Democrats aren’t relying on the other branches of government to kill the bill. “You don’t depend. Who knows what deals will be made in the Senate,” said Nadler. Instead, he challenged every Republican representing an urban or suburban area to vote against the bill. “Anyone from a suburb or a city who votes for this is voting against their own district,” said Nadler.

Notably, ostensibly transit-friendly New York-area Republican Congress members like Peter King or Michael Grimm were absent from today’s press conference.

Spoiler alert. Photo: TruckinWeb

The centerpiece was yesterday’s/last night’s/this morning’s Transportation & Infrastructure committee markup, where members debated more than 80 amendments for over 18 hours before finally approving Chairman Mica’s bill, 29-24, at about 3:00 a.m. Not one Democrat voted for it, and only one Republican — Tom Petri of Wisconsin — voted against it. Energy and financing titles were also approved by their respective committees.

Streetsblog has already pointed out that there’s plenty to dislike in the bill, especially for pedestrians, cyclists, city-dwellers, transit riders, and the environmentally-conscious. But believe it or not, there are a few groups out there who still like this bill a whole lot. In fact, at today’s markup in the Ways and Means Committee, Chairman Dave Camp submitted for the record a letter of support from over 50 organizations.

It’s worth noting that the list of supporters is getting smaller. The T&I bill may have enjoyed the support of AASHTO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, but both have now opposed the Ways & Means committee’s financing title. In fact, over 600 organizations have voiced their opposition to that particular bill. However, there are still some hold-outs.

For starters, there’s trucking. Bill Graves, the American Trucking Associations’ CEO, called the bill “a major step forward, not just for trucking, but for all users of our transportation system.” Graves was disappointed when new rules allowing longer, heavier trucks were put off pending further study, saying, “We hope that Congress will see that wasting taxpayer money on further study is not necessary and as this legislation moves forward, enacts these long overdue reforms.”

Then there’s the retail sector. David French, the National Retail Federation’s VP for Government Relations, has said, “Our neglected transportation system has created bottlenecks and inefficiencies in the supply chain that stifle U.S. companies’ ability to grow.” Those “inefficencies” could refer to the same regulations the trucking industry is excited about. But bigger trucks (and longer driver hours, another pet issue of the trucking industry) would mainly benefit the largest shippers — the WalMarts, Home Depots and Best Buys.

And then there is oil industry, who would be able to drill far more freely in Alaska and off the American coast. Speaker Boehner’s inclusion of the Keystone XL pipeline makes the bill even more appealing to the petroleum industry. American Petroleum Institute CEO Jack Gerard believes that most Americans “know America will need more oil. They see the benefits of importing more from Canada while also producing more at home… [Keystone XL] is essential to our nation’s energy future.”

So, more drilling (oil companies make money) and lax regulations (trucking industry makes money) mean slightly lower shipping costs (mega-retailers make money). Big Oil, Big Truck, and Big Box — whose business models each depend on wider highways and sprawl — are the major beneficiaries of this bill.

House Ways & Means members Dave Camp (R-WI) and Sander Levin (D-MI) do not see eye to eye on funding transit. Photo: Zimbio

The attack on transit has drawn opposition from an unprecedentedly broad coalition of over 600 groups, including many that do not often find themselves on the same side of an issue. Opponents of the bill include noted transit advocates APTA and T4America, and traditionally pro-highway groups such as AASHTO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The conservative Club for Growth has even gone so far as to make the entire House transportation package a key vote, meaning members will be rewarded for opposing the bill. Rep. John Campbell has already said he has changed his position on the package, and Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) laughed at the prospect of getting a positive rating from the Club for Growth for “the first time in a while.”

An amendment proposed by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, which would have removed the provision altering transit’s revenue source, was defeated along party lines during mark up this morning. However, two Republicans — Erik Paulsen of Minnesota and Vern Buchanan of Florida — broke ranks with their party and voted against the underlying bill. The bill passed anyway by a vote of 20-17.

Despite repeated attempts by Republicans to present the bill as placing transit funding on surer footing, the bill drew vocal opposition from Democrats such as ranking member Sander Levin, who said it “undermines the very structure of the Highway Trust Fund.” Blumenauer said the bill relied on “fantasy accounting” to justify a $40 billion transfer from the general fund to cover transit, and McDermott bemoaned the lack of long-term thinking behind the bill.

Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York even asked Chairman Dave Camp if there is a precedent for the Ways and Means Committee to demand a complete restart of transportation authorization efforts. When informed that there was not, Rangel responded, “Well, you can be a leader, then.”

The letter from coalition members opposing the Ways and Means bill is after the jump.

House Ways and Means chair Dave Camp (R-MI) and Speaker John Boehner. Photo: Talking Points Memo

The Ways & Means bill [PDF] would funnel all gas tax revenue toward road programs, redirecting billions of dollars per year away from transit, which for decades has received about 20 percent of fuel tax receipts. Instead, the House GOP wants transit funding to come entirely from the general fund, pitting transit against all other government spending. To offset that spending, $40 billion would have to be cut from the rest of the federal budget.

Essentially, the House GOP is holding transit hostage to achieve budget cuts elsewhere — and they don’t seem to care if the hostage dies. They will also be tossing aside a precedent set during the Reagan administration, one that has enjoyed bipartisan support through several transportation bills, including the 2005 law, known as SAFETEA-LU, which was passed by a Republican president and Republican Congress.

Dan Smith of USPIRG put it like this:

The House Ways and Means Bill stops just short of defunding America’s public transit system. Instead it says that the real money with a funding source will all go to highways, while the tooth fairy will pay for transit. For Big Oil and the highway lobby, this is a dream, but it’s a nightmare for America’s transportation future.

In keeping with the secretive nature of the current House’s transportation reauthorization process, the announcement comes just one day before Ways and Means will mark up the bill. There is even less time to protect transit funding in the House bill than there was to protect bike/ped programs in today’s T&I markup.

Every Democrat on the committee voted for the amendment, and at the markup session this morning Democrats Nick Rahall, Peter DeFazio, and Daniel Lipinski spoke in favor. DeFazio’s remarks were especially impassioned, telling his colleagues to “look those kids in the eye and tell them we can’t afford this program,” and characterizing the opposition as “just mean-spirited.”

Opponents of the amendment couched their arguments in terms of government reform. Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA) said that the bill should be “focused like a laser on the national highway system” and not dictate any other uses of transportation funds. Rep. Herrera Buetler (R-WA) said that the bill, as written, would put the power to implement bike/ped projects into the hands of authorities closer to the communities those projects would serve, saying it would “unleash” states’ ability to pursue their own priorities.

However, putting more money in the hands of the states actually keeps it further out of reach for cities and towns that want to build better streets for biking and walking. The League of American Bicyclists’ Andy Clarke, following the proceedings on Twitter, responded that Herrera Buetler and Shuster “are missing the point.” The federal government is not dictating anything, Clarke said: “States are the problem.”

The Cherry Creek trail running from downtown Denver 40 miles out to the suburbs was partially funded by TE grants. Photo: National Transportation Enhancements Clearinghouse

According to a draft summary of the amendment, states would need to reserve an amount of money for TIP equal to the amount they currently reserve for TE and SRTS. TE-supported activities would no longer include transportation museums, depriving House leadership of one of their favorite talking points.

A second amendment would require states to prioritize bridge repair projects over the construction of new highways. As it currently stands, the House bill imposes little oversight on states that opt to spend on expanding highways.

A third amendment would provide operating assistance to transit agencies, a provision that the Senate has included in its transit bill to help prevent painful service cuts and fare hikes during economic downturns. However, neither of the bridge and transit amendments have sponsors in the House, and all amendments must be submitted by 3:00 p.m. today in order to be considered at tomorrow morning’s markup.

Transportation for America and AmericaBikes have launched online portals for citizens to voice their support for these amendments.

There's something for everyone to dislike in John Boehner and John Mica's transportation bill. Photo: Zimbio

Streetsblog wrote about some of the bill’s low points last week: no more dedicated bike/ped funding; no more TIGER or other discretionary transit programs; more money for highways, less accountability for state DOTs. To top it off, Speaker John Boehner has made it a priority to attach the Keystone XL pipeline to the transportation bill somehow.

The truth is that there are a lot of things that a lot of sensible people find objectionable about this bill, and they’re having their say while they can — the bill will be marked up on Thursday.

Regarding the changes to bike/ped policy, Darren Flusche, policy analyst at the League of American Bicyclists, told Streetsblog:

You can bet that the performance measures that states would be required to meet will not be geared towards the myriad transportation benefits of bicycling and walking projects, making the “eligibility” for bicycling and walking projects an illusion. In this way, the bill would actually take away flexibility from the states instead of provide it, as claimed.

Provisions that would raise weight and length limits on trucks drew ire from the Association of American Railroads:

“Americans don’t want 97,000 pound trucks or huge multi-trailers up to 120 feet long on our nation’s highways,” said AAR President and CEO Ed Hamberger. “Nor is it fair that even more of the public’s tax dollars will be used to pay for the road and bridge damage inflicted by massive trucks.”

John Cross, federal transportation advocate with Environment America, had this to say about the bill’s environmental implications:

The bill introduced by Representative Mica today in the House of Representatives drives us down to the dead end of too many oil spills, too much air pollution, and destroying the places we love. It reads like a wish list for Big Oil.

The Natural Resources Defense Council’s Rob Perks called out the Speaker of the House for unnecessarily complicating matters:

I’ve heard of “my way or the highway” but this is ridiculous. In an unprecedented move, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is hell-bent on crashing the transportation bill by loading it up with controversial issues that will guarantee more political gridlock.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) objected to the partisan politics behind its drafting:

I am disturbed by the un-democratic and non-transparent fashion with which the majority has drafted and introduced its bill. Democrats have been left entirely out of the process and, now, after more than a year of waiting for this legislation, we have 48 hours to assimilate 800 pages before it is marked up.

As Rep. Nadler pointed out, the bill is quite long. Streetsblog will report more details from the bill as we learn them. We will also address efforts underway to amend the bill into a less objectionable state.

Highways 'n' pipelines: The cover page to the House transportation bill brochure. Image: Politico

There was no grand unveiling of the House’s five-year transportation bill today, but a summary of the bill has been kicking around for a few days. While there aren’t any hard numbers available yet, the “American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act” looks like a return to 1950s-style transportation policy. It is particularly unkind to transit and bike/ped programs, and to cities in general.

The bill’s overarching themes, again in the absence of official language, seem to be:

• Funneling as much money as possible to highways
• Eliminating programs “that do not have a federal interest,” which apparently includes all dedicated funding for bicycle and pedestrian programs
• Doing away with discretionary transit programs, which would presumably spell the end for the very successful TIGER
• Giving even more power to spend that money to state DOTs, not cities and metro regions
• Shortening the environmental review process
• Augmenting gas tax revenue with a yet-unspecified revenue stream from oil and gas drilling

One example the summary gives of a project not in the federal interest is the Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program, which distributed four $25 million grants “to demonstrate how improved walking and bicycling networks can increase rates of walking and bicycling.” One of those grants went to Minneapolis, which is making great strides in promoting biking and walking. If reauthorized at current levels, NTPP would account for 0.04 percent of the bill’s total appropriations.

The “flexibility” afforded states to minimize spending on bike/ped and transit, as well as the bill’s reliance on oil drilling, have advocates outraged. The Sierra Club’s Jesse Prentice-Dunn told Streetsblog that the bill represents “a significant step backwards for safe biking and walking.”

“Americans are looking for transportation choices that can conveniently get them where they need to go without polluting the planet,” Prentice-Dunn said. “Today more than 12 percent of trips are made by foot or bike, yet less than 2 percent of our nation’s transportation funding goes towards biking and pedestrian infrastructure. According to the Alliance for Biking and Walking, bike commuting increased 57 percent between 2000 and 2009. Instead of increasing investment in transportation options that Americans want, the House bill appears to funnel more dollars towards roads, further deepening our addiction to oil.”

The bill would also cut Amtrak’s operating subsidy by 25 percent in fiscal years 2012 and 2013, would keep existing lanes on the interstate highway system toll-free, and would allow states to use up to 15 percent of their total highway funds to capitalize state infrastructure banks (currently the maximum is 10 percent).

Deron Lovaas, Federal Transportation Policy Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Streetsblog that the bill “looks uninspiring at best, giving states a lot of authority without a lot of accountability.”

“The language about curtailing environmental reviews is alarming, but it’s probably the tip of the iceberg compared to what we’d see in the bill itself. It’s a march of horribles… and they’ll go much further than the Senate in eliminating environmentally beneficial programs,” Lovaas said. “I can’t help but conclude that the house Republican leadership has hijacked the transportation bill and shattered the idea of bipartisanship in transportation policy making.”

The new date for the full bill’s unveiling is next Tuesday, January 31.

This streetcar was made in Oregon, but will transit suffer under a Democratic mandate to buy all components stateside? Photo: Seattle Transit Blog

Among the bill’s stipulations:

• 100 percent of components and subcomponents of transit rolling stock must be made in the US by fiscal year 2016 (currently a 60 percent requirement, to be raised incrementally).
• Amtrak would lose its exemption from Buy America on projects under $1 million.
• Any exemptions to Buy America sought will be subject to a period of public comment and must be reported to the Secretary of Transportation.

It also seeks to eliminate loopholes for segmented or subcontracted projects like the east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Rahall specifically cited the bridge, the largest public works project in California’s history, as having been built using 43,000 tons of Chinese steel—“Made in China, but paid for by American taxpayers.”

The bill is the latest in a growing list of job-creation proposals and counter-proposals to come from either the President or Congress. And like those prior proposals, this one is unlikely to go very far.

Think of it as the Democrats’ answer to “drilling-for-infrastructure” (maybe “regulation-for-protectionism”?). While representatives from the AFL-CIO, United Steel Workers, and United Streetcar threw their support behind the bill at the announcement, a Republican House pushing to de-regulate everything will be unlikely to get behind a Democratic proposal to create additional regulatory burdens – and costs – for industry.

Indeed, it’s easy to read the bill as a mere political maneuver – rather than letting the Republicans claim credit for introducing a transportation bill they’re overtly touting as a jobs-creator — and then letting them blame Democrats for refusing to pass it — the Democrats are trying to get out in front with their own unpassable jobs-and-transportation bill.

The Democrats introducing the bill remained optimistic, however. “The Republicans are now admitting that investing in infrastructure will be the major jobs bill of this Congress,” Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) said. “The question is: where are they going to put the jobs?… They’ll answer it when they see this bill.”

Democrats also indicated that anxiety over the spending in the reauthorization will be assuaged if they can guarantee the money will be spent in the United States, creating American jobs. “When we’re talking about doing a transportation bill, the American people have to be convinced that we’re actually going to spend this money here in America, to put Americans to work,” said Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-IL). “They cannot believe that we have spent these taxpayer dollars overseas.”

Buy America provisions, however, are no boon to the transit sector, which has to pay more for each component it buys. Since transit funding doesn’t increase with these mandates, the result is usually just less transit.

Chandra Brown, President of United Streetcar, was very enthusiastic: “As a businesswoman,” she said, “we need this bill.” Her company has built the first American-made streetcar in almost 60 years, and over 200 of her vendors are making new products as a result. But while the budding domestic transit vehicle industry is certainly excited about this bill, it has yet to be seen how much support it would garner from transit agencies themselves. Only one transit agency in the US—BART in San Francisco—has adopted a Buy America policy, and they did that three days ago. United Streetcar has two clients: Portland, OR, and Tuscon, AZ.

Following the announcement, Rahall was asked whether Committee Chair John Mica had been consulted on this bill, and whether it would ultimately be included in a larger transportation reauthorization effort. Rahall answered that he did not know; that moving ahead as a stand-alone bill is a possibility, but that Mica had been spoken to about Buy America’s inclusion in the reauthorization. His reaction, according to Rahall, was “not negative.”

Boehner says he's hoping for a vote on a yet-unintroduced energy and infrastructure jobs bill this year. Photo: Associated Press

Instead, House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica gave a preview, saying the bill will:

• consolidate duplicative parts of the federal transportation system
• shift responsibility to states and local governments to move transportation projects forward
• increase the ability to leverage financial resources
• significantly streamline the process for projects, cutting red tape and federal paperwork

In the current political environment, the Senate probably couldn't do much more than maintain current spending levels. But it's not enough to transform our transportation system. Photo: MTSNAC

The upper chamber maintained funding for several key livability programs, teeing up a fight with the GOP-led House over spending levels. A finished 2012 budget is already a month overdue and despite the Senate passage of a “minibus” (as opposed to an “omnibus”) spending bill yesterday, no one seems to expect a completed bill anytime soon.

The Senate bill maintains current overall spending levels, which, in the current environment, is a win for advocates of transportation investment, though given that the numbers don’t account for inflation, they essentially amount to a spending cut.

Either way, these figures don’t shift the status quo very much. While funding for TIGER and transit projects gets a modest boost, high-speed rail has been sharply reduced in this bill. And, since this appropriation comes in the absence of a new reauthorization of the federal transportation program, which could set new policies, these funds come without any guarantee that the money will be spent more wisely, in the pursuit of strategic goals and keeping systems in a state of good repair.

The bill includes:

• $550 million for the TIGER program, a key element of the shift away from formula funding and toward merit-based allocations for the most innovative projects. The bill sets aside almost a quarter of that funding for projects in rural communities. This funding level would represent a $23 million jump over the actual enacted number for this year.
• $41 billion – the same as this year – for the Federal-aid Highway program. Sen. Barbara Boxer was disappointed that the Senate did the math differently this year – rather than allocating $44 billion and then rescinding $3 billion of it, this bill makes the cut upfront. While that appears to be a more straightforward way to do it, some fear that it makes the baseline funding level look lower. That means that future funding will be determined based on $41 billion, not $44 billion.

We also asked him for his thoughts about some major themes in transportation today.

Chairman Jim Oberstar calls transportation enhancements "the point of transformation" for transportation. Photo courtesy of Oberstar's office.

On the “dissipation” of high-speed rail funds:

We reshaped Amtrak in the 2008 authorization, designating 11 corridors and creating a mechanism by which there could be competition from private sources and from state consortia, with Amtrak, to provide the passenger rail service in a particular corridor.

At first, I didn’t like that idea, but I spent a lot of time talking to Mr. Mica about it and as we talked, I said, “You know, that’s beginning to make more sense. We ought to challenge Amtrak. That’s a good idea; let’s put this into the bill.” And then we got consensus that high-speed should be defined as 110 mph, and that was in the bill. And we got a bill that George Bush signed!

So there was a structure against which to pit [the $8.5 billion in stimulus dollars for high-speed rail]. I thought that was going to happen. Instead, it was all put up for competition for various states to come forward and put a proposal on the table.

Wisconsin, for example: to Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago. That should have been done as part of the Midwest High-Speed Rail Initiative, with Chicago as the hub, south to St. Louis, east through Detroit to Cleveland and eventually to Cincinnati, and west to Minneapolis-St. Paul. That would have been one very defensible, manageable anchor.

The Northeast Corridor could have been another important anchor. The west coast, which is already underway: a third anchor to this system. And then some other amounts in the other corridors, depending on proposals that they would have and should have submitted to DOT.

Allowing pieces to be bid or requested by states dissipated the critical mass of investment. And I’m not saying that in hindsight – that was my concern at the time.

On the attack on Transportation Enhancements in Congress:

Transportation enhancements was the pivotal point of transformation at the end of the interstate era — an era in which travelers went where the road took them — to the era in which users of our system had a say in their quality of transportation and where that road should go in the future and how their transportation experience should be managed.

Enhancements is the breakthrough transformation of our surface transportation system in the post-interstate era. If it were eliminated, it would erode public trust and acceptance of our surface transportation programs.

On how he would pay for his 2009 bill if he were defending it in this fiscally conservative Congress:

I would still insist on a restructuring of the categorical programs, to reduce those categories from 108 to four formula programs and to require the intermodalism that is depicted in my plan. And by law, you can require that the modal administrators meet monthly. There is nothing to impede the secretary of transportation from doing that now, from convening a monthly meeting of FRA and Federal Transit Administration, Maritime Administration, and all the rest. But they haven’t done that, regardless of administration.

So do it by law! You will develop a safety plan. What can highways learn from aviation and safety? What can waterways learn? What can highways learn from waterways? All of these need to be done intermodally.

So you give the public a sense of accomplishment, of simplicity and clarity, transparency of the program. And then you have freight corridors to deal with the farm-to-market movement of goods and inter-city goods movement, which is a segment of that bill, and then the metropolitan mobility and access provision that addresses the fact that 50 percent of vehicle miles traveled in this country are in urban areas and we are wasting $110 billion a year just sitting in traffic.

And then requiring states to develop plans, and defend them, and be accountable to them. It’s doable; we did that. I had a hearing every month on the stimulus investments and made state DOTs and USDOT and the wastewater treatment agencies and the aviation authority all come and say, what did they do with their money, how did you invest it, what are the benefits from it? So you include that accountability, clarity, and performance.

And then project delivery – in the current law it’s not widely understood. But I crafted 42 pages of legislative language to expedite project delivery. The result: 47 projects – these are big ones, these are $100 million-and-above-sized projects – have had a 36 month reduction in permitting, which means you’re almost cutting in half the time it’s taking for permitting — without denigrating the environment, without denigrating historical preservation, without overriding local permitting interests and requirements.

So, you require better performance, better project delivery, and then you can ask the public. If I were still there, I’d be saying, now we go to the public and say, “We have funded our surface transportation system with the user fee, so you have a claim on the future investments, by which you pay at the pump and now you have something in which you can have confidence that it will be used effectively. There will be much greater accountability.

Then you can appeal for an increase in the user fee or a combination of funding mechanisms, which we provided for in the metropolitan access and mobility provisions.

Despite innumerable setbacks, progress is still being made on high-speed and intercity rail. Photo credit: Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corporation.

Meanwhile, if you look at USDOT, the well of rail funding just seems to keep on giving.

“They just keep cranking it out,” said Andy Kunz, president of the US High-Speed Rail Association. “Even when you think all the money’s all spent, they pull more money out of a hat.”

It didn’t just come out of a hat, of course. It came from the stimulus money, which is still giving, nearly three years later. Nearly the whole $8 billion allocation for high-speed rail in the stimulus has now been given out, thanks in part to USDOT’s energetic allocations these last few months – including re-allocating money returned by Florida, whose governor decided the state would be better off without high-speed rail.

Yonah Freemark writes in The Transport Politic that the Department of Transportation has been “pushing grants out of the federal government’s hands as quickly as possible so that they can not be rescinded.”

In September alone, the Federal Railroad Administration has approved hundreds of millions of dollars for intercity rail upgrades nationwide: $149 million for New York State, $116 million for New England, $49 million for Texas, $48 million for North Carolina and Virginia, $35 million for the Northeast Corridor, $31 million for Washington State, and $13 million for Oregon, among others. Earlier this summer, hundreds of millions of dollars were appropriated to California and the Northeast. Unless states turn back the money, unlikely considering that the projects have gotten so far and their pro-rail sponsors, these funds cannot be taken back by Congress.

It’s a good strategy. Big pots of money, lying unused, are tempting bait for budget-cutters in Congress — and right now there are a lot of people looking for potential cuts, from the super committee on down. But if there’s just loose change left over, it won’t make much of a dent and probably isn’t worth monkeying with — as much as Republicans would like the chance to say they’re cutting the deficit by cutting money from the high-speed rail “boondoggle.”

John Mica is conspiring with top GOP leadership to lift transportation funding levels above those outlined in April by Budget Chair Paul Ryan. Photo: Christian Science Monitor.

One Republican source, quoted in Transportation Weekly, said that given the persistently high unemployment rates, the surface transportation bill may become the centerpiece of Republicans’ alternative agenda to the president’s proposed jobs bill.

The House reauthorization bill, introduced by Mica in July, followed the budget plan outlined in April by Rep. Paul Ryan, setting transportation spending at the level expected to come in through Highway Trust Fund revenues over the next six years. Transportation officials, advocates, and Democrats have decried those numbers as spelling starvation for the transportation program, especially for many innovative programs that have been introduced over the last few years.

The appropriations committee followed suit a few week ago, approving spending at those low levels. But by then, Republican leadership was reportedly having second thoughts. Jeff Davis writes:

House Republican leaders privately tried to dissuade the Appropriations Committee from moving a 2012 spending bill with the lower Trust Fund spending numbers, but it would have been awkward for the Speaker or Majority Leader to publicly criticize a Republican committee chairman for writing a bill at the budget level that 235 Republican House members voted for five months previously.

Sources say Mica and Republican leadership are seeking about $15 billion a year in additional revenues, providing a very significant boost to the spending outlined in the reauthorization proposal Mica released in July:

House transportation reauthorization proposal, "A New Direction"

Adding $15 billion to each of those years could allow for spending totals above current baseline numbers of $41.6 billion for highways and $8.4 billion for transit in FY2012. However, it still wouldn’t quite match the Senate proposal, a two-year bill funding the surface transportation program at almost $55 billion a year. (The highway/transit split hasn’t been defined in the Senate bill.) Sen. Barbara Boxer says these levels essentially reflect current spending levels, plus inflation, plus an expanded TIFIA loan program.

Still, Davis writes, finding new revenues will be major challenge. A raise in the gas tax is reportedly off the table, and any new taxes would be difficult to pass – and not just because of the prevailing anti-tax sentiment in Congress. The Transportation Committee doesn’t control taxation, and Davis speculates that any new taxation would likely have to wait until after the deficit-reduction super committee finishes its work, two months from now. And any significant funding source outside of the gas tax and related “user fees” would be a dramatic departure from the traditional way of funding the transportation program.

House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica holds up a list of the 21 previous extensions of the aviation program.

The GOP-led House just approved a six-month extension of the transportation law. After about 45 minutes of debate, the chair called for a voice vote, and no one objected.

During the debate, members bickered over whether the FAA shutdown was the Democrats’ fault or the Republicans’ fault; whether the stimulus had enough money for infrastructure and whether it was spent well; whether it’s appropriate to cut infrastructure spending. But no one rose to object to a clean extension right now.

I would be remiss if I didn’t reprint, word for word, Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio’s impassioned – and highly partisan – speech in favor of higher overall spending levels. In the past, he’s often argued for more spending specifically for transit, but it appears he’s altered his message to appeal to the highway people too. Note that he’s asking not just for funding levels higher than the House’s idea of a 30 percent cut, but higher even than this extension, which keeps spending at current levels.

Listen along. The complete audio of DeFazio’s speech is here; transcribed below are some highlights.

Unfortunately, at the current levels of investment, we’re not even keeping up with our mid-20th century surface transportation system. Just think, before the interstate highways, what a disconnected country this was! And guess what, we’re headed back there. We are not investing enough to maintain the Eisenhower legacy of the national highway system. We have 150,000 bridges that need replacement or repair; 40 percent of the pavement needs not just resurfacing but underlayment; $70 billion backlog on our aged transit systems. And that’s just to give us an updated and state-of-good-repair 20th-century transportation infrastructure. We need a 21st-century transportation infrastructure, which is going to require more investment.

And for the life of me, I don’t get it on that side of the aisle. You got this guy over there, the Republican leader, Cantor, [saying] “we might take the tax cuts from Obama, those return almost 80 cents on every dollar borrowed, but ugh, that other stuff! Spending money, that’s like stimulus! Building bridges, repairing highways, repairing and rebuilding transit systems, having a new 21st-century system for our planes to navigate more efficiently in the sky, with fewer delays and less fuel consumed: that is bad!” according to Eric Cantor.

But “oh the tax cuts, yeah we’re for tax cuts, we’ll give the people their money back and then they’ll take care of those problems.” We’ll pass the hat to rebuild the bridges and the transit systems. We’ll pass the hat to have a new aviation system for navigation.

Come on! Are we a great nation or not? Are we going to give up? Are we just going to keep pretending?

“Give the money back to the job creators!” I haven’t seen the “job creators” build a national highway system lately.

Sen. Tom Coburn has an axe to grind with bicycle safety. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

It’s unclear how we went from a House determined to cut spending levels by more than 30 percent to a House unanimously committed to passing a bill with current spending levels. It’s unclear even that this unanimous vote plan will work. Republican party discipline isn’t what it used to be, what with the Tea Party revolt just loving to accuse House Speaker John Boehner of being a tax-and-spend liberal.

However, rumor has it that House Republicans are being told that the extension’s spending levels don’t change the appropriations levels the House is willing to approve, and that’s $27.7 billion for the year for highways and $5.2 billion for transit. So if the extension authorizes $19.8 billion for highways for the first six months and $4.2 billion for transit, that’s fine: It just means that for the whole second half of the year, highways would only get $7.9 billion and transit would only get $800 million. Those are deadly cuts, but it appears that transportation leaders are putting off that fight till later in order to pass an extension now.

Meanwhile, if the extension bill doesn’t pass the House by unanimous consent, the House will need to follow normal rules of order to pass it by majority vote. That means it’ll need to wait a full 72 hours between the posting of the bill and the vote, and that would mean a Wednesday vote. It could also open the door to a messy amendment process.

Speaking of amendments: In the Senate, Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn is planning to file an amendment to cut Transportation Enhancements from the six-month extension. It’s good news that he’s doing it as an amendment and not a hold on the bill, since a hold is a unilateral move to force the Senate to utilize a much more time-consuming process to vote on the bill. His amendment will likely fail, since many senators who would normally vote with him to cut bike/ped funding are committed to passing a clean extension, with no amendments.

If Coburn’s amendment does fail, he can lose graciously — or he can try to filibuster. It’s unclear whether he plans to do that. While the House is hoping to have 100 percent support for the bill, insiders fear that in the Senate, the bill could fall short of the 60 percent majority it needs to overcome a filibuster.

The Senate hasn’t yet introduced a (six-month) surface transportation and (four-month) FAA extension bill to replace the four-month surface transportation extension passed by the EPW Committee last Thursday. It won’t go through the same process – the extension will be filed as an amendment attached to an enormously popular bill that House Majority Leader Harry Reid has reportedly been holding on to for just this purpose – as a vehicle to get more controversial measures passed by adding them as amendments. The bill itself deals with sanctions against Burma, a cause dear to Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s heart.

So, the transportation extension will be an amendment attached to the Burma bill, and Coburn’s TE cut will be an amendment to the transportation amendment. Clear enough?

Meanwhile, according to our sources, Sens. Boxer and Inhofe of EPW agree that any amendment – even to the six-month extension – would be a violation of their delicate bipartisan deal on the two-year reauthorization. They require a clean extension.

Dr. No paints a bullseye on bike/ped funding. Photo: Alex Wong / Getty Images

Now Dr. No has his sights set on bicycle and pedestrian funding.

As calls for a “clean” extension to SAFETEA-LU poured in, Coburn made it clear last week he won’t get with the program. His spokesperson announced that Coburn would try to block the extension if Transportation Enhancements weren’t removed from the bill.

About two percent of the federal transportation budget goes to TE, and of that, 57 percent goes to bike/ped projects, with the rest funding streetscaping, historic preservation and other programs.

The GOP rallying cry against the miniscule amount of money for bicycle and pedestrian improvements is metastasizing. Earlier we reported that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was urging that dedicated funding for Transportation Enhancements be eliminated. And today, Cantor, along with House Speaker John Boehner, sent a letter to President Obama with the same demand:

We are not opposed to initiatives to repair and improve infrastructure, and believe there are reforms that can be implemented that would improve their effectiveness in a manner that supports economic growth. Current law requires that states set-aside 10 percent of their surface transportation funds for transportation enhancements, which must be used for items such as establishment of transportation museums, education activities for pedestrians and bicyclists, acquisition of scenic easements, historic preservation, operation of historic transportation facilities, etc. While many of the initiatives funded by this mandatory set-aside may be worthy projects, eliminating this required set-aside would allow states to devote more money to the types of infrastructure programs you are advocating without adding to the deficit. We believe such a reform would be consistent with your statement last week that we should “reform the way transportation money is invested, to eliminate waste, to give states more control over the projects that are right for them.”

Boehner and Cantor also hoped to find common ground with the president on speeding up reviews of infrastructure projects.

It’s hard to underestimate the damage that this Republican movement against TE can do. It will certainly complicate the passage of an extension of SAFETEA-LU, meaning that Sen. Coburn, and possibly other members of Congress, are declaring their willingness to throw the entire transportation industry, as well as commuters, under the bus while they quibble about the pennies spent on bike paths. According to the White House, if the bill is delayed just 10 days, the country would lose over $1 billion in transportation funding — “money we can never get back.”

How many senators will risk this kind of fallout by standing up for bike/ped funding?

Extensions used to be employed in order to buy more time so that lawmakers could debate policy changes. Now, policy changes are demanded in order to just buy more time. It’s in this frenzied, time-strapped atmosphere that Congress will decide over the next two weeks whether or not to kill federal support for active transportation programs.