Photo: MPR

He said the history of the committee – and his service to it – has been “the movement of people safely, efficiently, and effectively, for the betterment of the nation.”

He also imparted some final nuggets of wisdom for those who will follow him on the committee:

• Earmarks. Oberstar said a bill “devoid of the 27,000 earmarks like we had in 2006” would be a good thing. “That’s excess,” he said. But, he said, it was too simplistic to shut legislators out of the allocation process. “If you believe that, then the executive branch – at the national or state level – will make all those decisions.” He pointed to his own achievements in making the process more accountable and transparent.
• The reauthorization. He acknowledged that it was a “big hole in the legislative agenda.” He blamed the White House and the Senate for failing to come up with an agreement on a financing mechanism.
• An extension. He said that an answer on the length of the extension of the current authorization could come as early as tomorrow, when the newly elected House and Senate leadership meets. He even threw out the possibility that “if they come to some agreement, we could maybe even be doing a new authorization in the balance of this session. We’d be prepared to do that.” Assuming that won’t happen, however, he spoke strongly against doing short, month-to-month extensions as a forcing mechanism to “hold somebody’s feet to the fire.” He said that was not reasonable. He said if it wasn’t going to be a six-year bill, they should extend it for a year.
• John Mica. Oberstar spoke with fondness of the “close working relationship” he had with his ranking member and the accomplishments they’ve shared. “That’s a record, I submit, of cooperation, conciliation, that is taking the best of Mr. Mica’s ideas, the best of my ideas, what we can sell to our respective caucuses, and putting it together in a bill.” He says he hopes Mica can rebuild those structural relationships in the next Congress.
• The new class. He acknowledged the conservatism of the new freshmen and their inexperience with policy issues. “You’ll see, coming in, a lack of institutional understanding and also, it appears, a lack of willingness to follow seasoned leaders,” he said. He worries that the new members “little appetite or appreciation for the broader policy questions the nation faces on transportation.”
• High speed rail. He cheered Ray LaHood’s decision that states have to “use it or lose it” when it comes to high speed rail dollars. “If the new governor of Wisconsin wants to build highways instead of high speed rail, increase your gas tax in Wisconsin,” he said. “Stop complaining and whining about wanting to build highways with rail dollars. Build highways with highway dollars.”
• A glass of rosé. He spoke at length – and in French! – about his recent experience riding the trains in France. He was impressed that you could travel the distance between Boston and Washington in 2 ½ hours, and that “you could put a glass of rosé on the table and it didn’t flutter. You could write notes and your pen didn’t quaver. It was interesting to come back to a third world country.”
• Gas tax. Financing is the “Gordian knot” of the surface transportation authorization, Oberstar said. He wishes the president would have taken his advice – and that of two national commissions – and increased the gas tax or user fees. “We’d have had a bill; it’d be law; we’d be moving ahead.” Recalling Europe again, he says high gas taxes are paying for a $1.3 trillion, 20 year infrastructure investment program. “We’re just sitting on the sidelines while they’re eating our lunch.”
• The looming highway trust fund crisis. Oberstar rejected the idea of passing a “barebones” reauthorization that didn’t adequately inject more money into the highway trust fund. He said it’s “on course to being $16 billion to $18 billion short of the authorization level” because of raiding to pay for disaster relief. He said states are now drawing down revenues more slowly than during stimulus because they’re now working on longer-term projects with a longer “spend-out time.” By his calculation, the chickens will come home to roost “sometime in July.”
• His successor. He wouldn’t speculate or opine on whether Nick Rahall or Peter DeFazio would – or should – be the next ranking member.
• His plans for the future. “You will not see my name on any lobbying firm,” he pledged. He said he remains committed to working on transportation policy, especially safety, as well as “the new rural view of America and the new urbanism.”

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) (Photo: CNN)

But
one GOP senator, the notoriously irascible Jim Bunning (KY), objected
to the 30-day extension, which also would ensure continued payment of
federal unemployment benefits. When Democrats pleaded with Bunning to
drop his one-man filibuster effort, Politico heard the retiring Kentuckian offer a terse response: "Tough s–t."

If
an extension cannot be passed before the 2005 transportation law
officially expires at midnight on Sunday, the result would be a
quasi-shutdown of operations at U.S. DOT. A source at the agency told
Streetsblog Capitol Hill that all employees of the Federal Highway
Administration, save for its chief, would be sent home and states would
stop getting reimbursed for their spending on all road projects.

The
Federal Transit Administration would see a freeze of its own, the U.S.
DOT source said, with contract authority to fund local projects sitting
in limbo until Congress acts. Perhaps the most untimely delay would
occur at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA),
where regulators are ramping up their oversight efforts after the Toyota recall debacle.

"[I]t is simply unfair for one senator
to attempt to hold the Senate hostage,” Dick Durbin (D-IL), the upper chamber’s No. 2 leader, said last night in a statement.

Where does that leave Democrats? Working furiously to break through Bunning’s roadblock, even as more House members join transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) in raising objections to the Senate jobs bill that would keep existing federal programs intact until 2011.

Oberstar and about two dozen members of his panel take issue with the Senate jobs bill’s treatment of $932 million in grants
that would be spent this year as part of a 10-month extension of
existing transport law. Giving that money to states using the template
of 2009 earmarks — as the Senate jobs bill proposes — would direct
the majority of the money to four states, leaving 22 states with
nothing.

A letter sent earlier this week by 23 members of the
transportation committee asks for the grant money to be given out on a
"discretionary, competitive" basis. However, Oberstar spokesman Jim
Berard said in an interview that the chairman has offered a compromise
that would allocate the funding based on existing federal
transportation formulas.

Berard said that Oberstar would
prefer to see the $932 million allocated competitively to projects
rather than distributed by formula. But he acknowledged the reasoning
behind the Senate’s argument that applying for the funding would not
facilitate quick job creation. "If we’re not going to make it
competitive," Berard said, "at least let’s make it equitable."

At
the moment, the House appears unlikely to act on the jobs legislation
until at least next week, giving Oberstar and his panel more time to
reach agreement with senators — and heightening the drama of Bunning’s
Senate floor show.

Highways and transit, side by side in Berlin. (Photo: Streetsblog.net)

That
question brought House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar
(D-MN) to a small meeting room on Capitol Hill today as conservative
transit advocate Bill Lind engaged assistant transportation secretary Polly Trottenberg, Reconnecting America president John Robert Smith, and urban developer Chris Leinberger in a spirited debate.

Lind focused on the themes of Moving Minds,
a book he co-wrote with the late conservative icon Paul Weyrich to
debunk many of the anti-transit, pro-roads myths trotted out by Randal O’Toole, Wendell Cox, and other pundits on the right.

"The
way we got to America’s national motto being ‘drive or die’ … is not
because of any sort of free market," Lind said today. "We got here
because of massive government subsidization of one competitor and the taxing of another."

But
the dialogue got interesting when Oberstar arrived, a cast on his arm
after taking a spill on a sheet of ice. He shared an anecdote about
former French President Charles de Gaulle’s support for rail before
hitting a familiar note, one best described as respectfully critical of
the Obama administration.

"Political will
– that’s what we’re lacking today and have been lacking for a long
time," Oberstar said, urging fellow policymakers "to reinvest in a
system that moves great numbers of people at the lowest cost."

In
a direct communication to Trottenberg, the White House’s representative
in the room, he added that he stands ready to take up a new federal
transportation bill "whenever this administration can find its
political will to support a financing mechanism."

Trottenberg
took the floor next, acknowledging "frustration" on the part of U.S.
DOT staff as they seek to build political support for the difficult
choices needed to raise revenue for large-scale reform.
Particularly in the Senate, she said, "a lot of members do the math
[and conclude that] ‘it’s valuable for me to fight for every single
dollar to go to highway funds’," regardless of the impact that choice
would have on their constituents’ future or the common good.

But the participants in today’s event appeared to agree that the message in Lind’s book, as well as the national revival
of streetcar projects, would help smooth over the polarization that has
come to characterize American transportation decision-making.

"There’s
a strong rural message in everything we’re saying," noted Smith, the
former Republican mayor of Meridian, Mississippi. "When gas gets to be
four dollars a gallon, our people have no other options."

(After
hearing Smith speak about the small-town potential of transit, Oberstar
extended a most congressional compliment: "Could you be on loan to our
committee? Or to the Senate …")

And Lind made perhaps
the most cogent argument in favor of abandoning transportation
dichotomies such as urban versus suburban. "The rural-urban split is
something that anti-transit forces try to exploit on the state
legislature level" to defeat transit funding proposals, he observed.

House transportation chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) (Photo: STLToday)

For weeks, we’ve heard senior Democrats and the transit industry
make the case for more transportation spending as a potent job creator,
but the lack of funding for a full six-year bill has kept the
conversation stalled.

But two things have happened in the week since Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) floated the idea of a "front-loaded" infrastructure plan that would concentrate investment in the first two years:

• The defeat of two Democratic candidates in Tuesday’s off-year elections reinforced that job creation and economic worries are the No. 1 concerns for voters.
• Gross domestic product may be rebounding, but unemployment decidedly is not.

This
adds up to renewed interest in fast-tracking a new transportation bill,
perhaps with a two-year window. As House transport committee chairman
Jim Oberstar (D-MN) told David Rogers of Politico, "The concrete is cracking."

But even if the White House is prepared to abandon its insistence
on an 18-month extension of current law, how to pay for new
transportation legislation remains a very open question. House Majority
Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), for his part, told Rogers that he likes the
sound of Rep. Pete DeFazio’s (D-OR) proposed tax on Wall Street oil speculators:

There
are some painless ways to fund the highway bill. Transaction taxes,
that’s a painless way … Where are the shared contributions to all
this? If you’re sitting
there on Wall Street, if you’re Goldman Sachs, if you’re making all
this money, if you got all this federal money [in a] bailout, and you
are paying all these big bonuses to your folks, where is your
contribution to this recovery? That’s why it’s painless.

Clyburn’s reference to the "highway" bill brings up another lingering
mystery about the type of transportation spending being envisioned by
senior Democrats. If the White House does agree to support a new
infrastructure bill after health care is finished, will it include
policy changes or just new money?

Because, as Clyburn inadvertently acknowledges, simply adding more money to the framework of the 2005 infrastructure law
would help highways but do little to move the nation towards a more
rational mix of transit and roads. Oberstar’s pending six-year bill, by
contrast, would institute an array of reforms, cutting 75 funding categories from the current system and allowing more "flex-ing" of road money for use on transit.

If
a front-loaded bill is passed with some of the policy changes offered
by Oberstar, job creation and a more accountable national
transportation system could start moving hand-in-hand. If a
front-loaded bill is passed but scrubbed of any substantive reform,
jobs may be created but voters will still be sitting in traffic.

Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN) (Photo: Capitol Chatter)

The tourists may well have been speaking for most senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill, where this week’s growing momentum
towards a six-month timetable for taking up the next long-term
infrastructure bill was abruptly squelched by GOP senators’ inability
to find consensus among their members.

As the subscription-only CQ reported today:

Efforts in the Senate
to take up a six-month extension of surface transportation law this
week appear dead, over objections by a few Republicans to passing it
without a full debate, said James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking
Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee.

… Inhofe said Tuesday that at least two Republicans objected
and that there is not enough floor time to finish a bill this week under
normal procedure. 

The Senate’s lack of progress means that officials working on the
nation’s transit, roads, bridges, and bike paths will likely have to
continue operating under a second short-term extension of the 2005 transportation law, this time lasting until December 18.

Despite
the prospects of continuing uncertainty on the local level, House
transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) remained upbeat
and focused on a singular goal: getting his colleagues to elevate
infrastructure to the top-of-mind status currently occupied by health
care (followed by financial regulation and climate change).

"Encircle
the White House," Oberstar advised the organizers of today’s rally, who
parked heavy-duty construction equipment along the sidewalk to
symbolize their plea for more transportation spending. "Encircle the
Senate!"

The economic stimulus law’s $48 billion in transport
aid, $8.4 billion of which went to transit, "will dry up" by spring of
next year, Oberstar added. He threw in a jab at Obama administration
officials who insisted on cutting stimulus transit spending to pay for tax cuts: "I don’t know of anybody who’s thanked me for their $250 tax credit … God only knows what’s happened to it."

Speaking to reporters after the rally, Oberstar said that extending
the 2005 transportation law until the holidays "will give us time
between now and Christmas to agree on a six-year bill."

But the Minnesotan’s push for taking up his $450 billion proposal
by year’s end has yet to be met with any enthusiasm from the White
House and senior Senate Democrats, who until recently had aligned with
Obama aides in favor of an 18-month delay.

And
even if the Senate had won passage of its six-month extension, Oberstar
said he would have raised concerns about the measure in the House,
citing several "serious problems." One example, according to Oberstar:
the Senate’s plan would have shifted the current grant program for significant projects — which helps fund some transit work — back to the states, potentially jeopardizing the money.

For
the moment, long-term transportation policy appears to have become the
proverbial tree falling in the forest, with few in the capital taking
note as the federal bill languishes and climate legislation climbs
higher on the agenda.

Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN) (Photo: Capitol Chatter)

An industry
official said the senators realized they would have trouble moving the
administration-backed 18-month extension, so they acquiesced to a
shorter term bill. …

A shorter extension would be a victory for
proponents of long-term transportation legislation such as the
six-year, $500 billion plan being pressed by House Transportation and
Infrastructure Chairman James L. Oberstar, D-Minn.

But
would Oberstar be inclined to see a six-month delay as a victory?
Oberstar and his top transportation lieutenant, Rep. Pete DeFazio
(D-OR), have warned
that a series of short-term delays in the next infrastructure law risks
compromising U.S. economic recovery, and it’s not clear that House
members would go along with a six-month extension.

"At
this point, we are sticking with the extension to the end of December
that passed the House," Oberstar spokesman Jim Berard said in an
interview.

One factor that may add a new wrinkle to the debate is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) push for
a fresh round of job-creation legislation, which has given Oberstar new
momentum to pitch his long-term infrastructure bill as part of the
overall stimulus effort.

Pelosi aligned
with Oberstar’s position on a new transportation bill earlier this
year; if the Speaker keeps more extra infrastructure spending from the
government’s general fund in the economic stimulus mix, the House’s
opposition to a longer-term extension could ease somewhat. The puzzle
remains how to pay for more federal transportation investment, given widespread resistance in Washington to raising the gas tax.

Should
the Senate win passage of a six-month extension, the earliest possible
deadline for Congress to take up Oberstar’s six-year bill — which
provides about $100 billion for transit and $337 billion for highways
– would be the end of April. The 2005 infrastructure law, however, is operating
under a one-month extension that expires at the end of this month,
meaning that lawmakers may have to push it forward for one more month
before reaching a final deal.

(Image: East Bay R.E.)

House
transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) and most members
on his side of the Capitol contend that a three-month extension is
needed to spur an agreement on a long-term infrastructure bill before
year’s end.

But given Senate Democrats’ preference for an
18-month delay, the two chambers soon could add a one-month extension
of existing transport law to the spending bill that Congress must pass by next week to keep the government funded.

Such
a move would effectively postpone until October 30 the deadline for the
House and Senate to reach an agreement. Oberstar, speaking on the House
floor yesterday, was unmoved by the Senate and White House’s call for a
long delay in reforming transportation spending.

The difficult decisions
that we face today will not be any easier in 18 months, and the
American people will pay the price for our inaction through lost jobs,
decreased mobility, diminished productivity, and continued high levels
of traffic fatalities and injuries.

Republicans
split their votes on the three-month extension after their leaders
chose to oppose the bill, protesting the mere possibility that a
federal gas tax increase could be debated as a funding mechanism for
Oberstar’s six-year, $500 billion transportation plan. House Minority
Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) accused Oberstar of trying to "buy time to
bring the parties together to the table to agree on a gas tax
[increase]."

Outside of Washington, construction companies
and state DOTs say that uncertain federal funding is slowing down some
massive — and environmentally questionable — road projects. For
example, the Missouri DOT is reportedly in limbo on its $3.5 billion plan to widen I-70 between St. Louis and Kansas City to accommodate truck-only lanes, a project that has drawn criticism from the Sierra Club and other green groups.

House transport committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) (Photo: Bike Portland via Flickr)

Oberstar is preparing to formally introduce his three-month stopgap transport bill
later today, spokesman Jim Berard told Streetsblog Capitol Hill. The
bill is set to be considered on the House’s "suspensions" calendar,
limiting the time for debate and requiring a two-thirds majority for
approval.

The House’s decision to press onward with a three-month delay
sets up a game of legislative chicken similar to the one that developed
in late July,
when Oberstar was still standing firm on his vow to produce a new
transportation bill before September 30. That impasse ended with the
Senate and White House prevailing and the nation’s highway trust fund
receiving a $7 billion infusion to keep it solvent until the end of
this month.

Will this month’s version end with the House
again bowing to the Obama administration’s preference that a new
transport bill not be considered until early 2011? Now, as in July, the
deck is stacked against the lower chamber of Congress. The U.S. Chamber
of Commerce and other business interests are behind Oberstar’s three-month plan, but their lobbying in favor of a gas tax increase has not yet succeeded in rousing a reluctant Congress.

Meanwhile,
the American Association of State and Highway Transportation Officials,
popularly known as the "road lobby," is concerned largely with averting
a cancellation of $8.7 billion in federal funds that would
automatically occur if the House and Senate do not reach an agreement
by next week.

Stay tuned for more information on Oberstar’s forthcoming extension plan.

House transport committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) (Photo: Capitol Chatter)

"It’s
obvious that we’re running out of September," Oberstar spokesman Jim
Berard told Streetsblog Capitol Hill, noting that lawmakers have become
caught up by legislative battles over health care and climate change.

"We’re at a point where a decision has to be made: it’s either to extend for a short time or have the
whole system collapse," Berard added. "Under those circumstances of two
bad choices," Oberstar is prepared to back a short-term extension
rather than letting the 2005 federal transport bill expire at the end
of the month.

A three-month delay, endorsed last week
by Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-OR) would punt decision-making on
transportation reform until just after New Year’s. Even then,
revenue-raisers on the House Ways and Means Committee and Senate
Finance Committee are still likely to face considerable obstacles in paying for Oberstar’s six-year, $500 billion legislation.

Berard
acknowledged that the extension would have to be negotiated with House
leaders as well as the White House and the Senate, both of which have
already come out in favor of an 18-month delay. "We may, as early as
next week, introduce a bill and start the process," he said.

That bill would be a "clean" extension," in Capitol parlance — omitting data collection money and other small-scale reforms that the Obama administration has proposed.

House transport committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) (Photo: Capitol Chatter)

Unfortunately, the administration and some in the Senate have suggested
an 18-month extension of the existing surface transportation programs.
This approach does little more than delay the critical reforms and
difficult choices that must be made now.

Under this approach, come March 31, 2011, we would find ourselves faced
with the same decisions, the same outdated and inefficient programs and
even more costly investment needs in all modes of our transportation
system. Moreover, given that the new deadline would come at the outset
of a new Congress, additional extensions are inevitable.

Worst of all, failure to pass a long-term surface transportation
authorization on time would bring significant uncertainty to states and
MPOs that must plan critical projects years in advance. They require
long-term funding assurances and stability from their federal partners
to proceed in this process.

Oberstar’s
commentary is strongly worded, but it stops short of vowing to stand in
the way of a shorter-term delay in taking up a new federal
transportation bill — an outcome that appears all but certain given
the 10 legislative days remaining until current law expires on
September 30.

"Delay for the sake of delay is
unacceptable," Oberstar concludes in the op-ed. That framing opens the
door, if slightly, to a compromise on a delay that would give Congress’
revenue-raising committees (Senate Finance and House Ways and Means)
more time to devise a stable funding source for the bill.

Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-OR), Oberstar’s chief subcommittee chairman, told The Hill on Friday
that he hoped to see a three-month extension, which would put off work
on a new bill until just after New Year’s. Others in the capital
believe a 12-month extension, as proposed by Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH), would have a stronger chance of success.

But
DeFazio reiterated that Oberstar has yet to weigh in with his preferred
timeframe. In the meantime, the chairman is getting backup from a broad
array of transportation interest groups that operate under the aegis of
the Freight Stakeholders Coalition.

The
Coalition held a press conference this morning to reiterate its support
for passage of a new long-term infrastructure bill this year. The
American Public Transportation Association (APTA) was absent from the
lineup, but representatives of the highway, rail, trucking, and port
lobbies were in attendance, as was the Association of Metropolitan
Planning Organizations.

FTA’s Peter Rogoff (in hard hat) heard strong words from Rep. Oberstar today. (Photo: WP)

After
U.S. DOT deputy secretary John Porcari and Federal Transit
Administrator Peter Rogoff delivered laudatory remarks about the Moving Cooler
report, a joint project of government agencies and environmental
groups, Oberstar took the stage with pointed words for the two senior
officials.

"They need to … catch up with the House" on transportation
policy-making, Oberstar said of Porcari and Rogoff, who were sitting
within spitting distance of the chairman.

"If you don’t
pass our bill, you’re not going to get a head start on these
strategies" for reducing the carbon footprint of the transportation
sector, Oberstar told the White House aides.

He added: "The president gets it — the crowd around him doesn’t."

The
White House continues to press for an 18-month postponement of the next
long-term transportation bill, which Oberstar asserts could drag reform
past the two-year mark and continue an inequitable system that favors
new highway construction over transit. 

"When highway
planners sit down to build a roadway," Oberstar said today, "they don’t
go through the gymnastics of a cost-effectiveness index," as transit
planners are currently required to do. "They sit down, get the money,
and build a road."

Expanding transit, the House chairman concluded, is difficult "if you’ve got a millstone around your neck."

Yet
the House bill has a millstone of its own obstructing movement: the
lack of revenue to fund a doubling in new transit investment and other
Oberstar priorities. As Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) acknowledged this
morning, hiking the federal gas tax — which has remained at 18.4 cents
per gallon since 1993 — will not be feasible until the recession
dissipates.

"We are going to raise gas and diesel taxes
sometime in the next decade," Blumenauer said, but "not while the
economy is in freefall."

A decisive week lies ahead for House transport chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN). (Photo: Capitol Chatter)

When we last left House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN), he was calling for a
$3 billion fix for the nation’s highway trust fund. That low number is
intended to keep the pressure on the White House to reconsider its push
for upwards of $20 billion to postpone an overhaul of national transport policy until early 2011.

Oberstar has claimed a
powerful ally in Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who reiterated her support for a
six-year transportation bill during her weekly press briefing on
Thursday. But Pelosi sought to downplay any hint of a rift with the
Senate, which has already acted on the Obama administration’s 18-month stopgap plan.

"Oh, eventually we will have a transportation bill," Pelosi said. "It is
just a question if we take it in a smaller dose or a bigger dose."

The
question is a huge one to both transportation reform advocates, who are
hoping for a new bill that boosts transit funding and state-level
accountability, and business groups that are counting on long-term legislation to help boost their fiscal health during an economic recession.

And
it’s a question that may be answered within days. The House is set to
leave for its month-long August recess by the weekend, making the fate
of the highway trust fund a suddenly high priority.

The Senate plans to remain in Washington until around August 7, but its transportation funding plan is moving forward
quickly. On Thursday afternoon, the Banking Committee became the last
panel in the upper chamber of Congress to sign off on the White House’s
18-month postponement.

Even as that was occurring, however,
Banking chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) said he would prefer a six-month
extension of the existing transportation law.

As
the subscription-only CQ publication first reported, Dodd declared,
"I’m
not ready to concede we cannot move ahead on a transportation bill
early next year." He also vowed to start working on new legislation "if
the opportunity presents itself," echoing a statement recently made by
Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA).

So
what will the outcome be after this make-or-break week for
transportation policy? Many scenarios could play out, but three are
most likely:

a) The Senate and White House muscle
their way to victory, persuading Pelosi and other House leaders to push
through an 18-month extension over the objections of Oberstar and his
allies.

b) Oberstar and the House somehow win the day,
forcing the Senate’s hand by refusing to budge on the $3 billion patch.
The fight then moves to September, giving the House chairman little
time to solve the tricky problem of generating revenue for a broad new
transportation bill.

c) A larger fix for the trust
fund passes through both chambers of Congress — likely in the
neighborhood of $7 billion, which the U.S. DOT projects is necessary to
keep road projects funded until the end of September.

The
fight over long-term transportation would still keep going until after
Labor Day, but Oberstar’s failure to secure a smaller patch would deny
him sorely needed urgency.

Streetsblog Capitol Hill’s money is on c), but anything can happen this week. Keep watching closely.

The administration's view could not have been much clearer -- this business is all very important, but we're not ready to commit to anything at this time.

Roy Kienitz, the Department of Transportation's Undersecretary for Policy, made it quite clear that the administration is not prepared to support any of the new funding mechanisms proposed -- not a VMT tax, not indexing the gas tax to inflation, and not taxes on imported oil and refined gasoline.

Kienitz did leave the door open to a tax on trading of oil futures, which he said the administration would have to investigate thoroughly. A key concern is that in a world where oil is traded on global markets, such a measure would simply shift trading off of American soil.

Why the stubborn refusal to engage in the funding debate? Ostensibly, the administration is reluctant to adopt new taxes or fees amid recession.

But this explanation rings hollow. Congress could easily delay the time at which revenue-raising measures take effect until 2011 or later, as is being done with funding mechanisms in the health reform bills under consideration.

The president must know this. A reasonable assumption is that he simply does not want to have a tax debate at this time, not with other key priorities involving new tax burdens also being considered.

With the administration all but out of the discussion, the rest of the hearing seemed somewhat academic, but the committee pressed on. The primary interest groups are, not surprisingly, arguing for their own protection.

C. Wick Moorman, CEO of the regional freight rail operator Norfolk Southern, declared himself supportive of tax incentives for new freight rail investments. Peter Pan Bus Lines President Peter Picknelly asked that the intercity bus line fuel tax exemption be extended in any new transportation bill reauthorization.

And Barbara Windsor, there to represent Hahn Transportation and the American Trucking Association, was quite adamant in expressing the trucking industry's opposition to new revenue-raising measures.

ATA has endorsed continued reliance on fuel taxes, but it strongly opposes use of a VMT tax, or any tolling of lanes not associated with switching HOV lanes to HOT.

Windsor also had sharp words for the Waxman-Markey energy bill recently passed by the House.

She said she'd been told that it would result in an increase in diesel fuel prices of between 70 cents and 90 cents per gallon for truckers (numbers that are almost certainly incorrect; reports from the Congressional Budget Office and other reputable sources suggest that the carbon prices necessary to generate that increase in fuel prices won't obtain for decades).

Given that America's trucking fleet averages about 6.2 miles per gallon, according to Windsor, those higher fuel costs would be quite damaging to the industry.

A more hopeful note was sounded by the American Automobile Association's Robert Darbelnet, who noted that AAA supported an increase in transportation investment and supported measures to raise revenue to fund that increase.

Darbelnet pointed out that the value of the federal gas tax has declined some 50 percent since it was last increased in 1993, thanks to inflation and increased fuel efficiency.

Given improvements in accountability and a comprehensive national transportation plan, AAA could support an increased gas tax, a VMT tax, or congestion pricing in places with alternatives to travel on priced roads.

All told, it was plenty for the administration and legislators to chew on as they attempt to fill the $200 billion gap between current revenues and planned spending. One important thing to keep in mind -- while new taxes might play poorly now, amid recession, recovery will almost certainly result in higher oil prices, which will also make it politically difficult to raise or introduce new taxes.

There's never a perfect time to try to increase revenue. Hopefully leaders will soon coalesce around a few good ideas, so they can begin the difficult job of selling voters and interest groups on the necessary measures.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (Photo: moniquemonicat.wordpress.com)

Here’s
how the exchange in question played out at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s
(D-CA) weekly briefing. Pelosi was asked for her position on a possible
second stimulus bill, and she replied:

I am committed to the first stimulus. I don’t think it has been given all
the time to work. … The
question is always open as to what the Administration may recommend to us,
but right now, I believe that we have much more to gain from seeing through
the first stimulus. 

I
am a proponent for bringing up a full transportation bill, which is a great
jobs bill.  At some point, we may have to do something on the extension
of unemployment benefits. But in terms of the investments that were
made in the first package, I want to play that out.

We

have to be very careful about the spending on this. … [R]ight now I
think that we have big issues with health care and how we fund that,
and if we do go someplace, I’d like to see us do the transportation
bill.

So is Pelosi backing her
transportation committee chairman, Jim Oberstar (D-MN), whose push to
pass a transportation bill this year has faced opposition from the Senate and the Obama administration

A
House Democratic leadership aide told Streetsblog Capitol Hill that no
decisions on a timeframe for the transportation bill have been made,
but discussions are ongoing and all parties agree that a short-term problem exists.

Current spending levels, to say nothing of the increases proposed in the bill, will be impossible to sustain in the absence of a new source of revenue. This is a huge obstacle to passage.

As currently written, STAA would significantly strengthen the Office of Intermodalism and work toward making DOT planning "mode neutral" -- that is, not operating under the assumption that highways will always get first priority in planning and funding.

It would create an Office of Livability, focused entirely on seeking balance in mode choice by boosting transit ridership, bicycling, and walking. The bill seeks to streamline the process by which new transit projects apply for funding, and it allows federal officials to consider likely changes in land-use from transit construction in considering whether a project deserves funding.

STAA aims to empower metropolitan planning organizations. It seeks to depoliticize funding decisions and support private investment in infrastructure by creating national and metropolitan infrastructure development banks. It lays the groundwork for significant new investments in high-speed rail in America (though it cuts the definition of high-speed to 110 miles per hour or higher).

The bill includes a push to support "complete streets" and a national bike route network. It establishes increased transit ridership and reduced carbon emissions as explicit goals. And of course, the bill is targeted to allocate a lot more money than in previous reauthorizations, with a lot more money for transit (though transit's share increases only modestly).

But as my colleague Elana Schor noted yesterday, what's missing from the bill is as telling as what's included. The 775-page length may suggest excessive comprehensiveness, but in fact much of the bill is little more than placeholders. "[To be supplied]" is in ample supply, as is "[$]." Ideally, actual numbers would follow immediately after the dollar sign.

These blanks hint at the challenge chairman Oberstar and fellow committee members John Mica (R-FL), Pete DeFazio (D-OR), and John Duncan (R-TN) will have in getting their bill through the legislative process any time soon. Time is scarce; Congress already has some substantial legislative challenges on its hands, and it may have to address the looming shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund before the August recess.

Political capital is also wanting. With most legislative eyes on health care and the Waxman-Markey energy and climate bill, there may not be enough chits available to strike the necessary deals on this transportation bill.

This is especially true given the money issue. STAA, as written, simply does not address the fact that current spending levels, to say nothing of the increases proposed in the bill, will be impossible to sustain in the absence of a new source of revenue. This is a huge obstacle to passage, and a major reason for the administration's requested 18-month delay for the bill.

With the economy still in recession, the federal deficit approaching $2 trillion, a $1 trillion or so health bill in the works, and GOP legislators going all out to attack the climate bill under consideration as representing a major new energy tax, this is not a convenient time to be discussing transportation tax increases. If the funding issue cannot be resolved, and there is every indication that neither the administration nor a number of high priority legislators are anxious to solve it, then the reauthorization bill will probably not pass.

All hope for this particular bill is not yet lost, but a number of very difficult questions will have to be answered to turn this blueprint into a bold new transportation law.

Former Rep. Bud Shuster (R-PA) struck a deal 11 years ago that sealed off transportation money. (Photo: NYT)

Infusing cash to keep the Highway Trust fund afloat at the end of fiscal 2009 is a matter of payback, Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., said Monday.

Oberstar [said] that the U.S. Treasury owes the trust fund $21 billion plus interest since Congress agreed to shift a trust fund surplus to the general fund in 1998.

Can that really be true? Even in the post-bailout age, $21 billion is a lot of money. And if it is true, why is everyone from the House GOP to the National Governors Association pressing for a highway trust fund fix right now (or five minutes ago)?

For the answer, let's hear from Bud Shuster, the Pennsylvania Republican and former chairman of the House transportation committee. Shuster had a well-earned reputation as a deal-maker -- he masterminded the construction of Interstate 99 in his home state, dubbed the "road to nowhere" by critics -- and during the drafting of the 1998 federal transportation bill, he set out on a quest to end all quests.

Shuster wanted to reverse President Lyndon Johnson's move to put the highway trust fund, which collects gas tax revenue to fund transportation projects, into the government's unified budget. Here's Shuster, explaining himself:

Since its incorporation in 1969 into the unified budget, the highway trust fund had been borrowed from to mask and finance other general fund spending. This was a fraud, and it was wrong, and our committee went through a 3-year effort to end this shameful practice and restore integrity into the Highway Trust Fund, which culminated in the passage of [the 1998 transportation bill]. ...

The 1997 balanced budget agreement held that the highway and transit spending was $12 billion below the tax revenues coming in to the trust fund during the periods of 1998 to 2002. The budget was being balanced in part by using highway trust funds. We believe that is just fundamentally wrong.

To remedy this perceived wrong, Shuster pushed to prevent the highway trust fund from being used to shrink the effective size of the federal deficit. Yet taking the fund "off budget" to guarantee future funding for transportation projects was not popular with the congressional appropriators who control the federal purse.

Shuster had to compromise to make it happen. He agreed to forgo the interest accrued by money in the highway trust fund -- a move that Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) recently proposed to undo -- and assume a balance of $8 billion in the nation's transportation spending account. In Shuster's words:

[W]e agreed that in return for ensuring that the trust fund would not be borrowed from in the future, we no longer credited the trust fund with interest and eliminated most of the cash balance. Let me emphasize this. This was a key part of our concession.

Shuster and Oberstar, who was then the transportation committee's senior minority member, viewed the deal as a transfer of $29 billion in projected gas tax surpluses to the Treasury.

But not everyone in Congress agreed. Last year, Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee dismissed Shuster's version of events as "colorful" and "invented," asserting that only $8 billion in actual transportation money was given up.

Still, let's assume for a moment that the House transportation committee's math is correct. Oberstar's contention that the Treasury owes the highway trust fund $21 billion would account for the estimated surplus that was ceded in 1998, minus the $8 billion transfer that was approved last summer.

Even then, it stretches credibility to imagine that restocking the highway trust fund this summer could easily be done by reneging on the 11-year-old budget deal that first took money out of the account. Congress being the tradition-bound and cautious institution that it is, the highway account's looming $7 billion shortfall is bound to be more than just "a matter of payback," as Oberstar put it.

You can download the 775-page legislative text right here,
thanks to Transportation for America. Streetsblog Capitol Hill is
thumbing through it right now to provide highlights later today.

How often does this man hold a shovel? (Photo: World Economic Forum via flickr)

Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN), the transportation panel's chairman, described a delay in long-term funding as a risk to jobs and growth opportunities that were created by the recent stimulus law.

And Oberstar made no attempt to hide his disdain for the Obama economic advisers who helped trim transit's share of that stimulus plan. Holding up a red shovel for a phalanx of photographers, Oberstar quipped: "There are folks in the economic gang at the White House who never had a shovel in their hands or a callus on their fingers."

His GOP counterpart on the committee, Rep. John Mica (FL), vowed to join Oberstar in amassing House support for a transportation bill that could clear the lower chamber of Congress by the end of September -- though even their allies concede that Senate passage is a long shot.

"I view this as the most critical jobs bill before Congress ... we're going to do it together, one way or another, come hell or high water," Mica said, adding flourish as he advised critics not to "underestimate Oberstar and Mica."

Several advocacy and interest groups are joining the committee's effort to push a six-year transportation bill across the finish line. The Laborers' International Union of North America released a statement that plainly said, "We agree with Chairman Oberstar that the surface transportation bill should not be delayed."

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA), which represents the nation's transit agencies, also lent its voice in support. "Our members need this bill to pass as soon as it possibly can," APTA President William Millar told Streetsblog.

Yet the key for Oberstar and Mica may be how many senators endorse their call for a long-term transportation re-write this year. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood already has admitted that the "reform" he called for as part of his 18-month extension would have a slim chance of passing, given the contentious debate that's likely to erupt simply over averting bankruptcy for the nation's highway trust fund.

"I believe we can have discussions," LaHood told Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), chairwoman of the panel with jurisdiction over DOT spending, earlier this morning. "Whether we get to the point where we can include these as part of the fix of the the Highway Trust Fund, we'll have to see."

Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-OR), chairman of Oberstar's subcommittee on highways and transit, told Streetsblog that he hopes senators will "have second thoughts" about the administration's 18-month extension. "When we met with the Senate, we agreed to their principles. We told them we'd give them a product," he said.

Before the assembled media, DeFazio was cutting in his criticism of the White House's transportation strategy. "The Obama administration has lifted a play out of the Bush White House book," he said, predicting that the extensions would last longer than LaHood's proposed 18 months.

"Now the administration of change has come and said, 'We think the status quo is just fine' ... it's at least two years, more likely three or four," DeFazio said.

The House Ways and Means Committee will have a joint hearing next week on funding sources for Oberstar's bill, and DeFazio's subcommittee plans to hold a markup Wednesday.

What remains to be seen is whether senators will join the push -- and whether advocates will give full-throated support to the House members in their clash with the administration.

House Transportation Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) has a brewing battle with the administration on his hands. (Photo: Jonathan Maus)

But
Oberstar’s early outline of the bill, which could get a vote in the
committee as soon as next week, is already available. And it suggests
that the Minnesota Democrat and Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-OR) have made good
on their promises for a sweeping re-organization of the often
debilitating federal transportation bureaucracy. Here are the
highlights:

• The $450 billion price tag, which represents a 57 percent increase
  over the $286.5 billion bill approved in 2005, includes $87 billion in
  highway trust fund money for transit and $12 billion in transit cash
  from the Treasury’s general fund. The 2005 bill gave transit less than
  $44 billion in highway trust fund money and $9 billion from the general
  fund.

• Oberstar isn’t about to quietly
  accept Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s admonition that the
  18-month extension is necessary to "face reality." In fact, the
  committee’s outline of its bill warns that an extension could be
  devastating to state DOTs that have "been unwilling to invest in large,
  long-term projects until enactment of the reauthorization act."

• Highway
  funding would be consolidated into four funding categories, as would
  transit — effectively eliminating 75 funding categories from the
  current system.

• Oberstar’s bill would establish the National Infrastructure Bank
  proposed by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and other senior lawmakers, making
  the bank part of a broader metropolitan access program that would
  support urban areas in achieving "improved transit operations,
  congestion pricing, and expanded highway and transit capacity."

And that’s not all. More details of the forthcoming House bill follow after the jump.

Oberstar also appears poised to support "complete streets"
principles in his bill, although his outline uses the phrase
"comprehensive street design principles." The forthcoming House bill
would also ask the Environmental Protection Agency to set national
emissions reductions targets for the transportation sector, thus
requiring state and local official to keep climate change in mind when
planning future projects.

Oberstar’s outline also attaches a
number to the transportation funding gap that would result if existing
law were relied on. Extending the 2005 federal bill for the next six
years would result in $326 billion in funding, according to the House
transportation committee — about $125 billion less than the new bill
Oberstar wants.

Of course, the missing piece is how to pay
for that increased infrastructure investment. The revenue puzzle falls
under the jurisdiction of House Ways and Means Committee
Chairman Charles Rangel, however, meaning that Oberstar’s will to fight
LaHood on an extension may come down to how many allies the
transportation chairman can find outside of his own committee.

Stay tuned.

Photo: AP

LaHood’s request comes at an awkward time for Jim Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House transportation committee. Oberstar had planned to release an outline of his priorities for a new transportation bill tomorrow and vowed to oppose any short-term extensions of the Bush-era legislation — exactly what LaHood is now seeking.

LaHood urged Congress to couple its extension with "critical reforms" to existing federal transportation policy that streamline cost-benefit analyses and help to promote more livable communities.
But it’s far from clear that such changes could pass Congress by the
end of next month, when lawmakers are slated to leave Washington and
must come to a decision on shoring up the highway trust fund.

In
addition, LaHood’s call to effectively postpone debate on long-term
transportation policy reform may not sit well with the small but vocal
group of lawmakers who would prefer to start a broader discussion this
year.

Extending the existing law also puts off a discussion
over whether to keep relying on the gas tax to fund transportation
improvements or move to a new revenue source — a politically volatile
issue for the Obama team, but one that lawmakers from both parties
increasingly say is necessary.

Oberstar plans to stick
to his schedule for moving forward on a new transportation bill, his
spokesman told Streetsblog. During an invitation-only briefing with
reporters earlier today, he called extending the existing law "unacceptable."

LaHood’s full statement follows the jump.

This morning, I went to Capitol Hill to brief members of Congress
on the situation with the Highway Trust Fund. I am proposing an
immediate 18-month highway reauthorization that will replenish the
Highway Trust Fund. If this step is not taken the trust fund will run
out of money as soon as late August and states will be in danger of
losing the vital transportation funding they need and expect. 

As
part of this, I am proposing that we enact critical reforms to help us
make better investment decisions with cost-benefit analysis, focus on
more investments in metropolitan areas and promote the concept of
livability to more closely link home and work. The Administration
opposes a gas tax increase during this challenging, recessionary
period, which has hit consumers and businesses hard across our country. 

I
recognize that there will be concerns raised about this approach.
However, with the reality of our fiscal environment and the critical
demand to address our infrastructure investments in a smarter, more
focused approach, we should not rush legislation. We should work
together on a full reauthorization that best meets the demands of the
country. The first step is making sure that the Highway Trust Fund is
solvent. The next step is addressing our transportation priorities
over the long term.

Update: In an interview with Bloomberg,
LaHood describes his decision as one to "face reality" instead of
"stringing Congress along with three-month or six-month extensions."