There are three ways to look at this. First, what's needed? To help prop up the economy in the short term, and to build a framework for lifting GDP in the future, it's pretty clear we need a lot more investment in transportation. And this investment should be better aimed, at metro areas rather than at states. Charleston, Savannah, Nashville, Seattle, Chicago, Pittsburgh, etc. -- these will be the units that compete in the global economy rather than states.

Second, what's possible? Huge contrast here. A radical extremist -- Grover Norquist -- hamstrings Congress with a facile pledge about taxes (Who doesn't hate taxes? What a super-easy campaign goal). So there will probably be no more revenue for a program. This makes a 5-6 year bill hard to contemplate, especially with a sluggish economy and remarkable progress in fuel-effiency driving down projected revenues for the highway trust fund. Extensions are the default alternative. However, the Senate EPW and Commerce Committees have cobbled together a viable option -- a two-year bill at current funding. They might just thread the needle with that approach, but it's far from a sure thing.

So now we come to the third facet of this puzzle: Breaking through. I think that the only way to trump the kneejerk anti-tax pledge, and to attract adequate support for enactment required for a larger bill is to overhaul the program. Make it compelling to travelers. Make it competitive. Make it merit-based. And make sure that taxpayers know exactly how their money is invested, with what results.

But wait, there's a precedent for this. DOT's web site for the Recovery Act is pretty navigable and transparent. And while as Rob Puentes of Brookings points out the investments in it weren't as well targeted as possible, it -- and especially the TIGER program within it -- provide decent models for basing investments on merit, virtuous competition between grantees, and unusual accountability and transparency when the construction dust settles. Presumably DOT will continue reforming the program to make it more meritorious, competitive and accountable, should it live on by Congressional extension only.

So, oddly, public policy by extension while suboptimal is far from the worst possible outcome in the case of surface transportation. One alternative, an awful bill from Congress, is quite conceivable. That's why it may well be best to leave the keys in the hands of the Administration for awhile longer.

I will confine my remarks to the prospects for a surface transportation authorization bill in 2012.

While it is possible to imagine Senate passage of MAP-21 in the early part of 2012, House passage of a reauthorization bill is more difficult to imagine. While the Senate Finance Committee must still identify $12 billion to $14 billion of "pay-fors" to allow the use of general funds to bridge the gap between existing revenue sources and current surface transportation program levels (adjusted for inflation) and both the Senate Banking and Commerce Committees must complete action on their portions of this bill, these seem to be manageable, if challenging, problems.

The road map to positive House action, however, seems much more clouded. The gap between a five- or six-year reauthorization bill at something close to current program levels, as House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (T&I) Chair, John Mica, has said that he wants, and current transportation-related funding is very significant, and that gap will not be bridged by speculative, long-in-the-future, and inadequate royalty revenues from new domestic (largely off-shore, apparently) drilling sites. No other new revenue sources have been identified by the House Republican Leadership, who remain opposed to increasing federal motor fuels taxes. Thus, one can only imagine House approval of a shorter, say, two-year, reauthorization bill at something close to revenues at current rates. This is consistent with the House-approved Ryan Budget Resolution and was roundly criticized by Congressional Democrats.

If such a bill were approved by the House, it is difficult to see how a compromise surface transportation authorization bill could emerge from a Senate-House conference committee in the current political environment.

Thus, another surface transportation authorization extension seems necessary, prior to March 31, 2012, one that must, as well, contain extensions of the federal motor fuels taxes. Such an extension would push these issues into a possible post-election lame duck session at the end of 2012, a session that will have to address an enormous number of highly charged fiscal and tax issues, including extension of the Bush tax reductions and the sequestrations required by the Budget Control Act, passed in the summer of 2011.

Overall, then, the outlook for surface transportation reauthorization seems as uncertain and threatening, as it has been for the past two plus years. Having said that, I regard MAP-21, as unanimously approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), as a bill that contains many important and initial steps toward reform of the federal surface transportation programs, reforms that could be the basis of far-reaching legislation in the new Congress, even if Congress remains deadlocked over funding levels and sources.

When Congress returns to Washington later this month – the House will be in session for a total of 6 days, the Senate for 7 - the first item of business should be to pass a two-year extension of the operating authority for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Airports have been forced to deal with 23 extensions in the last five years, including 6 covering 2011 alone. The last 6 extensions, which averaged just over 2 months in length, have left the FAA and the airports filling out and approving multiple forms for the same projects. This is no way to run the safest aviation system in the world. Uncertainty in basic airport funding, such as 22 days of Airport Improvement Program (AIP) grants (such as that provided by P.L. 112-21) severely limits the ability to move forward on needed safety and security projects. It also impedes airport efforts to meet the 2015 Runway Safety Area deadline mandated by Congress.

The unprecedented 14-day shutdown of the FAA in July only exacerbated the situation. The flying public, and the Aviation Trust Fund, which lost nearly $300 million during the shutdown, literally cannot afford a repeat performance. Congress cannot and must not leave the aviation community in limbo any longer.

A two-year extension of FAA’s operating authority does not in any way hinder congressional efforts to complete negotiations on the pending FAA reauthorization bill. It simply provides certainty for planning, programming, project execution and job creation, something much needed after five years of living extension to extension, until such time as the House and Senate reach agreement on a final bill.

Anyone who has doubts about whether our transit system desperately needs help should listen to actual transit riders. Riders in Detroit are waiting two and three hours for a bus. Jobs are being lost. Children are being left alone, waiting for a parent to return. Detroit riders need help - not after the election, not after more delays and more petty political maneuvering - they need help right now.

It's unconscionable that the 1% in Congress are making the 99% wait even longer. The transportation authorization bill has traditionally been a bi-partisan bill. Political polar opposites such as former Senators Christopher "Kit" Bond and Barack Obama could agree on the need for a transportation bill and work together to get it passed. They could even work to insert a "Sense of Congress" (Section 1920) in SAFETEA-LU which implied that when transportation construction takes place, up to 30% of the workforce should come from the local community. Section 1920 wasn't mandatory and it could have gone much farther, but, by golly, it's looking like an act of political heroism these days.

We have some great ideas in the American Jobs Act and in the administration's "leaked" transportation bill from last year - ideas that include more money for public transit, funding for maintenance of our transit infrastructure, improving the public's ability to participate in local transportation decisions, job training for low-income people, more attention to disadvantaged businesses and getting rid of a local hiring prohibition.

All of these are great first steps and should be included in a final bill. We have plenty of ideas - we just need some political will.

Watch the video - a bus rider says it better than I ever could: "Fix the bus system... We are just asking you: get it together and get it done."