May 2012 Archives

At what has become her weekly update on the transportation conference committee, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., last week said conferees are making steady progress toward a compromise bill that renews federal surface transportation authority for the first time in roughly three years.

About 80 percent of the Senate bill is "non-controversial," she said. Consolidating programs? They found agreement on that. Strong financing provisions? Everyone's on board. Eliminating earmarks? Got it. Pay-fors? They reached compromise on that, too, Boxer said.

"From what I know, I think they found a very sweet spot, a good way to pay for this that will gain very, very broad support among Republicans," Boxer said in the middle of her 20-minute press conference on Wednesday.

Whatever that "sweet spot" is, the pay-fors in a compromise bill will still most likely closely resemble what's in the current Senate bill, a fact underscored by the Joint Committee on Taxation's Friday release comparing the revenue provisions in the House and Senate bills, showing that, well, the House bill doesn't have any.

But the Senate bill isn't free from controversy. Critics complain it uses offsets over the next decade just to fund a year and a few months. And the Senate bill draws $2 billion in 2012 and another $2 billion in 2013 "out of money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated." There is no dedicated source of funding; it comes from a variety of places.

The Highway Trust Fund is clearly unsustainable, but is this the new normal? Is this simply the future of infrastructure investment? Or is there a politically viable alternative to what amounts to Congress searching the couch cushions for funding whenever transportation authority comes up for renewal? Is a dedicated fund still necessary? If so, what could it look like?

3 responses: Gabriel Roth, Phineas Baxandall, Ken Orski

The transportation community in the states should want the federal government to be fired. Over the next few weeks, they are waiting for negotiators in Congress to pass a highway bill. If lawmakers are successful (and there is no guarantee of that), a few much-needed updates to the transportation program would be in place. But then it will only be 18 months, at most, until policymakers have to address again a handful of percolating problems like shoring up the highway trust fund for the long term. If the chambers can't reach agreement, that likely means a shorter extension of current highway authority. Cuts are possible.

This scenario does not offer a ringing endorsement of the federal government as transportation caretaker. The inability of Congress and the White House to articulate and carry out a federal infrastructure policy could give credence to arguments from the right that the states would do a better job of regulating and funding their own transportation. But then Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., colorfully points out the very real problem with that idea--the highway to nowhere. DeFazio has a poster of a Kansas turnpike in 1956 that ends in a farmer's field in Oklahoma. "Devolution, baby! That's where we're headed," he said when showing it off in the Capitol in March.

What if the transportation didn't have to wait around for Congress and the White House to make a move? Are there examples of states or regions taking initiative where the federal government is failing? What stands in the way of states or localities acting on their own? Does it make sense to diminish the power of the congressional purse strings if Congress can't do its job? If the federal government is essential to infrastructure, what can be done to make sure it actually can take care of the nation's needs?

5 responses: Ken Orski, James Corless, Emil H. Frankel, Robert Puentes, Gabriel Roth

One of the most carefully negotiated provisions of the Senate highway bill involves "transportation enhancements," a program that provides government funding to help states "expand transportation choices and enhance the transportation experience," according to the Transportation Department. Transportation enhancements are most closely associated with bike paths or pedestrian facilities, but they can also include outdoor advertising management, archaeological planning, or environmental mitigation like cleaning up water from highway runoffs.

Conservatives dislike this program (OK, they hate it) because the projects do not "improve infrastructure condition or meaningfully reduce congestion," according to Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ranking member James Inhofe, R-Okla. By contrast, the transportation enhancement program is important to Democrats like Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who insist that preserving alternative traveling options is a core part of the highway program.

The Senate bill would give states the option to use transportation enhancement money for other activities like saving endangered species or preserving wetlands. Beyond that, the contours of the compromise are so complicated that I frankly can't tell what states would be allowed to do or who came out on top in the negotiations. Suffice it to say that the transportation enhancement funding is still in the bill, but states would be given more options about how to use it if that language remains unchanged in the House/Senate conference committee.

Chances are that this kind of carefully crafted deal won't be unraveled by the negotiators who are trying to hammer out a much larger highway bill before the year runs out. But it isn't law yet, which means everyone who cares about alternative transportation, or about options for states, needs to keep an eye on the talks.

What is the value of the transportation enhancement program, if any? Is it really such a big deal? Are there common misconceptions about it? Is it too simplistic to call it the "bike path" money? Is the Senate compromise on satisfactory? What should we know about it that hasn't already been said? Should the program be eliminated? Should it be strengthened?

1 response: Keith Laughlin

A Democratic compromise on Keystone could pave the way to a highway bill.

The Democrat-run Senate has a transportation bill it's happy with--and which has a chance in the Republican-led House. Meanwhile, House GOP leadership is pushing hard on a provision that would automatically approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Yes, the pipeline failed in a straight up-or-down Senate vote, but language forcing the president to make a decision on it passed in December when it was attached to the politically hot payroll-tax extension. Could that be all it takes?

A Keystone provision, or a modified version of it, attached to the Senate transportation bill gives almost everyone cover: House Republicans can claim they got the pipeline attached to an acceptable reauthorization (which, they can point out, garnered bipartisan support in the Senate), while Senate Democrats can say they fought long and hard, but had to make the politically tough decision to allow Keystone in the interest of preventing further transportation-related job losses.

The biggest loser is the President, who is outspoken on Keystone and has threatened a veto of the bill with the pipeline provisions. But an early resolution to Keystone offers one upside: it eliminates a major talking point for House Speaker John Boehner. Besides, if the president finds himself holding the Senate reauthorization with a Keystone provision, can he really afford a veto? Environmentalists will be no doubt be upset, but what are they going to do? Vote for Mitt Romney? At worst, they will be less engaged this cycle.

What do you say experts? Does Keystone plus Senate bill equal reauthorization?