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The Environment and Public Works Committee just released an outline of some core principles of its transportation reauthorization bill. In a statement, the top Republicans and Democrats of both the full committee and the Transportation Subcommittee – Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), James Inhofe (R-OK), Max Baucus (D-MT) and David Vitter (R-LA) – said:

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.”

According to Congressional insiders, members of the Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works are meeting today and tomorrow to hash out the details of their proposal for a multi-year transportation reauthorization bill. Hanging in the balance of these negotiations may be the federal government’s only programs dedicated to funding infrastructure for biking and walking.

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.”

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.”

Read more…

Sixty-five elected officials representing a number of California cities are urging California Senator Barbara Boxer to push a new federal transportation bill that reforms spending and puts a focus on public transit, walking and biking, or “21st century needs.” Boxer, as chair of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, could play a key role in the long-term re-authorization of the federal surface transportation act.

“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?

Read more…

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.

Read more…

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."

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President Obama did triple duty last night for the re-election campaign of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), visiting three fundraisers to send a stark message about polls that show the environment committee chair holding a single-digit lead against her GOP challengers despite a formidable cash advantage.

In remarks from one appearance that were released by the White House, Obama touted Boxer's "work to pursue a clean energy future" by helping to craft a climate change bill in the upper chamber -- albeit one that was effectively supplanted by a non-cap-and-trade measure crafted by three other senators.

"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?

Read more...

Representatives from Washington’s road and transit lobbies joined
Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) today to
call for swift passage of job-creation legislation that is slated for a
vote in the upper chamber of Congress on Monday.

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.

As transportation reformers continue to wait for the Senate to join the House in offering a new federal transportation bill, Senate environment committee chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will hold a town hall meeting at the headquarters of L.A.'s Metro transit authority on Friday, February 19. 

The draft agenda for the day, available via the announcement on The Source, can be found here. 

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.

As the Copenhagen climate talks reach a turning point,
congressional negotiations over emissions cuts are taking a back seat
to global debate. But some undeniably good news on the domestic front
came late yesterday from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office
(CBO).

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.