It’s too soon to tell whether the bill will clear the House, but the list of Boehner’s members speaking out against it is growing longer.

Today, Crain’s Chicago reports that a trio of Chicagoland’s suburban Republicans have come out against the bill. Robert Dold, Judy Biggert, and Adam Kinzinger each had slightly different objections, but their dissatisfaction seems to stem from the provision that would transfer federal gas tax revenues from transit to roads. Crain’s is reporting that that provision of the bill could cost Chicago-area transit providers $450 million annually. The region also stands to lose $900 million annually in road funding if the bill passes.

A spokesman for Biggert told Crain’s: “She does not support the House bill in its current form due to concerns with its overall funding for Illinois, as well as its potential impact on long-term planning for Chicago and suburban rail systems.”

Meanwhile, Dold released a statement late yesterday, saying “he has concerns with the impact it will have on the environment, as well as the way it damages vital funding for the state of Illinois.”

The Illinois Chamber of Commerce has also come out against the bill, saying it “would put hundreds of millions of dollars for transit in real peril, while drastically reducing funding for Illinois highways.”

More House Republicans will have to reject the bill in order to kill its chances, but Crain’s reporter Greg Hinz believes that “Mr. Boehner will have to go to Plan B.”

Other Republicans opposing the bill in its current form include Ohio’s Steven LaTourette, Wisconsin’s Tom Petri and Illinois’ Tim Johnson. New York’s Peter King and Bob Turner have also expressed reservations about the proposal.

John Mica and John Boehner would have you believe their bill is a blessing for transit. It isn't.

Republicans are not anti-transit, but we do recognize that the Highway Trust Fund is paid for by highways users, and cities and local governments must look at developing a similar user fee system for transit users.

This bill gives more flexibility to states to fund their most critical transportation needs, and under this bill states can also use the funds authorized under the highway program for transit systems if they so choose.

Because of the struggling economy, changing driving patterns and more fuel efficient vehicles, the Highway Trust Fund is in repeated danger of running dry. The Republican bill stabilizes the Trust Fund for the next five years, ensures states have the ability to fund their most critical transportation needs, and also guarantees transit funding.

Transportation myths die hard, and here the House GOP is trotting out a bunch of them — plus a few new sadistic rhetorical flourishes — to justify what’s quickly becoming known as the worst transportation bill ever. A quick primer on how the Republican leadership is lying about their bill:

1. The House GOP is not guaranteeing transit funding. They’re eliminating guaranteed transit funding.

Ask anyone who works in public transit, and they’ll tell you this bill would wreak havoc as soon as it is passed. By ending the policy begun by Ronald Reagan of funding federal transit programs with gas tax revenue, House Republicans would cast a pall of uncertainty over just about every transit agency in America. The Republican “guarantee” is nothing but a guarantee of more haggling over limited dollars as transit programs go up against other spending priorities in the general fund. Without the certainty that gas tax revenues provide, transit agencies will immediately move to cut service and raise fares, exactly what Americans don’t need while gas prices are rising and jobs are still scarce.

2. Highways are not “paid for by highway users.”

Gas taxes and tolls don’t cover the cost of highways, not by a longshot. In 2007, for example, user fees only covered 51 percent of highway costs, according to Subsidyscope. In other words, roads are subsidized — on a much larger scale than transit.

3. The House GOP bill does nothing to “stabilize” the Highway Trust Fund.

The bill relies on one-shot fees from gas and oil drilling to make up for the deficit in the Highway Trust Fund. While this would ensure that highways are subsidized even more than they are now, it’s a completely inadequate way to pay for transportation infrastructure, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

4. There’s already a “user fee system for transit users.”

It’s called the farebox.

5. “Changing driving patterns” are not endangering the Highway Trust Fund.

The truth is that even though Americans are driving less, the nation’s transportation funding system would be on solid footing if the federal gas tax kept pace with inflation. But since the gas tax is much lower in inflation-adjusted dollars than it was in 1993, the last year it was raised, the Highway Trust Fund is depleted. Congress and President Obama could solve the problem by taking another page from Reagan and adjusting the gas tax.

(The other Orwellian touch here is that the House bill doesn’t actually include any policies to adapt to “changing driving patterns.” In fact, it seems to have been drafted with 1950s-era driving patterns in mind. A bill that accounts for changing driving patterns would reflect the steadily increasing number of American transit riders, cyclists, and pedestrians, and the decline of driving per capita. Instead, the House bill puts all its resources into infrastructure for driving.)

6. States already have the “flexibility” to spend their highway funds on transit — the problem is they don’t like to.

States have had the flexibility to spend their highway funds on transit for decades. But highways are what they know, so highways are what they build.

When the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act passed in 1991, it was supposed to mark the end of an era, says Deron Lovaas, Federal Transportation Policy Director for the Natural Resource Defense Council. The interstate highway system was finished, and federal transportation money would go to increasingly to other things — dedicated funding for bike/ped projects, an expanded transit program, a larger program for congestion mitigation and air quality improvement, all part of an enlarged Surface Transportation Program. States could “flex” STP funds however they wanted. “Unfortunately, the track record for flexing STP has been very poor,” said Lovaas. “State highway agencies focus on highways.”

If the House GOP really cared about local control of transportation funds, they could draft a bill that distributes federal funding to cities and towns. The problem for John Boehner and the oil companies who back this bill is that cities and towns spend transportation dollars on things like transit, biking, and walking.

Steven LaTourette, an Ohio Republican, said he opposes the House transportation bill as it is currently written. Photo: Cleveland.com

So there’s a chance that House leadership will fail to round up the 218 votes needed to pass this bill. Based on Streetsblog’s initial conversations with House GOP members, the bill could be too anti-transit and too hostile to street safety to pass, even in this extremely partisan political climate.

Streetsblog began reaching out to House GOP members this morning to see where they stand, and already we’re finding representatives who think the current bill is too extreme. One Republican with misgivings is Ohio Rep. Steven LaTourette, who represents rural and suburban areas in the northeast part of the state, east of Cleveland.

LaTourette has been a supporter of common-sense transportation reforms in the House, co-sponsoring national complete streets legislation as well as a bipartisan measure that would have increased flexibility with federal funds for struggling transit agencies.

Through his chief of staff, Dino DiSanto, LaTourette’s office had this to say about the bill:

In its current formation there are lots of things we don’t like about it. If it’s not changed drastically, we’re not going to support it.

What they’re doing to highway funding — removing [Transportation] Enhancements, not allowing more flexibility for transit agencies? There’s no reason [transit agencies] should be able to buy buses but not operate them.

Infrastructure used to be something that was widely popular among both parties, and for some reason over the last few Congresses, they’ve become highly polarized.

Meanwhile, Bob Turner (R-NY), whose district encompasses parts of Queens and Brooklyn, has reservations as well. In a statement, Rep. Turner indicated his disapproval, specifically for the portion of the bill that would eliminate dedicated funding for transit:

Now that the House bill is taking shape, I have concerns about how the funds will eventually be allocated. We cannot underestimate the importance of providing efficient, safe, mass transit, roads, bridges and tunnels to the people who live and commute in New York City. As this bill evolves, I will continue to work with my colleagues both in Congress and New York to find the best approach in meeting our infrastructure needs. However, I will not support any bill that does not allow New York City to sufficiently meet those needs.

Another GOP representative from New York, Peter King, told Crain’s via his spokesperson that he “has serious concerns about this legislation and the impact it will have on mass transit both on Long Island and New York City.”

The House and Senate transportation bill proposals are both expected to go up for votes next week. Streetsblog will be tracking the positions of key House Republicans throughout the week.

House Ways & Means' Dave Camp (R-MI) and Sander Levin (D-MI) do not see eye to eye on funding transit. Photo: Zimbio

The attack on transit has drawn opposition from an unprecedentedly broad coalition of over 600 groups, including many that do not often find themselves on the same side of an issue. Opponents of the bill include noted transit advocates APTA and T4America, and traditionally pro-highway groups such as AASHTO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The conservative Club for Growth has even gone so far as to make the entire House transportation package a key vote, meaning members will be rewarded for opposing the bill. Rep. John Campbell has already said he has changed his position on the package, and Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) laughed at the prospect of getting a positive rating from Club for Growth for “the first time in a while.”

An amendment proposed by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, which would have removed the provision altering transit’s revenue source, was defeated along party lines during mark up this morning. However, two Republicans — Erik Paulsen of Minnesota and Vern Buchanan of Florida — broke ranks with their party and voted against the underlying bill. The bill passed anyway by a vote of 20-17.

Despite repeated attempts by Republicans to present the bill as placing transit funding on surer footing, the bill drew vocal opposition from Democrats such as ranking member Sander Levin, who said it “undermines the very structure of the Highway Trust Fund.” Blumenauer said the bill relied on “fantasy accounting” to justify a $40 billion transfer from the general fund to cover transit, and McDermott bemoaned the lack of long-term thinking behind the bill.

Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York even asked Chairman Dave Camp if there was a precedent for the Ways and Means committee to demand a complete restart of transportation authorization efforts. When informed that there was not, Rangel responded, “Well, you can be a leader, then.”

The letter from coalition members opposing the Ways and Means bill is after the jump.

House Ways and Means chair Dave Camp (R-MI) and Speaker John Boehner. Photo: Talking Points Memo

The Ways & Means bill [PDF] would funnel all gas tax revenue toward road programs, redirecting billions of dollars per year away from transit, which for decades has received about 20 percent of fuel tax receipts. Instead, the House GOP wants transit funding to come entirely from the general fund, pitting transit against all other government spending. To offset that spending, $40 billion would have to be cut from the rest of the federal budget.

Essentially, the House GOP is holding transit hostage to achieve budget cuts elsewhere — and they don’t seem to care if the hostage dies. They will also be tossing aside a precedent set during the Reagan administration, one that has enjoyed bipartisan support through several transportation bills, including the 2005 law, known as SAFETEA-LU, which was passed by a Republican president and Republican Congress.

Dan Smith of USPIRG put it like this:

The House Ways and Means Bill stops just short of defunding America’s public transit system. Instead it says that the real money with a funding source will all go to highways, while the tooth fairy will pay for transit. For Big Oil and the highway lobby, this is a dream, but it’s a nightmare for America’s transportation future.

In keeping with the secretive nature of the current House’s transportation reauthorization process, the announcement comes just one day before Ways and Means will mark up the bill. There is even less time to protect transit funding in the House bill than there was to protect bike/ped programs in today’s T&I markup.

Every Democrat on the committee voted for the amendment, and at the markup session this morning Democrats Nick Rahall, Peter DeFazio, and Daniel Lipinski spoke in favor. DeFazio’s remarks were especially impassioned, telling his colleagues to “look those kids in the eye and tell them we can’t afford this program,” and characterizing the opposition as “just mean-spirited.”

Opponents of the amendment couched their arguments in terms of government reform. Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA) said that the bill should be “focused like a laser on the national highway system” and not dictate any other uses of transportation funds. Rep. Herrera Buetler (R-WA) said that the bill, as written, would put the power to implement bike/ped projects into the hands of authorities closer to the communities those projects would serve, saying it would “unleash” states’ ability to pursue their own priorities.

However, putting more money in the hands of the states actually keeps it further out of reach of cities and towns that want to build better streets for biking and walking. The League of American Bicyclists’ Andy Clarke, following the proceedings on Twitter, responded that Herrera Buetler and Shuster “are missing the point.” The federal government is not dictating anything, Clarke said: “States are the problem.”

Expanded drilling is expected to be one of the new revenue sources in the House transportation bill, which will be marked up by the Transportation and Infrastructure committee tomorrow morning. But there was something missing from all three drilling bills which took a few observers by surprise, including Taxpayers For Common Sense:

[A]ll three bills curiously lack what would seem to be a critical element: a requirement that the collected royalties be used for infrastructure. The bills are completely silent on the issue. … [I]t is entirely possible, if not likely, that [the House transportation bill] will tie all three together and mandate how the funds are used.

Democrats also introduced amendments that would tighten Buy America requirements, allow states to opt out of offshore drilling agreements by popular referendum, and complete more rigorous studies on the environmental impacts of certain projects. None were agreed to.

The Cherry Creek trail running from downtown Denver 40 miles out to the suburbs was partially funded by TE grants. Photo: National Transportation Enhancements Clearinghouse

The first amendment, introduced by Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI), would restore the Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School programs, consolidated into a single “Transportation Improvement Program.” TE and SRTS have been two of the most important sources of funds for bicycle and pedestrian projects, and right now the House bill would eliminate dedicated funding for both programs.

According to a draft summary of the amendment, states would need to reserve an amount of money for TIP equal to the amount they currently reserved for TE and SRTS. TE-supported activities would no longer include transportation museums, depriving House leadership of one of their favorite talking points.

A second amendment would require states to prioritize bridge repair projects over the construction of new highways. As it currently stands, the House bill imposes little oversight on states that opt to spend on expanding highways.

A third amendment would provide operating assistance to transit agencies, a provision that the Senate has included in its transit bill to help prevent painful service cuts and fare hikes during economic downturns. However, neither of the bridge and transit amendments has a sponsor in the House, and all amendments must be submitted by 3:00 p.m. today in order to be considered at tomorrow morning’s markup.

Transportation for America and AmericaBikes have launched online portals for citizens to voice their support for these amendments.

There's something for everyone to dislike in John Boehner and John Mica's transportation bill. Photo: Zimbio

Streetsblog wrote about some of the bill’s low points last week: no more dedicated bike/ped funding; no more TIGER or other discretionary transit programs; more money for highways, less accountability for state DOTs. To top it off, Speaker John Boehner has made it a priority to attach the Keystone XL pipeline to the transportation bill somehow.

The truth is that there are a lot of things that a lot of sensible people find objectionable about this bill, and they’re having their say while they can — the bill will be marked up on Thursday.

Regarding the changes to bike/ped policy, Darren Flusche, policy analyst at the League of American Bicyclists, told Streetsblog:

You can bet that the performance measures that states would be required to meet will not be geared towards the myriad transportation benefits of bicycling and walking projects, making the “eligibility” for bicycling and walking projects an illusion.  In this way, the bill would actually take away flexibility from the states instead of provide it, as claimed.

Provisions that would raise weight and length limits on trucks drew ire from the Association of American Railroads:

“Americans don’t want 97,000 pound trucks or huge multi-trailers up to 120 feet long on our nation’s highways,” said AAR President and CEO Ed Hamberger. “Nor is it fair that even more of the public’s tax dollars will be used to pay for the road and bridge damage inflicted by massive trucks.”

John Cross, federal transportation advocate with Environment America, had this to say about the bill’s environmental implications:

The bill introduced by Representative Mica today in the House of Representatives drives us down to the dead end of too many oil spills, too much air pollution, and destroying the places we love. It reads like a wish list for Big Oil.

The Natural Resources Defense Council’s Rob Perks called out the Speaker of the House for unnecessarily complicating matters:

I’ve heard of “my way or the highway” but this is ridiculous. In an unprecedented move, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is hell-bent on crashing the transportation bill by loading it up with controversial issues that will guarantee more political gridlock.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) objected to the partisan politics behind its drafting:

I am disturbed by the un-democratic and non-transparent fashion with which the majority has drafted and introduced its bill. Democrats have been left entirely out of the process and, now, after more than a year of waiting for this legislation, we have 48 hours to assimilate 800 pages before it is marked up.

As Rep. Nadler pointed out, the bill is quite long. Streetsblog will report more details from the bill as we learn them. We will also address efforts underway to amend the bill into a less objectionable state. Even Chairman Mica indicated that there could be some serious tinkering done to this bill, telling reporters to “get some hemorrhoid cream ointment and hang on” during long negotiations.

Highways 'n' pipelines: The cover page to the House transportation bill brochure. Image: Politico

There was no grand unveiling of the House’s five-year transportation bill today, but a summary of the bill has been kicking around for a few days. While there aren’t any hard numbers available yet, the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act looks like a return to 1950s-style transportation policy. It is particularly unkind to transit and bike/ped programs, and to cities in general.

The bill’s overarching themes, again in the absence of official language, seem to be:

• Funneling as much money as possible to highways
• Giving even more power to spend that money to state DOTs, not cities and metro regions
• Shortening the environmental review process
• Eliminating programs “that do not have a federal interest,” which apparently includes all dedicated funding for bicycle and pedestrian programs
• Doing away with discretionary transit programs, which would spell the end for the very successful TIGER
• Augmenting gas tax revenue with a yet-unspecified revenue stream from oil and gas drilling

One example the summary gives of a project not in the federal interest is the Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program, which distributed four $25 million grants “to demonstrate how improved walking and bicycling networks can increase rates of walking and bicycling.” One of those grants went to Minneapolis, which is making great strides in promoting biking and walking. If reauthorized at current levels, NTPP would account for 0.04 percent of the bill’s total appropriations.

The “flexibility” afforded states to minimize spending on bike/ped and transit, as well as the bill’s reliance on oil drilling, have advocates outraged. The Sierra Club’s Jesse Prentice-Dunn told Streetsblog that the bill represents “a significant step backwards for safe biking and walking.”

“Americans are looking for transportation choices that can conveniently get them where they need to go without polluting the planet,” Prentice-Dunn said. “Today more than 12 percent of trips are made by foot or bike, yet less than 2 percent of our nation’s transportation funding goes towards biking and pedestrian infrastructure. According to the Alliance for Biking and Walking, bike commuting increased 57 percent between 2000 and 2009. Instead of increasing investment in transportation options that Americans want, the House bill appears to funnel more dollars towards roads, further deepening our addiction to oil.”

The bill would also cut Amtrak’s operating subsidy by 25 percent in fiscal years 2012 and 2013, would keep existing lanes on the interstate highway system toll-free, and would allow states to use up to 15 percent of their total highway funds to capitalize state infrastructure banks (currently the maximum is 10 percent).

Deron Lovaas, Federal Transportation Policy Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Streetsblog that the bill “looks uninspiring at best, giving states a lot of authority without a lot of accountability.”

“The language about curtailing environmental reviews is alarming, but it’s probably the tip of the iceberg compared to what we’d see in the bill itself. It’s a march of horribles… and they’ll go much further than the Senate in eliminating environmentally beneficial programs,” Lovaas said. “I can’t help but conclude that the house Republican leadership has hijacked the transportation bill and shattered the idea of bipartisanship in transportation policy making.”

The new date for the full bill’s unveiling is next Tuesday, January 31.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, shown here enjoying a piece of job-killing infrastructure. Source: 60 Minutes

Rather than accuse Cantor of hypocrisy, I would take a different approach. Here are the kinds of things I hope to say next time I see him:

First: Cool bike, dude! Great to see you setting the example on the tube. It really helps the cause when people in your position are seen on bicycles. Thanks!

Then I’d remind him of the economic benefits of cycling — not just for cyclists, but for the community at large. Lower health-care costs benefit all of us. Fewer cars reduces the need for expensive new roads and parking lots, and it means fewer deaths and injuries from vehicle-related accidents. And jobs? Bike projects create jobs, all right — more than 11 jobs per million dollars vs. 8 jobs per million for highways…

Would this approach make Eric Cantor into a bike advocate? Maybe, maybe not. But I do know this: Without facts and serious arguments, you definitely won’t change Cantor’s mind. And you won’t even get the chance to make your point if all you want to do is try to look clever at his expense.

Of course Bowden is spot on about the value of facts and serious arguments. There are indeed reams of facts that can — and should — be addressed to Rep. Cantor directly, like the ones released today in the Alliance for Biking and Walking’s biannual benchmarking report, which ranks Cantor’s home state of Virginia 33rd in bicycle commuting (0.3 percent, compared to 1 percent nationwide) and second-to-last in per-capita bike-ped funding (57 cents to the national figure of $2.17).

But Cantor has never felt compelled to ground his arguments in facts when it comes to opposing bicycle programs.

Last September, when Cantor tried to disguise an attack on bike-ped funding as an olive branch to the administration on transportation policy, he misleadingly described his proposal as an attempt to “eliminat[e] the requirement that states must set aside 10 percent of federal surface transportation funds for transportation museums, education, and preservation [in order to] allow states to devote these monies to high-priority infrastructure projects.” Streetsblog pointed out that Cantor was really talking about a program that comprises less than two percent of federal transportation spending, which actually directs most of its funding to projects that make biking and walking safer, not “transportation museums.” In that case, what Cantor “thinks” won out over facts.

Maybe the day will come when Cantor acknowledges the value of investing in bike infrastructure and his policies reflect that. Until then, the Majority Leader in the House of No shouldn’t be let off the hook so easily.

John Mica and John Boehner didn't get a transportation bill moving last fall. They have until March 31 to try again. Photo: Zimbio

That sense of urgency has been seen on the hill for years now, however. The question for 2012 is: Will this session’s theme song be The Final Countdown or The Neverending Story?

Here’s a recap and preview of Congress’ pressing transportation-related business.

First Things First: Aviation

Aviation policy isn’t usually something that gets mentioned on Streetsblog. It isn’t included in the federal surface transportation authorization bill (for obvious reasons) and airplanes only rarely wind up having to share our streets. However, the FAA authorization law ran out over 4 years ago and has been extended 22 times… and it runs out again in 14 days. It is expected to be a priority for Congress, one which they will tackle before any other transportation legislation, even if all they decide to do is extend it for a 23rd time until after the election.

Once That’s Done: The 2011 Tax Extender Extender

The bill that extended the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance – but allowed a tax break for transit commuters to fall to half that of people parking their cars – expires at the end of February. Two committees could facilitate its reinstatement: the Republican-controlled House Ways & Means or the Democrat-controlled Senate Finance. Senator Charles Schumer has been very vocal in his support for restoration of the transit commuter benefit at its 2011 level, and there could be enough support to reinstate it for the rest of 2012. Sen. Schumer has called for the benefit to be extended retroactively to January and February, but the nature of a monthly benefit — as opposed to an annual one — likely makes a retroactive extension problematic to the point of being unworkable.

The Main Event: Surface Transportation Reauthorization

The current federal law authorizing highway and transit programs, SAFETEA-LU, expires in 73 days. As with aviation, the chance does exist that the surface transportation law will simply be extended until after the election (it would be the 9th such extension), but Politico reports that the House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica and Ranking Member Nick Rahall intend to avoid that. Larry Ehl at Transportation Issues Daily did a pretty good job yesterday of breaking down the three major decisions facing surface transportation reauthorization: length of bill (in years), size of bill (in dollars), and source of funds. Each depends a great deal on the other two, and so far there are only two seriously contending combinations:

• Six Years, $285 Billion, Drill Baby Drill – This is Mica’s proposal from last October, up from $230 billion in July. It represents a 33 percent decrease in funding compared to the previous long-term appropriation. Its lower annual value reflects Mica’s desire not to spend more than the Highway Trust Fund takes in from the federal gas tax. As planned, the bill faces a roughly $100 billion shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund, which Speaker John Boehner seems to think could be plugged with proceeds from drilling. (Boehner had supported a five-year transportation bill, but never unveiled it.) House Republican Aaron Schock – Secretary Ray LaHood’s successor in Congress — has been drumming up support for a long-term bill offset by drilling, and sent a letter to President Obama in December signed by 62 Democrats and 49 Republicans encouraging him to accept such a bill. Schock thinks a vote could come as soon as next month.
• Two Years, $109 Billion, ??? – This is Sen. Barbara Boxer’s Senate Environment & Public Works Committee bill, which has already been passed with unanimous bipartisan support by the committee. Like the House proposal, its streamlining of federal programs would end dedicated funding for things like Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School. However, it is incomplete: The Senate Banking Committee still has not submitted a Transit title, and the Finance Committee is still looking for $12 billion in “pay-fors” to make the bill pencil out. Several Republican Senators have proposed a combination of redirections from other trust funds, plus drilling (naturally), to fill that gap.

Beyond the basic structure of the bill, the most controversial debates are expected to be over inclusion of a national infrastructure bank versus expansion of state infrastructure banks and dedicated funding for bicycle and pedestrian programs, which face opposition in both chambers.

Also controversial will be Obama’s ambitious intercity high-speed and passenger rail programs. As Joshua Schank, President of the Eno Transportation Foundation, told Streetsblog, the recent setbacks and shakeups at the California High-Speed Rail Authority  are “not going to help when it comes to funding Amtrak or upgrading railroads.”

No hearing or markup dates have been set by either house.

The Distant Future: Department of Transportation Authorization

While a long-term surface transportation authorization bill would fund U.S. DOT’s programs, the department itself is kept running by a separate law, which will expire on September 30. The way this Congress has flirted with government shutdowns, what should be a routine, ho-hum law could be sucked into the larger partisan debate over government spending.

Thanks to FHWA, Missouri (and 29 other states) is finally getting some relief from the devastating floods of last year. No thanks to Republicans in Congress, that relief is not coming at the expense of transportation programs that, one day, could prevent such climate events from happening. Photo: Paul Davis / AP

The House voted in July to transfer over a billion dollars of high-speed rail funds over to flood relief, but according to sources at U.S. DOT, “there has been no effort” to tie today’s emergency appropriation to a rescission of high-speed rail funding. Indeed, these dollars came from the omnibus funding bill that passed last month.

U.S. DOT had the chance to spend the money on rail projects quickly enough that by the time they could start on the emergency relief appropriation, the money would have already been spent out. That’s just what happened. So, instead of the $1.028 billion going to the Army Corps of Engineers for relief work, it went to rail projects as intended.

It’s good to see that these essential emergency relief funds were spent without cutting into HSR. Cloaking a partisan attack on a Democratic program in disaster relief was a cynical move by House Republicans.

These communities, from Maine to Montana, never should have had their recovery from 2011′s devastating storms made into a political football. Besides, increasingly extreme weather events are likely tied to the larger trend of climate change. It’s a little short-sighted to apply a band-aid to disaster relief while hobbling development of a transportation mode that could, potentially, reduce climate change and the disasters it causes.

It’s also worth noting that some Republican senators have proposed eliminating Transportation Enhancements to cover bridge repair. But even if Congress had zeroed out the Enhancements program to cover the disaster relief bill, it would have come up far short. The entire TE program – for bike/ped, historic preservation, billboard removal and a host of other programs – cost $928 million last year. Using that whole amount, we’d still come up far short of what the DOT was able to do today to promote recovery from natural disasters.

And even that is far below most expert estimates of what’s really needed. Whether you believe in the ASCE prognosis of a $2.2 trillion shortfall for infrastructure maintenance and repair, or your own wish list is a little more humble, it’s clear that pinching cash off other worthwhile programs is not the way to restore disaster-affected areas.

During a profile of Eric Cantor this week, 60 Minutes showed the House Majority Leader enjoying a bike ride. Source: 60 Minutes

Eric Cantor, I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and believe that 60 Minutes forced you to pose for this shot.

Because, Mr. Majority Leader, it seems a little hypocritical that a person who has worked so hard to keep others from biking would enjoy it himself.

To figure out whether you mounted this bike out of your own free will, I tried to Google “Eric Cantor bicycle” but mostly got links to news stories about all your attempts to kill bicycle funding. Like when you blamed bike-share for overruns on the Highway Trust Fund. Or when you slammed the tiny speck of stimulus spending that went toward bike infrastructure (which is proven to be a better job-creator than road-building, by the way). Or when you put Safe Routes to School funding up for a vote on your YouCut website – a pretty cold-hearted move, you must admit, Mr. Majority Leader. Really, you want to take away safety funding for children? That’s going to close the deficit gap?

And then there was the time you pretended to find a “compromise” position on infrastructure funding that consisted of killing the 1.5 percent “set-aside” (though you called it 10 percent, you sly dog you) for bicycle and pedestrian projects (and a whole bunch of other things too). The media, by and large, went right along with your rhetoric about holding out some sort of olive branch to the president. Nice job controlling the message, sir.

Anyway, it’s great to see you out on a lovely Virginia day, enjoying a healthy way to get around and getting your legs pumping. Maybe you’ll come on next year’s Congressional Bike Ride or join the Congressional Bike Caucus?

Hat tip to Murph at the Holier Than Thou Blog and Richard Masoner at Cyclelicious. 

We’ve spent the last couple days looking back at some of the bests and worsts of 2011. A brief recap: The hit to transit budgets was the low point of the year, with the high point being the willingness of voters to tax themselves to restore some funding. Capitol Hill’s paralysis in the face of urgent infrastructure needs was a double-edged sword, given some of the really bad proposals out there. We booed Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Sen. James Inhofe, the lawmakers that killed President’s Obama’s high-speed rail plans, the city of Dallas, and the jury that convicted Raquel Nelson of “vehicular homicide” when she wasn’t even behind the wheel of a car. And we heaped praise on Minneapolis and Charleston for making good decisions to move their cities forward sustainably.

And before we sing Auld Lang Syne and ring in 2012, we’ve got just a little more kvetching and kvelling to do, starting with:

Most Annoying Distraction From the Real Transportation Funding Problem (and Solution): It’s no secret that the Highway Trust Fund is sputtering, and it’s taken $35 billion in general fund infusions just to keep it going this far. It’s a pretty basic equation: If you’re taking in less than you’re spending out, you’re going to come up short. So you can spend less or earn more. Most experts say it’s time to raise the federal gas tax.

What's so incompatible about bikes and bridges? Photo: Flickr / WSDOT

But this year saw some other brilliant ideas emerge – like eliminating the federal gas tax altogether and leaving all transportation taxing and spending to the states. Which is a punt if I’ve ever seen one, ignoring the fiscal crises and anti-tax atmospheres most states face, not to mention the fact that slicing transportation funding up exclusively by state doesn’t make sense for building national networks.

And it takes a few days off my life every time I give column inches to the argument, which found great support among congestion enthusiasts this year, that transit shouldn’t be funded through the Highway Trust Fund, that the Fund was just fine before all these “hangers-on” started detracting from the “core programs” – I just can’t even go on.

But I think we can all agree that the Streetsie for the Most Frustrating and Illogical Proposal for Raising Infrastructure Funds goes to the scheme to eliminate biking and walking from federal funding programs. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) framed it as a safety issue – that it’s more important to fix crumbling and unsafe bridges than to build bike trails. He was ignoring the obvious fact that it would take his home state of Kentucky 66 years to repair the bridges currently listed as deficient if they used the tiny sliver of funding devoted to bike/ped projects.

The numbers don’t crunch any better for Oklahoma, yet that state’s Sen. Tom Coburn has the same idea. It’s too bad too. It’s a state with a serious infrastructure maintenance backlog and some desperately unsafe bridges. Oklahomans could benefit from some honest proposals to make their state safer, not this political quackery.

House Republican Blooper Reel: How could we wrap up 2011 without a final lap around some of the ways the House of Representatives made a mess of transportation authorization and appropriations? We started the year with some hope that all the parties were on board to pass a transportation bill in 2011, but instead we got:

• 

  House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's plan would have slashed transportation spending and prioritized highways. Photo: Christian Science Monitor.

  Republicans changing House rules to allow transportation funds to be withheld from transportation projects

• GOP attacks on Amtrak’s funding and proposals to sell off Amtrak’s only profit-making asset – the Northeast Corridor – to private companies
• Rep. Paul Ryan’s slash-and-burn budget, which would have guaranteed that the little money available would be spent on costly highway projects that take the transportation system backward
• A final transportation budget that included deep cuts to livability programs like the interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities
• Transportation Committee Chair John Mica’s bill to reduce spending without ensuring that money is wisely spent and that would have put bike/ped and transit funding in jeopardy
• Then, hooray! House Republicans say they’ve discovered a way to raise funding levels. They’re secretive about the details for a while before announcing that really, they didn’t have an idea about infrastructure spending; they had an idea for creating more political gridlock
• Republicans pitting high-speed rail funding against flood relief in the Midwest
• An inordinate amount of time spent on the brink of a government shutdown (or at least a shutdown of the transportation system) (or, to spice things up a little bit this year, an economic default and global meltdown), and most of the time, the deals brokered to break the impasse have been bad news for transportation reformers

How to choose the worst? Republicans, the Streetsie goes to you for your myriad bad ideas and bad policies. May 2012 bring a change of heart.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed was part of the mayors' rebellion against wasteful highway spending. Photo courtesy of U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Good Stuff That Happened This Year: Enough bad news! Some good stuff happened this year too. The Department of Transportation doubled down on its Distracted Driving campaign (with some eleventh hour help from the NTSB) and distributed a third round of TIGER grants. An increased focus on performance measures by advocacy groups like Smart Growth America, Building America’s Future, and the Bipartisan Policy Center helped create a smart discussion around the next transportation reauthorization that wasn’t just a volley over numbers. Mass transit saved people time and money as more and more people filled trains and buses, leaving their money-guzzlers in the garage. And there are reasons to believe the transit trend will only keep growing. Indeed, more and more evidence built up that for once, people are beginning to drive a little less.

The demand for smart-growth style urbanism – albeit in suburban locations – has risen, and the real estate market is beginning to respond. Even better, smart growth could be our escape out of the slump the economy is in. And mayors are taking a stand against state DOTs that ignore the transportation needs of metro areas in favor of building more roads to nowhere that speed outward sprawl and don’t address congestion.

These are the things we’ll be looking to build on in 2012.

So that’s our list! Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments if there’s any more cheering and jeering left to do. New Year’s Resolutions also accepted!

We’ll be back to our regular publishing schedule Tuesday, January 3 — just in time for the Iowa caucuses.

On our walk down the memory lane of 2011 so far, we’ve talked about some downers, some inspirations, some triumphs, and some struggles. Check out our first two installments of year-end Streetsie award nostalgia. Here’s some more.

Best Obama Plan That Died a Slow and Horrible Death This Year: How to choose, when there were so many? The president laid out a big, bold, ambitious transportation plan for the next six years but then stayed mum on the all-important question of how to fund it, and so, predictably, it died. His American Jobs Act included $50 billion for infrastructure projects, including at least $13 billion for rail and transit. It, too, went nowhere fast.

Obama's high-speed rail plans took a fast train to nowhere. Photo: America 2050

That wasn’t Obama’s fault, but if you’re looking for a reason to be angry at him, look no further than the ozone pollution rules the EPA was going to strengthen. The president froze at the last minute and decided to hold off another couple years, to give the economy a chance to recover (or business interests a chance to vote for him). The new ozone standard would have saved an estimated 12,000 lives and made transportation reforms essential.

But who could blame the 47 percent of you who awarded the Streetsie for saddest death of an Obama program to high-speed rail? Congress takes every opportunity to yank money away from the program, three Republican governors have very publicly thumbed their noses at federal funds, and the only true high-speed rail line with the potential to be truly transformative is in deep doo-doo in California. So much for 80 percent access in 25 years.

Non-Presidential Vices: Yes, we had our share of letdowns from President Obama this year. But not all our disappointments were related to him. We were also bummed to see plans scrapped for the Woodward Light Rail line in Detroit, and the failure of the Seattle car tab fee, which would have gone to transit, bike/ped and road maintenance. And certainly we were disappointed that the Senate transportation bill, in the end, didn’t keep dedicated funding for bike/ped. But the Streetsie for the biggest letdown has to go to the bait-and-switch the House Republicans pulled about funding their transportation plan.

It was simple enough when they were threatening to cut spending by a third so as not to overspend Highway Trust Fund receipts. Just about everyone hated the idea. But then the GOP said they’d match current levels and it seemed the best of both worlds – reasonable spending levels and a longer-term bill than the Senate was offering.

Hallelujah! So what’s the catch?

Turns out the catch was that it would be funded with oil drilling revenues. Even if it passed, the revenues would be too low and come too late to really pay for the bill, experts agreed. And of course, it would never pass anyway. Republicans have been making absolutely everything an excuse to try to pass oil-expansion legislation lately, and they have to know that the Democrats aren’t biting.

After the hard-fought Senate bill passed unanimously out of committee, with both sides making significant concessions so that they could produce a bill with a chance of passage, it was absolutely insulting for the House to produce something so ludicrously partisan. It made it clear, once and for all, that they had no intention of actually bringing a bill to passage this year.

Sen. James Inhofe: Public Enemy Number One. Photo: AP

Walkers’ and Cyclists’ Public Enemy Number One: What a year it’s been for the whimsical dreamers among us who actually believe we can get around on our own two feet – or two wheels – instead of an automobile. All autumn, Republicans lined up to shoot down the tiny amount of federal funding we get to carve out a little bit of safe space on the roadway.

House leaders staged an a-ha moment in September, in which they realized the parties could find consensus on infrastructure spending if they would just eliminate the “set-aside” for Transportation Enhancements. Then a whole parade of senators got in on the act, starting with Tom Coburn’s attempt to block a clean extension of the transportation bill (jeopardizing 80,000 jobs) unless they went along with his diabolical plot to kill TE in its sleep. Then Sen. John McCain tried to cut back on the program.

And Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky took it to a whole new level of kook when he called TE a fund for “turtle tunnels and squirrel sanctuaries and all this craziness.” Ever hear of bicycle commuting, Mr. Paul? It grew by 137 percent between 2008 and 2009 in Lexington. And Louisville is building a 100-mile Louisville Loop for hiking and biking. Just ask your constituents how crazy active transportation funds are.

But you, dear readers, reserved your greatest ire – and the 2011 Streetsie award – for Sen. James Inhofe. He stayed above the fray as his misguided colleagues engaged in their petty little antics because he had the inside track on killing dedicated funding for bike/ped once and for all. After all, the Senate transportation bill wouldn’t go anywhere if he wasn’t on board, and he made it his solemn duty to strip out the hated “set-aside” for Transportation Enhancements. At least he got the numbers right and acknowledged that TE amounted to less than two percent of the transportation program, not 10 percent as his colleagues falsely claimed.

A.J. Nelson, age 4, was killed while crossing the street between a bus stop and his home with his mother and two sisters.

Most Outrageous Attack on Cyclists and Pedestrians: The attacks didn’t all come from Capitol Hill, of course. Parents in Tennessee and Michigan were threatened with child-endangerment charges for letting their kids ride bikes. And even bike-friendly Seattle showed its dark side in 2011 with the astonishing ignorance of its police department. Cops recently berated an injured jogger by calling him names and telling him, “That’s why you drive a car!” And they’re getting tough on pedestrians and cyclists while letting bad driver behavior slide. In 2010, the department issued just 197 tickets to drivers for failing to yield — and 1,570 citations to pedestrians.

But the incident we all have burned into our memories – the one that still haunts us as we walk and ride around our hometowns – is the grievous wrong done to Raquel Nelson, She had to suffer the anguish of losing her four-year-old son to an impaired driver and then the injustice of having the blame fall on her. Cobb County, Georgia, gave a slap on the wrist to the driver and, as far as we can tell, no blame at all to the planners of auto-centric street design that makes tragedies like these inevitable. But the county charged Nelson with vehicular homicide.

It still burns us up – and makes us cry – just to think about it. Seventy-seven percent of you agreed, giving a landslide Streetsie to the prosecutors who saw fit to charge her and the jury – all whites who had never gotten on public transportation in their lives – that convicted her.

Sweet, Sweet Victory: It’s hard to see a silver lining in the whole Raquel Nelson tragedy, but more than a third of you agreed that it gave birth to one of the year’s key victories. Streetsblog caught wind of the Nelson trial once the jury had convicted her, and our coverage sparked national media attention, which led to major petition drives and resulted in a barrage of letters and phone calls to the judge. And when it came time for the judge to give her sentence, she offered a light one – or a new trial. Nelson’s lawyer said “a judge, on her own motion, granting a new trial” was “one of the most shocking things” he’d even seen in a courtroom.

Nelson took the option of a new trial, which has seen a number of delays. We hope the county prosecutors will wise up and drop the charges already, but if not, we’re confident another jury will find a different outcome.

The transit benefits train has left the station. Photo: i35south

With this inaction in both chambers of Congress, the federal government is sending a message loud and clear to commuters: they’d like you to start driving to work.

This is disappointing news to many of us, no doubt.

Many in Congress don’t seem to understand what it’s like to be a daily commuter trying to get from A to B each day without breaking the bank. Transportation is the second largest household expense for many households, eating up an even larger proportional share of income for the poorest Americans. The millions who depend on transit to get to work each day shouldn’t have to pay more, and certainly not for something that also saves us energy, reduces congestion and emissions, and uses less oil.

T4America does remind us that there is still hope that the benefits will be increased within the first few months of 2012. But, for now, it’s a disheartening moment for transit users. And those who need transit the most are sure to be the ones who suffer the most as a result.

The Senate bill also requires President Obama’s decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline within 60 days. The House will vote very soon on whether they’ll go along with the Senate’s version or drag this political theater out a little longer. (Our bets are on political theater.)

Without federal help, more buses could go out of service -- and the ones still circulating could charge more. Photo: Gothamist

Last week, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), along with Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) introduced a Senate companion to the bill [PDF]. Like the House version, it conditions the assistance on the size of a metro area and the robustness of its transit service. Smaller metros would be able to use half their federal funds for operating costs, but that proportion drops to 45 percent for communities of 500,000 to a million people, and 40 percent for populations over a million.

The bill also pegs the relief to the severity of the economic crisis in any given community. If the unemployment rate dips or the price of gas holds steady, it’s bye-bye federal operating help. At least one of these conditions need to be met for the assistance to be available: The metro area’s unemployment rate has to be at or above 7 percent or the national average price of gas has to have increased by more than 10 percent over the same quarter the previous year.

Conditioning the transit assistance on high gas prices isn’t just about helping drivers temporarily shift modes to save money (only to shift back when gas prices are back down). High gas prices present an enormous cost burden to transit agencies.

“The fuel price trigger was really the original rationale for this emergency assistance,” said Sarah Kline of Reconnecting America. “This concept of crisis assistance arose first in the 2007-2008 timeframe, before the economy collapsed. The reason is because fuel prices went crazy, and when fuel goes up, transit agencies’ costs go up.”

Indeed, if ordinary car commuters think a dollar or two jump in gas prices makes a difference in their household expenses, just imagine the burden for transit agencies burning thousands of gallons a day. Meanwhile, the American Public Transportation Association estimated earlier this year that $4-a-gallon gas translates into an additional 670 million passenger trips in a year [PDF], further straining underfunded systems struggling to absorb higher fuel costs.

Lawmakers have been under pressure from localities to allow for more flexibility at the local level about the use of the funding. Communities often find themselves with garages full of new, federally-funded buses and no ability to pay drivers, since the funding is only for capital expenses, not operations. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has gotten behind a temporary fix as well.

The House bill hasn’t gone far since being referred to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, but that may not be a bad sign. Sen. Brown is hoping his bill will get rolled into the broader transportation reauthorization bill, and is reportedly in conversations with the Banking Committee to make that happen. Remember, though, that even if the final transportation bill is a six-year bill, the operating assistance wouldn’t necessarily continue for six years, but only as long as the conditions above are met.

The House bill has gone through various contortions since being introduced in July, being re-imagined as a front for expanded oil drilling and having its funding levels bumped up to a level more acceptable to industry, but it hasn’t actually gone anywhere. Committee Chair John Mica recently told Politico his ideal scenario: ”If all goes well, hopefully we can finish FAA in January and begin thereafter the transportation bill,” he said. “But I don’t set the floor schedule.”

Banking, meanwhile, was hoping to move forward on the transit portion of the Senate bill last Friday but time got away from it. The most likely rain date will be in early February, as the Senate will only be in session one week in January.

The initial operating segment of California HSR has critics worrying about the entire system. Full Image: CHSRA

First to take center stage were the members of the California congressional delegation, whom ranking member Nick Rahall (D-WV) likened to the cast of a reality TV show for “always fighting.” And fight they did: about alignments, the proper location for an initial operating segment, and whether HSR is needed at all.

The committee seemed primarily concerned with three things:

• the choice of the Central Valley as the project’s initial operating segment
• a recent poll showing dwindling public support for the project in its present form, and
• the uncertain availability of funds, given such a dramatic increase in project cost estimates

Regarding the choice of the Bakersfield-to-Fresno initial segment, FRA Administrator Joseph Szabo was unequivocal. “We have a legal and binding obligation to move forward,” he told the committee. “We don’t have the authority to shift these dollars now [to a different segment] and meet the requirements of the law.” He’s right: The FRA, in awarding federal money to CA HSR, is executing its duties set forth in laws like the stimulus act, PRIIA [PDF], and others, passed to permit expansion of passenger rail while SAFETEA-LU stuck around.

Assessing the other two fears – dwindling public support and uncertainty of funds – is less straightforward.

Petra Todorovich, director of the rail advocacy group America 2050, told Streetsblog that she sees the uncertainty of funds as the greater threat. “It adds delay to the project, which is one of the reasons that the recent cost estimates were revised upwards,” she said. “If California can accelerate the project, it will cost less money.” And it’s a vicious cycle: The more the project costs, the less inclined private investors will be to sign on to the project, and the slower the project will be able to proceed.

Both sides agree that the success of the project depends on finding private capital to fill the growing gap in the up-front costs. The business plan (conservatively) predicts an $11 billion investment from the private sector, but even if all $11 billion were to turn up, Rep. Andy Miller (R-MD) expressed his extreme reluctance to ask his constituents in Maryland to help come up with the remaining balance. If that attitude prevails in the belt-tightening House, private sources have even less incentive to invest, and so the cycle continues. In this way, the entire House hearing could be seen as self-fulfilling.

After all, the hearing was titled “California’s High-Speed Rail Plan: Skyrocketing Costs & Project Concerns,” leaving no doubt about whether the convening Republicans wanted to paint the project in a negative light. But some said that plan backfired. Thomas Umberg, California High-Speed Rail Authority Chair, told Streetsblog he was gratified that, “While the hearing was called as a critique of the plan, in fact… federal officials, members of Congress, and the Mayor of Fresno strongly defended the plan.”

Still, it has plenty of detractors. And with Congress unwilling to commit to CA HSR and the State of California essentially unable to, it’s no wonder popular support has faded. Ray LaHood frequently reiterated in his testimony last week that HSR is “what America wants” (which he said again to a media conference call yesterday) but many skeptics yesterday cited a poll that would indicate otherwise: 59 percent of respondents in California said they would vote against the nearly $10 billion bond issue in Proposition 1A if it were to come up for election today.

Of course, Prop 1A passed by a 5 percent margin in 2008, so what can be done about an “unpopular” use of funds which happened to pass by popular a vote with 80 percent voter turnout? “The voters chose wisely when they voted [to provide] an alternative to the road congestion that is a drag on the state’s competitiveness,” said Todorovich. “For the sake of the state’s economy and quality of life, I hope they can keep the faith.”

Orrin Hatch, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has some ideas about how to fund the transportation bill. Photo: Mediaite

Seven of the 11 GOP members of the Finance Committee sent a letter to Chair Max Baucus late last week with their suggestions. Here they are:

• $3.5 billion rescission from the Advanced Vehicle Technology Manufacturing Loan Program
• $3 billion transfer from the Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund
• reclaiming $2.5 billion in transfers over the next 10 years from the Highway Trust Fund to the Land and Water Conservation Fund
• expanded oil and gas production in Alaska and the Outer Continental Shelf ($5.2 billion over 10 years)
• rescission of other unspent federal funds

The GOP members say the first three rescissions wouldn’t be felt much, especially for the programs that routinely bring in more than they spend out.

And then, of course, there’s the oil drilling. They’ve been trying to sneak Alaska oil drilling into just about everything these days, it seems — and here it is, showing up in this proposal to find $12 billion. Despite the fact that it could take years to earn a dime from oil drilling, the GOP acts like it’s the money spigot for everything the government wants to spend — if only the Democrats would stop being so sanctimonious about caribou babies.

So there you have it: spending cuts and oil drilling, the cure for all that ails the country (and, in this case, the solution for the transportation funding shortfall).

For good measure, the Republicans also suggest eliminating Davis-Bacon requirements that federally-funded projects pay at least a “prevailing wage.” So, just in case the ideological assault on environmental causes wasn’t enough to freak out the Democrats, here comes an ideological assault on labor rights.

As with everything else related to the reauthorization, it’s no use holding your breath for more action on these issues until late January or (more likely) February. Congress’s initial target adjournment date was yesterday, but they seem serious about next week being their last week in Washington before the holidays.

Meanwhile, Politico is reporting on a “brewing turf battle” in the House over spending levels — and, yes, how to fund them:

Rep. Steve LaTourette, at a private transportation meeting yesterday with stakeholders and staffers, said House leaders had approached Transportation & Infrastructure Chairman John Mica to suggest paring down the highway bill to two or three years, according to several sources at the meeting. Their plan: fund highway and transit programs at $65 billion to $70 billion a year, using current gas tax receipts, $7 billion from spending down the Highway Trust Fund’s balance and $50 billion from “a secret source.”

Mica is sticking to his guns on a five-year bill (down from the six years he was so insistent about just a few months back). But Politico says House Speaker John Boehner “wants to approve a highway bill that can be sold as a major Republican jobs initiative” more than he cares about a long-term bill that would provide more certainty to the transportation industry. Boehner has been pushing a bill funded by (what else?) oil drilling.

LaTourette acknowledged to Politico that “the energy link was not that strong because it doesn’t produce that much money, so the money is going to have to come from someplace else.”

Where would that be? It’s a secret.

The word on the street is that, at the same meeting, LaTourette also pledged to seek complete streets language for the transportation reauthorization bill.