Streetsblog San Francisco

When Cabinet secretaries appear in front of Congress’ appropriations
committees, which control the annual budgets for each federal agency,
the proceedings tend to be dry affairs dominated by local concerns and
arcane fiscal debates.

But
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s visit with Senate appropriators
today was anything but humdrum, as Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) challenged him
repeatedly to defend the White House’s efforts on sustainable
development and high-speed rail.

Bond cited a recent Wall Street Journal editorial by Wendell Cox, a conservative pundit who has penned laudatory literature for road lobbying groups, in accusing the Obama administration of frittering away taxpayers’ money on high-speed rail.

LaHood fired back, remarking wryly that Bond’s home state sought high-speed rail grants and publicly celebrated
its $31 million haul. "I got calls on this every day from senators and
governors" clamoring for an opportunity to build inter-city passenger
rail, LaHood said.

Answering Bond’s charge that the rail
funding process was less than transparent, the U.S. DOT chief threw in
a bold claim: "I don’t know of one lobbyist that darkened
our door with an application … that came to our door with the idea they
were going
to have some edge."

A November investigation
by the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity found that more than 50
government entities and private companies have hired high-speed rail
lobbyists, including the AFL-CIO, the Mayo Clinic, and overseas train
manufacturers such as Siemens and Bombardier.

The sharpest
exchange between Bond and LaHood came on the topic of walkable local
development, which the U.S. DOT has worked to promote through $150 million in 2010 grants and an inter-agency partnership with housing and environmental protection officials.

"What
is livability?" Bond asked LaHood, minutes after comparing the task of
defining the term to defining pornography. (The origins of that
reference are explained here.)

Read more…

When a member of Congress earmarks transportation money for a local project, the funding isn’t always spent in a timely manner. The Bush administration’s final budget proposed to cancel road earmarks that had sat largely unspent for 10 years, a move that would have freed up $626 million, according to Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI).

A longtime critic of congressional earmarking, Feingold has proposed legislation that would take back earmarked money at all federal agencies that remained unobligated after a decade. During a Wednesday Senate Budget Committee hearing, Feingold asked Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood if the Obama administration would support the portion of his plan that affects infrastructure.

LaHood gave a hearty affirmative (viewable in the above video), telling Feingold that the U.S. DOT had begun identifying earmarks that were ripe for cancellation due to lack of use.

The Obama administration today offered a one-page sample proposal to
crack down on texting behind the wheel, aimed at helping guide states
through the process of crafting their own distracted driving
legislation.

The sample bill text [PDF]
was prepared by the U.S. DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, which invited road safety groups to join auto industry
representatives, the AAA, and officials from state DOTs to help craft
consensus language.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood
called the legislation in a statement "another powerful tool in our
arsenal to help
the states combat this serious threat” of texting while driving in a
statement that accompanied the sample text — which carves out an
exemption from any fines or penalties for drivers who (emphasis mine):

Receiv[e] messages related to the operation or navigation of a motor vehicle; safety-related information including emergency, traffic, or weather alerts; data used primarily by the motor vehicle; or radio.

States
that adopt the Obama administration’s sample language, then, would
allow drivers to continue getting traffic tweets and texts from their
local DOTs, a practice dubbed "mixed messages" by the Associated Press
in a September investigation.

"It’s
not a perfect bill, but it was something that everybody in the group
felt they could put their name on it and say, ‘this is a good start,’"
Judith Lee Stone, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said in an interview, adding that the exemption for drivers getting traffic and weather alerts "may have just slipped by us."

If
the Advocates were to write their own version of sample distracted
driving legislation, Stone said, "we probably wouldn’t include" the
exemption. But she noted that the group has no plans to draft its own
language for states working on texting bans.

The U.S. DOT
noted in its release today that the sample bill "reflects current
circumstances and state of knowledge, but may be revised in the future
to incorporate new research findings, address evolving technologies, or
to harmonize with other legislation."

A research team from the University of Utah reported in December that reading incoming text messages had a more deleterious effect on drivers’ braking response times than writing texts.

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.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said today that he sees "very
bright" prospects for congressional approval of the Obama
administration’s $4 billion National Infrastructure Innovation and
Finance Fund, the new iteration of the long-discussed National Infrastructure Bank proposal.

"There
is a great deal of interest in this concept in the Senate," LaHood told
reporters during a wide-ranging discussion of the White House’s transport budget for the fiscal year that begins in October.

Asked about resolving any differences between the administration’s Fund plan and a more bank-like entity envisioned by senior lawmakers, LaHood emphasized his openness to cooperation: "The idea is that we’d work with Congress on their ideas."

LaHood
also noted that the U.S. DOT’s $78.8 billion budget request for 2011,
which marks a 2 percent increase from last year’s levels, includes $50
million in grants for an issue that he has turned into a personal
signature for him — cracking down on distracted driving.

One
topic of particular interest was the White House’s continued assumption
of transfers from the general Treasury to the highway trust fund (HTF)
pending enactment of a new long-term federal transportation bill. As
the federal gas tax, last raised in 1993, remains static and lawmakers decline to discuss
an alternative funding source, the presidential budget document
projects that the HTF would need more than $11 billion to make it
through the current fiscal year.

LaHood
told reporters that while "we’ve gone along
with the short-term extensions" of the 2005 federal transport law, the
most recent of which expires at the end of this month, the White House
has always sought to postpone the next bill until 2011.

"The biggest dilemma for
all of us is finding $400 [billion] to $500 billion, given that the highway trust fund is insufficient to fund all the things we
want to do," the former House Republican added.

The
uncertain status of future HTF infusions prompted one reporter to ask
whether transportation spending would be subject to the president’s
proposed three-year freeze on discretionary accounts. (Indeed, today’s
budget includes a chart projecting that long-term transit funding would
remain flat.) Chris Bertram,
the U.S. DOT’s chief financial officer, said the budget’s funding
levels should be considered "placeholder, rather than frozen."

Transportation reformers and members of Congress have long clamored for changes
to the federal government’s major transit grant program, otherwise
known as "New Starts," and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood answered today with an announcement of sweeping changes in the works.

The first move: LaHood’s DOT will rescind a 2005 rule
that elevated "cost-effectiveness" above all other criteria used to
determine whether a local transit project can receive federal funds.
Cost remains a factor in the "New Starts" process, but is no longer
given more weight than factors such as congestion relief.

House
transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) and Rep. Pete
DeFazio (D-OR), his top lieutenant, quickly issued a statement hailing
the reversal of the Bush-era mandate, which is blamed for slowing down
transit expansions in several major cities.

"Now we need increased investment dollars to follow this
reform, so that we can move forward with transit projects that
relieve congestion, reduce emissions, increase our energy
independence, and promote more livable communities across the
country,” Oberstar said in a statement.  “We must all continue to work
together toward a long-term authorization bill that makes transit
options available to more people."

The
second of the Obama administration’s moves: Environmental and economic
benefits will become official factors in evaluating "New Starts"
proposals. This change requires a rulemaking by the Federal Transit
Administration (FTA), which typically includes a period of public
comment, so will not take effect immediately.

In announcing
this latter shift, LaHood and FTA chief Peter Rogoff emphasized the
need to look at the community-building benefits of transit.

"To
put it simply: We will take livability into account," LaHood said today. "This
new approach will help us do a much better job aligning our priorities
and values with our investments in transit projects that truly strengthen
communities. We’ll
finally be able to make the case for investing in popular streetcar
projects and other transit systems that people want
– and that our old ways of doing business didn’t value enough."

Late Update:
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) weighed in with a statement connecting
today’s news to the White House’s broader sustainable communities push:

Read more…

The annual powwow of thousands of transportation workers, planners,
and wonks that’s known as the Transportation Research Board (TRB) conference
kicked off in the capital yesterday with a candid admission from some
senior U.S. DOT officials: reorienting American transport planning to
accommodate the overlap with housing and environmental sustainability
is proving pretty difficult.

The
subscription-only ClimateWire news service caught remarks from Beth
Osborne, the Obama team’s deputy assistant secretary for transportation
policy, who said the administration’s livability work has been slowed by laws that impede federal participation in local planning:

"A lot of it [is] the disjointed federal programs that
often discourage and certainly do not incentivize the coordination of
housing policy and transportation policy, water infrastructure policy,
economic development policy," she said.

"In fact, within the
transportation program, we really disincentivize this," she said. A
state that improves traffic flow and transit use will burn less
gasoline, meaning it will lose revenue from its main source of
transport funding — the gas tax. "That state that creates greater
efficiency can see their own budget get slashed as a reward."

This tension between the desire to cut transportation emissions and the
nation’s reliance on the gas tax for the majority of its transport
funding is a familiar one for Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and other
urban members of Congress.

Nadler lamented
back in June that many states were insisting on a guaranteed rate of
return from their gas-tax revenue based on a nonsensical "equity
argument" that says: "The more energy-efficient you are, the less gas
you use, the less [federal] funding you should get."

One key
ingredient in the Obama administration’s effort to carve out a stronger
federal role in local planning, of course, is the still-stalled
six-year federal transportation bill. And Osborne — seemingly aware of
the value of that legislation in removing longstanding obstacles to
coordination — told the TRB meeting that "Capitol Hill has asked DOT
to craft its own version of a transportation reauthorization bill,"
according to ClimateWire.

Read more…

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Ray LaHood
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood visited Jon Stewart on The Daily Show last night to talk about his department's role in the stimulus debate, infrastructure modernization, and development of a U.S. high-speed rail system. Check out the video above (and let us know what you thought in the comments).

As Congress maneuvers to end the political impasse over the next
long-term national transportation bill, lawmakers going to have to
debate an increase in the federal gas tax, Transportation Secretary Ray
LaHood said today.

In his remarks at a Fort Worth transportation meeting, first reported by the local Star-Telegram, LaHood stopped far short of reversing the White House’s stated opposition to raising the federal gas tax, which has remained at 18.3 cents per gallon since 1993.

But
LaHood appeared to edge the door open to a solution to the nation’s
transportation funding crisis — provided that lawmakers swallow their
re-election concerns and acknowledge that the current gas tax is no longer raising enough money to run an effective system.

Here’s what LaHood said today (emphasis mine):

To index the federal fuel tax [to inflation], that’s something Congress is going to
have to decide. As we get into the reauthorization bill, the debate
will be how we fund all the things we want to do. You can raise a lot
of money with tolling. Another means of funding can be the
infrastructural bank. You can sell bonds and set aside money for big
projects, multi-billion-dollar projects. Another way is [charging motorists for] vehicle miles traveled. The idea of indexing the
taxes that are collected at the gas pump is something I believe
Congress will debate. When the gas tax was raised in 1992 or 1993, in
the Clinton administration, there was a big debate whether it should be
indexed. At that time, they thought there’d be a sufficient amount of
money collected. Now we know that isn’t the case. That is one way to
keep up with the decline in driving, and more fuel-efficient cars.

Another fact not mentioned by LaHood: Transportation construction inflation has increased at a rate twice as high [PDF]
as the Consumer Price Index, the Labor Department’s traditional method
of measuring price hikes for household goods. That means that raising
the federal gas tax to appropriately reflect the cost of infrastructure
improvements would be even more challenging than many in Washington now
admit.

The final fuel-efficiency rule released by the Obama administration
this morning includes what some lobbyists have nicknamed "the German
provision," giving automakers that sell less than 400,000 vehicles in
the U.S. an exemption for 25 percent of their fleet.

"[W]e
recognize that we had to give a little bit," Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) chief Lisa Jackson told reporters today. "The good
news is that, by 2016, we will have caught up, and all
autos sold in this country are going to have to meet the one standard."

But the "German provision" isn’t the only loophole that made it into today’s new rule.

The
Obama administration also would allow car companies to earn credits for
achieving a lower CO2 emissions standard than the government requires
in any specific year.

Those credits could be carried
forward five years or back three years, used to make up for
deficiencies in other vehicle fleets, and even earned this year, ahead
of the new fuel-efficiency standard’s phase-in period, which begins in
2012.

For instance, an automaker that beats the standard
for its cars could use the credits it earns to safely produce more
gas-guzzling trucks. That automaker could earn even more credits for
any electric vehicles it produces, for improving its air-conditioning
systems, or for making more "flex-fuel" autos that can run on
ethanol-blended E85 gas — which is available in fewer than 2,500 gas stations nationwide.

Today’s
rule even allows automakers to trade credits with other manufacturers,
opening the door to a bit of horse-trading between Ford and Honda or
Toyota and General Motors.

The concept of credit trading
is not a new one; the EPA has employed it in other pollution
regulations that were drafted under Clean Air Act authority. Still, the
extent of the credits proposed today unsettled veteran fuel-efficiency
advocate Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign.

California
and 13 other states have gotten the go-ahead to begin imposing stricter
fuel standards on automakers before the national rule starts taking
effect in 2012, Becker said in an interview.

That could
create a perverse incentive for car companies to earn extra credits, he
added, "by shuffling more efficient vehicles into those states, then
com[ing] back
in 2012 and say[ing] we over-complied with the national law by selling
these cleaner cars."

For some domestic automakers, however, the "German provision" may sting most of all. Read more…