March 2012 Archives

It's looking like there will be more delays on the long-suffering surface transportation measure. House leaders say they need another three months to hammer out their own long-term bill, even though the Senate has passed its two-year, $109 billion version. (Look for a lot of sniping in the Capitol this week when the three-month stopgap extension is being tossed back and forth between the House and the Senate.)

In practical terms, the delays simply mean more uncertainty for state and city transportation departments and the construction and contracting industries. "The short-term extensions just don't permit us at the federal, state or local level to do any kind of the effective planning for construction that we really need to do," Ashley Swearengin, the Republican Mayor of Fresno, California. "Any kind of short-term extension would really doom our chances for a longer agreement this year."

"We've already lost the construction season. The dithering has led to states delaying decisions," said American Road and Transportation Builders Association President Pete Ruane.

The agitation is understandable, but it's nothing new. This has been the story of the federal highway authority for three years now, with states and cities limping along under temporary extensions. They sound a little bit like the teenager who sat behind me at a Washington Nationals baseball game, who repeatedly said, "This sucks." (To be fair, the kid was right. They played badly.)

Now is your chance to tell us your sob stories. What projects are being put on hold while lawmakers dither? How is the uncertainty affecting business, private investment, or even traffic? How many jobs are on the line? How much longer can you hold out with things as they are? Give us details, anecdotes, data, or just plain rants.

2 responses: Gabriel Roth, Patrick D. Jones

It took a lot of whining, but the Senate finally passed its two-year, $109 billion surface transportation bill last week on a solidly bipartisan 74-22 vote. The bill won praise from the likes of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AAA and the AFL-CIO. No one thinks that it's perfect, but it would smooth out some of the current kinks in the federal highway program and give the transportation industry certainty that they won't face federal cuts for two years.

And yet...there are still some people who don't like it, and many of them are in the House. A GOP aide told me that Republican members see the Senate bill as "a crap sandwich that they're going to have eat" if they can't come up with an alternative. (That's proving to be something of a problem. House Speaker John Boehner has tried multiple options without getting his caucus to coalesce around one.) Outside the Capitol, Heritage Action for America, a right-wing grassroots group, considered a "no" vote on the Senate bill a "key vote" in determining whether a legislator is sticking to conservative principles.

Conservatives are worried about a "spending boondoggle," which reflects their general anxiety about federal investment. They are also worried that the Senate bill preserves too much of the previous highway bill, which was loaded with earmarks. Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., claims there is even an earmark in the Senate bill for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Reid hasn't commented.

All this is to say that there is a wing of the conservative party that is gung ho about killing the Senate bill. For them, the legislation involves broader questions about federal spending and how Congress acted in previous years using earmarks and other special favors.

That's a lot of ideology for a wonky policy bill to handle. Will it survive? Is it a spending boondoggle? Is it too much like the previous highway bill? Is this the appropriate legislation for conservatives to use in waging their battle on big government? How much impact do these arguments have?

3 responses: Deron Lovaas, Emil H. Frankel, Gabriel Roth

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was in town last week, lobbying as he has been for the last several months for lawmakers to get it together and pass a surface transportation bill. Villaraigosa has a specific reason for his tenacious advocacy, and it's not just that he works closely with the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. If Congress passes the $109 billion measure currently being debated in the Senate, Los Angeles would be able to accelerate as many as 12 local transportation projects.

Villaraigosa is championing a specific provision in the Senate bill that would give the Transportation Department expanded abilities to extend credit to local municipalities for "mega public transportation projects." It is part of Villaraigosa's America Fast Forward plan, which he says would create one million jobs in the construction and technical industries and generate $158 billion in total economic output.

Villaraigosa has some great ideas on project acceleration that have been echoed by the likes of President Obama and House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica, R-Fla. It is one of the major benefits to come if Congress actually passes a transportation bill this year. America Fast Forward focuses on public transit, which is not always at the top of rural lawmakers' priority list. But other than that, it's an idea most people like.

Is Villaraigosa right that simple financing fixes could speed up so many transit projects? Would the credit extensions in the Senate bill help other localities besides Los Angeles, including rural ones? Is it appropriate to focus so much attention on public transportation? What is holding up most transportation projects?

3 responses: Fawn Johnson, Gabriel Roth, Laura Barrett

Roads are good. Bridges are good. Construction projects are good. Infrastructure is good. That is the message that politicians around the country are repeating to whatever audience they happen to be addressing. If everyone agrees on these basic points and wants to create jobs, they plead, why can't Congress actually accomplish something and pass the long overdue highway bill?

It's a good question, but the premise is a tad misleading. It is true that everyone agrees with the top-level sentiment that infrastructure investment makes sense for the economy. Digging down deeper, it is not true that everyone agrees on how that investment should work. Some scholars, like our own prolific National Journal expert blogger Gabriel Roth, have floated the idea that the states should do all of the financing and the current federal role should be phased out. Others, like the Obama administration, want a heavy federal role that directs competitive grant money at projects they deem worthy.

A large portion of the dispute over surface transportation in Congress involves unrelated issues. Senate debate last week was dominated by birth control, for example. But there are still some fundamental transportation disagreements among lawmakers. There are disputes over Amtrak, mass transit funding, Transportation Department TIGER grants, and the link between the highway trust fund and road construction. The differences of opinion on these factors alone illustrate that the highway bill is no different than any other legislation: Coming to agreement is hard. Passing the measure is even harder.

What are the most radical transportation ideas that have been floated in the current debate? (Tying highway funding to domestic drilling? Eliminating mass transit from the highway trust fund? Something else?) What are the most tired arguments? How do these ideas relate to past highway bill debates? Is it really so different this time? And if so, how?

6 responses: Deron Lovaas, Gabriel Roth, Emil H. Frankel, Bill Lind, Jack Kinstlinger, Bob Poole