Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has relented on his push to strip Transportation Enhancement funding from the six-month surface transportation extension, clearing the way for Senate passage last night and a White House signature today.

Sen. Barbara Boxer says dedicated funding for bike/ped projects is preserved, though Sen. Coburn appears satisfied that Transportation Enhancements is dead. Photo: AP

In exchange for releasing his stranglehold on the Senate (and the estimated 80,000 workers that could lose their jobs, at least temporarily, if the FAA bill lapsed) Coburn will get to insert his language into the long-term bill, when this latest extension expires.

According to CQ Today, Coburn said, “We’ve got an agreement that the next bill will be an opt-out for people on enhancements.” James Inhofe, the top Republican on the EPW committee which wrote the bill, “seems to have played a key role in brokering the deal,” CQ Today reports.

After the vote, Boxer quibbled with Coburn’s description of what will be in the next highway bill. Boxer said she and Inhofe had worked out “reforms” in the transportation enhancements section of the bill and met with Coburn to discuss them before the deal was worked out.

“We felt he would be pleased with the reforms,” she said. “It gives flexibility, without doing damage to the important programs in there.”

Boxer said Coburn made clear that he was “not going to vote for any more extensions” but allowed the current highway funding extension to move forward. “There’s not an opt-out,” she said. “You’ll see what we did. But no, there’s no opt-out. . . . There’s still dedicated funding. It gives more flexibility to the states as to how they will use that funding… It’s flexibility for the states within the transportation enhancements program.”

Clearly, Boxer is in a tight spot, having to placate some of the most conservative members of the Senate while also satisfying the active transportation advocates, in her state and around the country, who have held her feet to the fire on saving dedicated funds for bike/ped programs.

Sen. Coburn’s staff, meanwhile, is alarmed by Boxer’s comments. With the Senate out of session for the week, Coburn is back in Oklahoma and his aides are conferring with him. “Senator Boxer made an agreement with him to include the opt-out provision,” one staffer told Streetsblog. “The fact that she went on the record saying something that is in opposition to their agreement is concerning.”

Streetsblog could not reach the EPW Committee for comment before this story was posted, but we’ll update it if we hear more about exactly what was decided. It may just be a shuffling around of programs, with the essentials of bike/ped dedicated funding maintained, just in a different form.

Coburn was under intense pressure from senators on both sides of the aisle yesterday who wanted to avoid a weekend session, as well as the partial shutdown of the aviation system and the furlough of thousands of workers.

State DOTs and the transportation construction industry have been urging Congress for two years now to pass a long-term bill to restore some certainty to the business. They say the constant extensions create a chilling effect on new projects. Still, given the looming possibility of no extension at all, they are welcoming the six-month extension at current funding levels.

Voting against the extension last night were some of the most conservative members of the Senate. In addition to Sen. Coburn, Jim DeMint (R-SC), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Pat Toomey (R-PA).

“Where was your outrage when we were building roads and bridges in Iraq and Afghanistan?” she demanded.

She challenged Republicans to debate her and explain themselves. “They may defend why they allowed projects to go through abroad but not here,” she said. “They may say why they want to cut safety programs from the highway bill that will save lives.”

Then she launched into a defense of Transportation Enhancements.

That Transportation Enhancements program that they want to do away with was a bipartisan idea that came from Republican John Chafee and Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1991… Twenty years, we’ve had that program! Can we look at it, can we reform it, can we make it work better? Of course! But one of our Republican friends said, “Just cut it and you don’t even need a vote; just take it without a vote.”

No. If we’re going to vote on that, we’re going to fight about it and have a vote. But let’s have a vote!

She also expressed her outrage that a bipartisan extension bill, sent over from the House, can’t get to a vote in the Senate. Indeed, it’s looking like the Senate will miss tomorrow’s deadline for an FAA extension, which is now rolled together with the surface transportation extension.

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.

Sen. James Inhofe still wants to kill bike/ped funding — but later. Photo: TPM/wdcpix

And yesterday, as frazzled Senators rushed around the Capitol during their first day of legislative work after the August recess, the reality began to set in that the clock is ticking to pass an extension before the surface transportation programs expire on September 30.

In addition to passing the extension this morning, Boxer’s committee has also been crafting a two-year, $109 billion reauthorization that would keep spending at current levels.

Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, the ranking member on the committee, voted for the clean four-month extension, saying it will buy the time needed to craft the two-year bill. He says he won’t support Sen. Tom Coburn’s push to kill transportation enhancement funding, which includes bicycle and pedestrian projects – for now. But when it comes to the two-year bill, Inhofe would like to say goodbye to all bike/ped projects.

“I’m all for totally cutting the transportation enhancement funding,” he said in an interview with Streetsblog. “I’ve talked to Senator Boxer about it and I think we can come up with something where we do away with those enhancements.”

Boxer has pledged to maintain dedicated funding for bicycle and pedestrian programs in the bill.

Inhofe did acknowledge, however, that TE comprises “less than 2 percent [of the transportation program], instead of the 10 percent that some people think it is.” (Coburn is one of those people.)

State-by-state impact from shutdown of federal highway and transit programs. Source: Senate EPW Committee.

Two key Democratic senators today released state-by-state numbers showing how many jobs would be lost if the current surface transportation authorization bill is not extended by September 30. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), chair of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, sent a letter to their Senate colleagues urging them to act and highlighting the job loss numbers for their state.

Across the country, they say, 1.8 million jobs will be threatened nationwide if the SAFETEA-LU transportation law is allowed to lapse. They say they are working on “a bipartisan proposal to reauthorize surface transportation programs for two years at current funding levels” but they need an extension in the meantime “to allow time to complete work on this legislation.”

Boxer’s home state of California stands to lose the most in case of a lapse: More than $4.6 billion and nearly 165,000 jobs are at stake. But that doesn’t mean that rural, low-population states like Johnson’s South Dakota are unaffected. According to Robert Puentes at the Brookings Institution, South Dakota is one of 11 states that rely on the federal government for more than half of their road money. That could give Republican senators from states like Wyoming, Alaska, and Alabama pause before letting the federal transportation program founder.

You can see the state job numbers here.

A full bike rack outside the Senate building where today's EPW hearing was held. Photo: Tanya Snyder.

You’ve worked with us on Safe Routes to Schools, because that’s so crucial, and we kept it, and bike paths, and we kept it, and recreational trails, and we kept it. Tough debates, giving here, taking there. But that has remained in the bill.

The reauthorization negotiations have been largely overshadowed by the ongoing talks over the debt ceiling. For a long time it appeared that if the debt talks had any impact on the transportation program, it would be to institutionalize the 33 percent cuts mandated by House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan’s budget. However, as Boxer mentioned a few times during today’s hearing, the outlook is looking brighter.

The bipartisan Gang of Six has a plan to cut the deficit and raise the debt ceiling. That plan calls for very little spending – but the one area they did see fit to spend on was infrastructure. The Gang of Six plan calls for the following:

Tax reform must be estimated to provide $1 trillion in additional revenue to meet plan targets and generate an additional $133 billion by 2021, without raising the federal gas tax, to ensure improved solvency for the Highway Trust Fund.

According to our sources, that additional revenue would stabilize the trust fund for the next 10 years.

The vote of confidence by the Gang of Six is encouraging and should be a shot in the arm to the Senate. If that debt plan passes, it could even give House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica enough political cover to raise the total price tag of his bill.

EPW was able to get bipartisan buy-in, even from one of the most conservative Republicans in the Senate, James Inhofe (R-OK). Despite his conservatism on nearly every issue, though, Inhofe says he’s a “big spender” when it comes to two things: national defense and infrastructure.

Many senators mentioned the oft-repeated number $2.2 trillion: the amount the U.S. would have to spend over the next five years just to get the nation’s infrastructure to “passable” condition, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. That’s eight times more than the Senate bill foresees.

Still, the Senate bill remains larger than the House bill and for a shorter duration, and it remains to be seen how the two chambers will reconcile their competing visions. Terry O’Sullivan of the Laborers’ union said the House proposal “locks in failure for six years” and “gives up on America.”

O’Sullivan and nearly everyone else who spoke mentioned the massive job loss that would be caused by the low funding levels in the House bill – 630,000 jobs, according to Sen. Boxer. “We’re inviting unemployment,” she said.

Boxer said she’d visited a job re-training program that was teaching people to become chefs. Several of the participations had been construction workers who had “given up” on finding work in their field, she said.

Boxer pleaded with transportation advocates to keep contacting their senators – including her – to encourage them to move the reauthorization bill.

“We need the people to communicate with those on the Finance Committee on both sides of the aisle, and this committee, that you really need us to do this,” she said. “A lot of you said it took courage for us to come together. We need to have you in the background, with a loud voice.”

She said she felt that the public support was behind her in going forward with the bill, but advocates need to keep it up, especially with the Finance Committee which is still searching for $12 billion to close the funding gap. “They have to feel that this is a priority,” Boxer said. “If they don’t sense that America wants this, it’s going to be very difficult.”

Sen. Max Baucus, who chairs the Finance Committee and also leads the EPW Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said he’s “fairly confident” and “optimistic” that they’ll find the money.

Baucus was the first lawmaker to publicly call for a two-year bill, but at the hearing admitted it wasn’t ideal. “Chairman Boxer held out for six-year bill as long as possible,” he said. “But the issue is funding.”

At the end of the hearing, Boxer expressed frustration that President Obama hasn’t been more present in these negotiations – except for his recent mentions of an infrastructure bank. “We have to convince the administration to please weigh in, now,” she said. “Yes, we want an infrastructure bank; we love it, it’s great, but it’s not the core program.”

Deron Lovaas of NRDC said the administration has been “AWOL.” He said he’s disappointed the only administration bill that’s been made public was a leaked, “pre-final” version that had major sections that don’t reflect actual administration positions. He said President George W. Bush released an administration draft.

“The previous administration actually did a better job of managing their approach to this bill than the current administration,” Lovaas said, “which is disappointing, given how much skill Sec. LaHood and his team have.”

Boxer reiterated her desire to get the bill out of committee before the Senate leaves for August recess.

One of Chicago's celebrated new bicycling facilities, the Kinzie Street protected bike lane. Will any federal support for bike/ped projects remain after the next transpo bill passes? Photo: Josh Koonce/flickr

The outline confirms that the Senate is working on a two-year bill but does not include the dollar amount. “Consolidation” is the name of the game these days and the Senate plays along, making seven core surface transportation programs into five, including a new Transportation Mobility Program, which “sub-allocates” some funds to metropolitan areas, and a National Freight Program, which proponents of multi-modalism have long pushed for.

It preserves the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program, which has funded some bike and pedestrian projects. Transportation Enhancements, another major way such projects are funded, will probably now be absorbed under CMAQ. It’s unclear whether the Recreational Trails program would move to CMAQ as well. But there are no explicit guarantees to actually set aside funds for these bike-ped programs, and how funding levels will shake out in the final analysis is anybody’s guess.

Like the House, the Senate bill offers states “the flexibility to fund these activities as they see fit” – which amounts to a revocation of the federal commitment to funding this work. Many states, absent a federal mandate, will spend virtually nothing on bike/ped infrastructure.

Bicycling advocates had asked for dedicated funding that doesn’t pit them against road projects, the same funding proportion as they had in SAFETEA-LU, and changes to Safe Routes to School. None of those features appear to be in this bill.

“It’s hard to know without seeing the details, but at first blush it doesn’t look good for bike and pedestrian issues,” said Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists. “Perhaps it’s to be expected that there’s nothing upfront in the language about protecting dedicated funding, given that it was a topic of some contention among the protagonists. But it’s pretty troubling to see no reference to any of the issues that affect cyclists and pedestrians – nothing about complete streets, nothing about dedicated funding.”

The Senate bill expands and modifies the TIFIA loan program, as does the House bill, and does not mention an infrastructure bank. Boxer indicated in the fall that she was more friendly to an expansion of TIFIA than to a new entity, though more recently she has said that she supported the inclusion of an infrastructure bank in the bill.

On performance outcomes, the outline says:

MAP-21 focuses the highway program on key outcomes, such as reducing fatalities, improving bridges, fixing roads, and reducing congestion, in order to ensure that taxpayers are receiving the most for their money. States will set their own targets for improving safety, road and bridge condition, congestion, and freight movement.

Probably one of the greatest disappointments in the bill – or at least this outline – is the omission of emissions reductions as one of those performance goals. To set that as a national priority would elevate the importance of transit and active transportation programs. The emphasis here rests squarely with roads.

“Improving bridges” and “fixing roads” don’t really sound like performance outcomes, and bicycling advocates fear that, while safety is an essential goal, the fact that there are about 60 times more car fatalities per year than bike fatalities will translate into a far greater focus on car safety than bicycle safety.

By contrast, the Bipartisan Policy Center has suggested setting national transportation goals such as economic growth, metropolitan accessibility, energy security and environmental protection.

The bill does seek to improve state and metro planning processes “to incorporate a more comprehensive performance-based approach to decision making.”

The Banking Committee has not yet inserted its transit language, nor has the Commerce Committee come forward with its rail language, so this outline doesn’t say anything about those elements.

We understand that the full bill has not even been circulated to Democratic committee members yet, indicating that, despite the false hopes of last week, a formal bill introduction is not yet on the horizon. The committee is holding a hearing this Thursday on “issues” for the reauthorization – a very general topic that would indicate that committee members are still gathering input, not debating an actual bill.

Sen. Barbara Boxer tells reporters nearly 500,000 construction jobs would be lost if the House cuts transportation funding. Photo: Alice Ollstein

Though she had initially pushed for a six-year bill, Boxer made it official that the EPW proposal is for a two-year bill that will only cover current funding levels plus inflation—about $109 billion over the two years. She said the Finance Committee is “very optimistic” that it can find the needed $6 billion per year in addition to the Highway Trust Fund revenues. There are “various ways to get there,” she said, but her preferred method is to redirect funds from the expensive wars abroad.

“We are now spending $12 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan,” she said. “We need $12 billion over two years. We are winding down those wars. It seems to me there’s a lot of funding available for this. It’s a very small amount compared to what we’re spending every month.”

At today’s press conference, Boxer focused mostly on the urgency of saving 500,000 construction sector jobs and 100,000 transit jobs, citing new Federal Highway Administration stats about the ramifications if Congress passes Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget, with its 30 percent cuts to transportation. Boxer’s aides pulled out charts detailing just how many jobs would be lost in each state, and Boxer pointed to the over 43,000 that her home state of California would shed.

“People just think you can say, ‘Oh, we’re going to cut 30 percent or 20 percent or 50 percent’ and they don’t really look at the ramifications,” she said. “Here are the ramifications: In my home state, 43,000 families would be devastated. And the nation’s bridges and highways are not going to be in any way considered safe, because with that tremendous cut we can’t do the things we need to do to keep up with our needs.”

As we reported recently, some criticize Boxer’s jobs-centric approach, since jobs are just a small part of the bill’s long-term boost to the economy, but jobs and unemployment are still the hot-button issues of the day, and clearly Boxer thinks it’s a winning issue.

As for the parts of the bill that the “Big Four” on the EPW Committee still need to iron out, Boxer wouldn’t give details, but said, “I think we’re getting extremely close. I don’t see any major disagreements at all.” She declined to comment on either an Infrastructure Bank or guaranteed federal funding for bike/ped projects, but confirmed that there will be no earmarks allowed.

“This is a very strong priority for the nation—you can’t be a great economic power without investing in infrastructure,” she said.

Rep. John Mica (R-FL), chair of the House Transportation Committee, will unveil his bill tomorrow, but whether it will get marked up – or even formally introduced — before the August recess is still up in the air. Boxer says her bill will be marked up “in a couple of weeks.”

Mica is "rolling out" a bill tomorrow -- but when will he actually introduce it? Photo: AltTransport

Tomorrow, House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) is “rolling out” the House version of the bill – but only an outline. It’s unclear when he’s going to formally introduce the bill. Jeff Davis of Transportation Weekly says it “does not appear that the text of the draft bill will be released at or shortly after the Thursday press conference, or will even be released this week.”

Davis goes on:

If the legislative text of Mica’s bill is not released this week, then that will make it almost impossible for Mica to go ahead and have the full T&I Committee mark up his bill on Tuesday, July 12, as he had earlier promised. Although it is theoretically possible for Mica to release the text of the bill on Monday and then mark the bill up on Tuesday (Rule III(a) of the T&I rules of procedure only require a 24-hour public availability of any legislation before a markup), it is unlikely that rank-and-file Republican members would be comfortable voting on a lengthy bill spending hundreds of billions of dollars on such short notice. (And Democrats are unlikely to support the bill at all, meaning that only four or five GOP “no” votes would sink the bill.)

The path forward for the bill is unclear, since House leadership is still not planning to bring the bill to a vote on the floor before the August recess, and the word on the street is that they’re actively asking Mica to hold off on sending a bill to the full Congress.

Meanwhile, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) about to begin a press conference about the need to pass a bill. Is she getting frustrated, too, by all these delays? We’ll bring you coverage of her remarks shortly.

Barbara Boxer said dedicated bicycle and pedestrian funding will still have a place in the federal transportation bill. Photo: Planetizen

Rather than holding funding at SAFETEA-LU levels, as we previously reported and as the EPW statement indicated, the committee is planning a $339.2 billion bill – current spending plus inflation, plus an expanded TIFIA loan program. That’s $56.5 billion a year. Boxer said the Senate bill would guarantee funding for bicycle and pedestrian programs, which had been in doubt.

TIFIA is currently funded at $110 million a year but demand has far outstripped the availability of loans. Boxer’s committee is proposing to increase that funding nine-fold, to $1 billion a year. She says that amount could leverage $30 billion a year in private investment. They also plan to increase the maximum federal share from 33 percent to 49 percent, with even more favorable terms for rural areas. The TIFIA program will keep its name but be folded into a new, larger program called America Fast Forward.

She’s still leaving open the option of an infrastructure bank, which she says she supports, but she’s always prioritized an expanded TIFIA program over an I-bank, mostly because she believes a program that already exists makes more sense than a brand new one.

Boxer said that including the $30 billion she hopes TIFIA will be able to leverage each year brings the bill over $500 billion – close to the administration figure. (Of course, the administration had leveraging mechanisms in its bill as well, notably the infrastructure bank, and didn’t include the private investment “leveraged” by those entities in its final number.)

She said her committee told the administration, “If you can show us the money, we’re happy to look at it,” but that “right now there isn’t any, so we’re going with what we think we can get through the United States Senate.”

Rep. John Mica, chair of the House Transportation Committee, has “different pressures,” Boxer said, including a House that has voted to use transportation funds for other purposes, but she added that they’re working closely together on the bill.

Boxer is “hoping for a six-year bill” but acknowledged that “we may not wind up with a six-year bill.” Still, she said that while a two-year option was very much “in the mix,” the committee wants the policy changes they make to take effect for six years. According to Boxer’s staff, if they pass this bill as a six-year bill, there will be a $12 billion shortfall every year as compared to Highway Trust Fund revenues. As a two-year bill, there’s a $6 billion annual shortfall. The committee is open to general fund transfers to fill that gap. The bill could also be three, four, or five years, of course, though those options are rarely mentioned.

Advocates for bicycle and pedestrian projects have been nervous about talk of “consolidating wasteful programs,” as Republicans on the committee have long let it be known that they consider bike/ped projects to be “wasteful.” Boxer made it clear that she disagrees (though she does agree that other “enhancements” like museums don’t belong in the transportation bill). “Certainly any mode of transportation – roads that support alternatives such as bike paths, walkways – will be included and get good attention,” she said, adding that they plan to continue to guarantee federal funds for these programs, not just leave it up to the states (though that part is not yet finalized).

She reiterated her support for indexing the gas tax to inflation but quickly discarded it as a non-starter – and besides, the question of how to pay for the bill is the jurisdiction of the Finance Committee, which will be looking for ways to make it viable. The chair of the Finance Committee, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) is one of the “Big Four” of the EPW Committee who has agreed to the current principles, so that’s a good start.

“We’re ready to rock and roll,” said Boxer. The committee plans to start hearings on the final draft of the bill in two weeks and mark it up before the July 4 recess, meaning they would finalize the bill and send it to the full Senate for approval. She said Majority Leader Harry Reid is “elated” that the four major committee members have found bipartisan agreement on such substantial elements of the bill, which staff members say is already 150 pages long (though not in standard legislative formatting).

The Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over transit, and Commerce, with control over rail, haven’t written their pieces of the bill yet. So far, we expect the highway/transit split to remain 80 percent/20 percent. Expect the debate over high-speed rail in the Commerce Committee to be intense.

Sen. Barbara Boxer indicates the Senate transportation bill will hold spending to current levels, hints it will be a short-term bill. Photo: Bumpshack

It is no secret that the four of us represent very different political views, but we have found common ground in the belief that building highways, bridges, and transportation systems is an important responsibility of the federal government, in cooperation with state and local governments and the private sector.

They say their bill, called Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21):

• Funds programs at current levels to maintain and modernize our critical transportation infrastructure;
• Eliminates earmarks;
• Consolidates numerous programs to focus resources on key national goals and reduce duplicative and wasteful programs;
• Consolidates numerous programs into a more focused freight program that will improve the movement of goods;
• Creates a new section called America Fast Forward, which strengthens the TIFIA program to stretch federal dollars further than they have been stretched before; and
• Expedites project delivery without sacrificing the environment or the rights of people to be heard.

Nothing about an infrastructure bank, which is likely still a major sticking point. We’ll also be interested in hearing more about their decisions about transportation enhancements – those “beautification” projects the Republicans love to rail against, also known as bike and pedestrian infrastructure. We also wonder how much EPW has worked with the Banking and Commerce Committees so far to work out the language on transit and rail.

The joint statement indicates that Boxer may be softening her insistence on a six-year bill. They specifically say, “Our goal is to attain the optimum achievable authorization length depending on the resources available.” Sounds like a two-year bill to me, if they’re shooting to maintain current funding levels. And we already know that sounds like a two-year bill to Max Baucus, chair of EPW’s Transportation Subcommittee and head of the Finance Committee, which the four senators say they’re collaborating with to explore options for the solvency of the Highway Trust Fund without increasing the deficit – i.e., without transfers from the general fund.

We’re still not expecting to see a completed bill for a little while… the initial Memorial Day target has been pushed back to “sometime in June.”

Bike and pedestrian advocates are urging supporters to contact Senator Barbara Boxer today to tell her to retain dedicated funding for active transportation in the Senate transportation bill. Photo: CNN Politics

Advocates are rallying supporters to contact Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-California), and urge her and other senators to retain federal funding for bike and pedestrian programs.

Jeffrey Miller, president of the Alliance for Biking and Walking, says this marks an urgent opportunity to preserve funding for those important programs. “Senator Boxer is frankly our last hope,” said Miller. “If we don’t act now, dedicated funding for biking and walking programs may be written out of our transportation system for the next six years.”

The Senate occupies the key middle ground between the House GOP and the White House. House Transportation Chair John Mica (R-Florida) has indicated his desire to eliminate the federal commitment to bike-ped funding. While the Obama administration has repeatedly signaled its support for bike-ped programs under the banner of livability, if dedicated funding for bike and pedestrian projects isn’t preserved in the Senate version of the bill, there is little hope that they will reemerge in the conference committee process and get into the final bill, Miller said.

Biking and walking advocates are concerned that Boxer, who has generally been supporter, is being pressured to compromise and eliminate the programs, said Miller. Both the Alliance and the League of American Bicyclists are calling on their members to email Boxer, thank her for her past support and urge her to continue federal support for bicycle and pedestrian programs.

“At this very moment, she is negotiating with other senators who don’t think bicycling and walking are an important part of the transportation bill,” said Miller. “She needs to know we have her back on this issue and she shouldn’t give up on these crucial programs.”

“Transportation Enhancements, Safety Routes to School, and Recreational Trails are important programs for transportation, safety, and health that have a huge impact on the funding available for bicycling and walking projects,” said Bike League director Andy Clarke. “It is critical that these programs are included in the Senate draft. Otherwise, it will be nearly impossible to add them later in the process.”

Congress members and and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa take questions from the media. John Mica is at the podium flanked by Villaraigosa and Barbara Boxer. Photo: Darrell Clarke

Goodbye “30/10″ and hello “Fast Forward America.”

Congressman John Mica (R-FL) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) brought their road show to Los Angeles earlier this week to get feedback and elicit testimony on how to improve the federal transportation bill. While Boxer was on her “home turf,” it was Mica who sounded like a local, finding time to complain about traffic, needle Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa about transit connections to LAX, and repeatedly honor Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), who was attending her last public event as a member of Congress.

While there was some talk of the need to better move freight through the Southland, much of the conversation was dominated by ways to expedite project delivery of all sorts. There was no talk of America’s obesity epidemic, rebuilding our cities and communities or even a mention of the words “bicycle” or “pedestrian.” The focus was almost completely on transit and goods movement.

Back in 2008, as soon as Los Angeles County passed a half-cent sales tax dedicated toward expanding its transportation network, the question was asked, “when are we going to start seeing projects on the ground?” Thanks to some innovations from the Move L.A. Coalition and the support of the Los Angeles Mayor’s office, the 30/10 Initiative was born. The plan was to leverage the funds that would be collected over the thirty-year sales tax to build the transit projects within the next ten years. By borrowing the money from the federal government up front, projects would be delivered sooner, taking advantage of today’s low construction costs and creating 160,000 construction jobs when the industry needs it most.

Because the plan would require some changes to federal law, there had always been some discussion of how these changes would help communities outside of Southern California. Today, Mayor Villaraigosa re-branded the 30/10 Initiative as a national initiative focused on putting more construction workers to work on more projects through what he’s calling “America Fast Forward.”

Mica and Boxer share a moment. Jane Harman prays.

America Fast Forward is a program that would leverage the funds created through local sales and gas taxes dedicated for transportation with low interest federal loans to jump start projects that already have “49%” of the project paid for at the local level. The program has received the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, and over 60 Mayors from around the country. In his testimony, Villaraigosa described the changes in federal transportation financing that would make America Fast Forward possible. In particular, he called for the expanson of the Transportation and Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA).

Villraigosa called for nearly tripling the TIFIA Budget to at least $350 million annually. Later in the hearing, Boxer commented that even the $350 million number was low prompting Villaraigosa to say that he would support as high a number as he could get. As well, American Fast Forward calls for:

• Increasing the maximum percentage of the project allotment that TIFIA can fund. Currently, TIFIA will fund up to 80% of a project with no “added points” going towards proposal with a higher local match. Villaraigosa called for at least a 49% local match;
• Permitting the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) to approve multiple related projects at the same time. In Los Angeles County, for example, this could mean loans for the entire suite of Measure R transit projects at once, as opposed to a line-by-line piecemeal approach;
• Allowing USDOT to grant up-front credits to projects and;
• Authorizing USDOT to lock-in interest rates for approved projects.

“This is not an earmark, it is a template,” finished Villaraigosa, who noted throughout his presentation that this model would help the communities that have voted to help themselves.

Don Knabe, the Board Chair for The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (Metro), made the case that federal investment in communities that invest in themselves is a long-overdue idea. “Every time we go to Washington, the feds tell us to come back with a funding source. The voters of this county have voted to tax themselves three times in the last three decades. Yet, we are not awarded for the leadership that this agency has shown nor the leadership our voters have shown.”

Also backing Villaraigosa and Knabe were key representatives of business and labor, respectively, Mr. Joseph A. Czyzyk, Chair of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, and Mr. Robbie Hunter, Council Representative, Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building & Construction Trades Council.

Across the “Orange Curtain” they have a different program to speed up project delivery. Will Kempton, now the Director of the Orange County Transit Authority outlined their program for project expedition, the “Breaking Down Barriers Initiative.” While Kempton promised a written testimony that would cover two dozen suggestions, for today’s hearing he outlined four needs to bring projects to fruition more quickly.

• Extend and expand National Environmental Protection Act delegation to states, allowing those with strong environmental regulation to do their own environmental reviews only once, instead of an additional parallel federal review.
• Streamline the federal funding process.
• Overlap activities that can be overlapped.
• Work with environmental community to streamline permitting.

Of these, expanding the “NEPA Delegation Pilot Program” seems the most promising. Because California’s environmental review law, CEQA, is more stringent than NEPA, California can grant both CEQA and NEPA permits at the same time. Kempton estimated this cuts between 10 and 14 months off the life of a project.

Much of the discussion on freight was about how to move freight more efficiently. Both Knabe and Congress Woman Laura Richardson represent the areas surrounding the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and both were looking for answers on ways to move freight better. Catherine Philips, from the Environmental Defense Fund, congratulated the Ports on their clean air initiatives. However, no panelists offered specific proposals for how to move freight through Los Angeles better. That said, Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Penn.) noted that 40% of goods that arrive through L.A.’s ports end up east of the Mississippi River, so goods movement in Los Angeles should be a national priority.

As touched on earlier, the complete lack of any discussion about urban mobility in the form of creating better communities, creating walkable and bikeable streets and just encouraging options to the automobile was jarring. Los Angeles is in the early stages of a Livable Streets renaissance, with a progressive bike plan and news of the My Figueroa project dominating the local Streetsblog in 2011. The only thing that L.A. needs is a true funding commitment to create sustainable urban communities, but today talk of that commitment was nowhere to be found.

Senator Boxer at the ceremony for LA's Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension. Image: Metro Transportation Library and Archive

“Your efforts are critical for a transportation bill that provides families and individuals with more efficient, affordable, safe, and environmentally sustainable transportation options that decrease our dependency on oil and create healthy communities where people can live, work, and play,” read a letter signed by 17 mayors, including San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and Riverside Mayor Loveridge. Signers also included 48 supervisors and council members from cities across the state.

With Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN) no longer taking the lead on transportation policy in the House, Senator Boxer’s actions in the next session will take on great meaning. Is she willing to provide the leadership needed to move transportation reform forward? With the climate bill dead, will she channel her energy toward reducing emissions through transportation, the nation’s second biggest source of carbon pollution?

Greenwire reported this month about Boxer’s declaration that a long-term transportation reauthorization would be aimed at “reducing congestion,” and that “cutting congestion is another way of cutting pollution.” She’s right, but does she intend to cut congestion in the short term by expanding highways or in the long term by improving transportation alternatives to take cars off the road?

The elected officials who wrote to the Senator this week clearly don’t think the road to the future is paved with asphalt.

“The nation’s transportation program has not been significantly updated since the creation of the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s,” said Mayor Newsom. “With California and the nation facing new and different challenges in the 21st century, a modern approach is needed to ensure that transportation continues to fuel the economy of California and the nation. We need to put people back to work connecting our cities with high-speed rail, efficient and affordable public transportation systems, and building clean freight systems and safe places to walk and bicycle.”

Boxer, who was recently elected to her third term as California’s U.S. Senator, did not respond to a request for comment.

The incoming chair of the House Transportation Committee, Rep. John Mica (R-FL) has said he plans to introduce a new six-year transportation bill in the spring, though there is significant doubt about the likelihood of a six-year bill given the inadequacy of current sources of financing. Earlier this month, the House passed a temporary extension that will expire next October.

EPW Committee Chair Barbara Boxer says "not so fast" on a national infrastructure bank.

California Democrat Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, expressed skepticism about one of the centerpieces of President Obama’s infrastructure plan today. As she tries to stave off an election challenge from the right, Boxer seems reluctant to embrace the creation of a national infrastructure bank to finance transportation projects.

In a committee hearing today, Boxer instead threw her weight behind an existing program created by the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA):

The infrastructure bank has some support in Congress, others oppose it. So the reason I focus on TIFIA is because it’s already there. So, I think the Administration, I hope, will recognize that if something is already in law it may be easier to go with that model. I’m not saying give up on the infrastructure bank…. But TIFIA is there.

Boxer also appeared to take solace in a statement from Senator James Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Environment committee and well-known climate change skeptic. (He was at another hearing and couldn’t attend.) In his statement, Inhofe said TIFIA was one of the forms of “innovative financing I’m most excited about,” adding that “this is a successful program that must be dramatically expanded.”

Unlike TIFIA, the infrastructure bank has generated enthusiasm from transportation reformers, who see it as a potential vehicle to spur investment in walkable development.

The star of the hearing was Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. After his county voted to pay an extra half-cent sales tax to accelerate transit construction, Villaraigosa has become an outspoken advocate of federal financial assistance for local transportation projects, pushing specifically for his plan to accelerate transit investment in L.A. He acknowledged that whenever a jurisdiction asks for federal money for a project, officials will need to answer the question, “If it’s such a good idea, how much of your money are you putting up?”

Villaraigosa aligned with Boxer on the TIFIA vs. infrastructure bank question. When he identified his two-point financing wish-list, it included an expansion and modification of TIFIA and a new category of subsidized infrastructure bonds. He told Boxer, “As you said, while the infrastructure bank may be a good idea, these programs currently exist; they can be expanded in a way to move projects now.”

Boxer also found a willing partner in Roy Kienitz, the Under Secretary for Policy at DOT. She asked him if DOT would work with the committee to “reform TIFIA in such a way that it rewards those counties, cities, states that are willing” to help bear the funding burden themselves. His answer: “In a word, yes, we’re absolutely willing to do that.”

More on Kienitz’s statements in the next post.

Senator Barbara Boxer, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, US DOT Secretary Ray Lahood, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Transbay Joint Powers Authority Board Chairman and SFMTA CEO Nat Ford at the Transbay Transit Center groundbreaking. Photos: Matthew Roth.

Though most of the California political class celebrated the groundbreaking of the new Transbay Transit Center with U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood in San Francisco yesterday, significant questions remain for funding a national high-speed rail network through the federal transportation act.

The event swarmed with Secret Service and various other branches of law enforcement keeping an eye on a crowd that, as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom joked with LaHood, was mostly made up of consultants on the Transbay project.

LaHood cracked wise several times at Newsom's expense, repeating more comments Newsom made before the press conference to the public and the media and suggesting Californian's should vote him in as Lt. Governor on his humor alone.

When he stopped ribbing Newsom, LaHood gushed about how far "ahead of the curve" California is on high-speed rail. LaHood said U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) had cast "courageous votes" that made the stimulus bill possible, which meant a $48 billion infusion for the US DOT or nearly two-thirds his annual budget. From the $8 billion President Barack Obama added for high-speed rail nationally, California received $2.3 billion, $400 million of that for the Transbay Transit Center.

"People who come back from Europe or Asia and have ridden high-speed rail, like many of you have, come back to America and ask why we don't have high-speed rail in America? Because we've never made the investment, that's why," said LaHood. "This year we had 8 billion times more money for high-speed rail given President Obama's vision to connect America with high-speed, inter-city rail."

LaHood also pointed to California's competitive advantage in federal money for high speed rail because the state has "its act together and you want high-speed rail, you've been working on it for a decade."

"The people deserve a lot of credit, to go to the polls, and to cast votes to raise taxes in order to develop the kind of infrastructure for high-speed rail, the people deserve a lot of credit."

While ribbon cutting on such a monumental project made for good photos and sound bites, long-term funding for high-speed rail nationally and in California is not a sure thing. Despite the $8 billion last year and another $2.5 billion this year, the U.S. lags far behind China, which is investing nearly $300 billion over the next decade on its high-speed rail network. What's more, states sought seven times more funding for rail than the stimulus gave out and demand is only growing.

When asked if the Senate will take up the re-authorization of the national transportation act, Senator Boxer told Streetsblog after the Transbay event she hoped to have a bill out of her Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and to the Senate floor this year. "I think we have a very good chance but I can't say for sure," she said.

When asked if her bill would mirror House Transportation Committee Chair James Oberstar's (D-MN) commitment to increase transit funding, Boxer said, "I would hope so. I would hope we will be able to do that."

When asked whether she thought she could convince Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), the ranking minority leader on her committee and an opponent of linking climate and transportation policies, to support money for high-speed rail or at least stay out of her way, she said, "I don't know how he feels on high-speed rail," but that it was "not necessarily a problem."

Senator Boxer elaborating on the climate and transportation bills.

Boxer also noted that with a comprehensive energy bill unlikely in the near term, she and her colleagues were looking for numerous other options to "put a price on carbon," whether by making sure the Environmental Protection Agency was vigilant in regulating carbon emissions or by supporting states' efforts to limit climate change, such as the Western Climate Initiative.

"If we can't convince our colleagues that this is serious, we're going to do absolutely everything we can absent comprehensive legislation," she said.

While the federal agenda was important to her, Boxer indicated she was concerned with a local battle now brewing: California's Proposition 23, which would suspend the landmark AB 32 climate change law. "The other thing I have to do is just make sure California can move forward and that there's no preemption of what we're doing. Right now I'm fighting to defeat Prop 23, which would be a disaster," she said.

Given recent polling that shows Boxer losing ground to her Republican Senate challenger, Carly Fiorina, transportation advocates nationally should be concerned. If she were to lose her seat to Fiorina and the EPW committee were to be shaken up, a transportation act with significant funding for transit and high-speed rail would be more precarious.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), at left, with the president last night. (Photo: AP/CBS)

"California has been a leader in promoting hybrids and cleaner burning fuels," Obama told the crowd, "and appropriately, you have in Barbara Boxer a subcompact senator with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy."

But that energy may not be enough to propel Boxer to victory without a tangible win to tout for recession-weary Californians, as E&E News reported this morning. From its subscription-only writeup of the Obama-Boxer fundraising swing:

Shaun Bowler, a professor at University of California, Riverside, said Boxer has three factors to blame for the uphill fight: an anti-incumbent mood throughout the country; Attorney General Jerry Brown's (D) lackluster campaign for governor; and Obama's sagging approval ratings. ...

To Bowler, Boxer needs to show evidence of a major victory before the fall, but he is unconvinced that a climate bill would resonate with voters.

Cue Antonio Villaraigosa?

The Los Angeles mayor has credited Boxer with bringing federal funding and momentum to L.A.'s transit system, and his push for expediting more than a dozen new projects under the "30/10" umbrella has given Boxer a new opening for transportation policymaking as the fate of a long-term federal infrastructure bill remains uncertain at best.

Even Republican lawmakers such as Rep. John Mica (FL), the senior minority member of the House transport panel, have indicated their willingness to work out a federal financing package for L.A. transit, perhaps through a combination of loans and grants. If Boxer can help hammer out that 30/10 deal despite the mired state of Congress' six-year infrastructure measure, she would have a job-creating achievement to tout on the trail this fall.

Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) (Photo: AP)

Faced with the prospects of a GOP filibuster, Senate Democrats have taken up a pared-down jobs bill that features
a $20 billion rescue of the nation’s cash-strapped highway trust fund
and an expansion of Build America Bonds, a popular infrastructure
financing program.

"Ensuring these are included in the very first jobs
package is so essential," Boxer told reporters today. "We just don’t have time to wait for an extension of the highway
trust fund."

That fund, which provides money for
bicycle and pedestrian projects as well as roads, is operating under a
stopgap re-upping of the 2005 federal transportation law that is set to
expire at the end of the month. Without a $20 billion transfer to keep
the fund in the black until 2011, Boxer said, its coffers would run dry
sometime in the summer.

John Horsley, executive director of
the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
(AASHTO), and William Millar, chief of the American Public
Transportation Association (APTA), joined Boxer in touting the need for
a highway trust fund extension — which would effectively postpone
debate on a new long-term federal transport bill until after the 2010
midterm elections, dealing a blow to House efforts to spur action this year.

"Failing
an extension of the authorization bill," Millar said, transit agencies
"would not be able to invest the money" Congress already has
appropriated for his sector.

Despite support from road and
transit interests, as well as bipartisan agreement on the need to keep
the highway trust fund solvent, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
(D-NV) is far from assured
of winning 60 votes for his first jobs bill. If the initial measure can
squeak through next week, Boxer said senators could soon take up a
second jobs bill that includes more infrastructure spending –
potentially in line with the House’s $37.3 billion in new investment.

Boxer and LaHood get on the same page. (Photo: AP)

If this sounds familiar, it's because Boxer held a similar forum downtown back in September 2008, where various officials from around Los Angeles, ranging from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and then-Metro CEO Roger Snoble, testified about their priorities for a long-term federal transportation bill.

The hours and hours of testimony can be described in two terms: "new starts" and "ports."  There was no mention of words such as "bicycle," "pedestrian," or even "smart growth."

The key to whether this new town hall will provide a chance to discuss what various transportation stakeholders need and desire in a transportation reauthorization bill will be up to Boxer, LaHood and Art Leahy, the new Metro CEO. Last time, non-VIPs had to wait through hours of presentations by elected officials and bureaucrats before any advocates -- or other people that don't collect a government paycheck -- got to take their turn.

If this is really a town hall, then hopefully all of the stakeholders, including commuters that don't have a paid driver, will get a chance to speak.

The Southern California Transit Advocate's Dana Gabbard agrees:

I'm glad to see Senator Barbara Boxer and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood have announced they are reaching out to stakeholders seeking input on the currently stalled federal transportation funding reauthorization bill. Which is all well and good IF the attendees reflect a wide range of stakeholders, not just usual suspects. Heretofore our region hasn't always done as well as it should in that regard. If more a diverse group of people see the process as being connected to their needs and concerns, maybe the chances of some progress [for] passage sooner rather than later would improve. At least the preliminary agenda includes some good concepts for discussion, including livability and safety.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) described the Copenhagen talks this week as a motivator for Senate climate action. (Photo: Getty)

The CBO found that the Senate environment committee’s climate bill, which would nearly triple
the House’s investment in clean transportation, would decrease the
federal deficit by "about $21 billion" during its first 10 years and
result in net spending decreases even after that point.

Environment panel chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) was elated by the CBO’s report [PDF],
which also attached a $16 billion estimate to the bill’s 10-year
funding for transit, land use, bike-ped infrastructure and other green
transport.

Boxer said in a statement:

The CBO score shows that there is a way to design a clean
energy and climate bill that is fiscally responsible and gets the job done
– while protecting the health of our families and the planet.

But unfortunately, the money-saving news may not be enough to save the environment committee’s framework, which sparked a GOP boycott and fears that moderate Democrats from coal-dominant states would ultimately withhold their votes.

Boxer’s
co-sponsor on the climate bill, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), is separately
working with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) on
a compromise climate proposal aimed at winning 60 votes in the upper
chamber of Congress.

That bill is expected to include new
subsidies for nuclear power as well as an emissions cap lower than the
environment panel’s version. Whether it maintains a respectable level
of support for clean transportation remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Boxer’s GOP counterpart on the committee, Sen. Jim Inhofe (OK), stopped in Copenhagen for just two hours today to crow that a U.S. climate bill has "zero" chance of winning congressional passage.