The House should pass the Senate bill. As Emil says, the bill has some foundational pieces requiring actual performance-measurement and objectives-setting that can be built upon when it expires in less than two years. It's a good, if imperfect, piece of legislation.

I have seen the vitriolic posts in the blogosphere on the Senate bill, and chuckled when I saw the "crap sandwich" quote. These rhetorical flourishes, however, remind me of the key phrase from a speech Republican President Teddy Roosevelt gave a hundred years ago: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly..."

The critics aren't actually in the arena. They proffer proposals that don't succeed because they're unprincipled, for example linking speculative drilling revenue to transportation finance for the first time ever, moving away from user fees. Or they are unnecessarily divisive, for example taking the transit account out of the highway trust fund or slashing the program dramatically during an economic downturn (I don't think AASHTO favored the DeMint amendment Gabe references since it would have left states holding the bag vis-a-vis funding).

These are all hardline positions meant to score political points, not serious proposals that might become law. Perhaps this should not be surprising, since this is an election year.

But it is profoundly disappointing that the partisan virus seems to have infected transportation now. Thankfully there are pragmatist warriors, who actually want to get something done. This is not a game to people like Ohio's Rep. Steve LaTourette, who has asked openly and repeatedly why the House Leadership doesn't just work with the loyal opposition to make a new law.

It's not a game to Sen. Mike Enzi, who has startled everyone by giving speeches in the Finance Committee and on the Senate floor about an elephant in the room, namely the fact that the gas tax hasn't kept up with inflation which is eroding the federal program (and contributing to the nation's deficit). Senator Enzi looked like an economics professor on the floor, complete with graphs and a lecture on the importance of gas tax indexation. That took courage.

It's also not a game to Sen. Harry Reid, a former boxer, who is pushing back against statements from House Leadership that another extension is in order when a perfectly good legislative alternative is on the table.

It's past time for policymakers to realize that partisan, political criticism does transportation no good. Time to enter the arena, and not come out until we have a new law on the books. It's time to pass MAP-21.

There appears to be much in the Senate-passed surface transportation authorization bill, MAP-21, that conservative members of the House of Representatives should be able to support, such as, establishing a foundation for incorporating values of goals, performance, and accountability into the federal surface transportation programs, emphasizing preservation and restoration of existing transportation facilities, consolidating and simplifying federal highway programs, and expanding the TIFIA program, in order to leverage greater private and public investment in transportation projects.

MAP-21 is not a perfect bill, by any means, and it does not go as far in some areas, as the Bipartisan Policy Center has recommended, but it is an important beginning.

While spending under MAP-21 would exceed transportation-related revenues to some degree during the short two-year term of the Bill, so would have the original five-year HR 7, drafted and proposed by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (T & I). Both bills would require, to greater and lesser degrees, transfers to the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) from the General Fund, in order to maintain HTF's viability, and therefore both bills would require related offsets or "pay-fors" to enable these transfers. The most serious charge against MAP-21 is that it would leave HTF essentially barren of funds at the end of the authorization period.

Despite these circumstances, I do not believe that either of these bills could be described, as "spending boondoggles." Both, however, raise fiscal issues that deserve attention: transportation funding should be supported by transportation-related revenues adequate to meet obligations and commitments and should not add to annual federal budget deficits. Since our national transportation infrastructure investment needs are enormous (described, again, in the most recent Condition and Performance Report of the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration), and the economic benefits resulting from those investments are potentially very significant, we must find a way to establish and maintain a sustainable stream of transportation-related revenues to support those investments.

At the same time, Congress needs to define more precisely the national interests, goals, and purposes in surface transportation and to reform the federal programs, so as to insure that available funds (whether plentiful or scarce) are targeted to those programs and projects that can bring the greatest returns and benefits to the American people, consistent with national golas.

MAP-21 has made a beginning, in meeting this challenge, and its core principles deserve support across partisan, regional, and ideological lines. I am confident that this support will be found, but the work of reform is not yet complete.

Whom you are calling "conservative"? If you are referring to people who, like yourself, do not promise to finance wasteful projects with money you do not have, then of course many in the Senate qualify for such a title. They would oppose this unfortunate bill if only because it involves the use of general revenues to top up the Highway Trust Fund, thus conflicting with the "user pays" principle which has been traditional in the US for financing infrastructure.

Those of us (like myself) who cannot afford to finance favorite projects, seek money from other quarters. The Senate bill fails this test also. While lacking the funds to finance the transport projects senators deem necessary, it actually penalizes private investment in roads. Does one have to be "conservative" to encourage the private provision of public roads?

The issue is surely not just "general anxiety about federal investment", as much as unwillingness to raise the fuel taxes dedicated to highway funding. Is that a “conservative” issue?

If the Senate is unable to require road users to top-up the federal Highway Trust Fund, should it not return transport funding to the states, who cannot run deficits and who would increase transport expenditures to the extent required by their voting travelers?

US senators are hard-working public servants notoriously short of time. That thirty of them supported the DeMint amendment — to ease the role of the states in highway financing — suggests that the idea of “turning back” to the states this bothersome hot potato is gaining traction.