We also asked him for his thoughts about some major themes in transportation today. 

Chairman Jim Oberstar calls transportation enhancements "the point of transformation" for transportation. Photo courtesy of Oberstar's office.

On the “dissipation” of high-speed rail funds:

We reshaped Amtrak in the 2008 authorization, designating 11 corridors and creating a mechanism by which there could be competition from private sources and from state consortia, with Amtrak, to provide the passenger rail service in a particular corridor.

At first, I didn’t like that idea, but I spent a lot of time talking to Mr. Mica about it and as we talked, I said, “You know, that’s beginning to make more sense. We ought to challenge Amtrak. That’s a good idea; let’s put this into the bill.” And then we got consensus that high-speed should be defined as 110 mph, and that was in the bill. And we got a bill that George Bush signed!

So there was a structure against which to pit [the $8.5 billion in stimulus dollars for high-speed rail]. I thought that was going to happen. Instead, it was all put up for competition for various states to come forward and put a proposal on the table.

Wisconsin, for example: to Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago. That should have been done as part of the Midwest High-Speed Rail Initiative, with Chicago as the hub, south to St. Louis, east through Detroit to Cleveland and eventually to Cincinnati, and west to Minneapolis-St. Paul. That would have been one very defensible, manageable anchor.

The Northeast Corridor could have been another important anchor. The west coast, which is already underway: a third anchor to this system. And then some other amounts in the other corridors, depending on proposals that they would have and should have submitted to DOT.

Allowing pieces to be bid or requested by states dissipated the critical mass of investment. And I’m not saying that in hindsight – that was my concern at the time.

On the attack on Transportation Enhancements in Congress:

Transportation Enhancements was the pivotal point of transformation at the end of the interstate era — an era in which travelers went where the road took them — to the era in which users of our system had a say in their quality of transportation and where that road should go in the future and how their transportation experience should be managed.

Enhancements is the breakthrough transformation of our surface transportation system in the post-interstate era. If it were eliminated, it would erode public trust and acceptance of our surface transportation programs.

On how he would pay for his 2009 bill if he were defending it in this fiscally conservative Congress:

I would still insist on a restructuring of the categorical programs, to reduce those categories from 108 to four formula programs and to require the intermodalism that is depicted in my plan. And by law, you can require that the modal administrators meet monthly. There is nothing to impede the secretary of transportation from doing that now, from convening a monthly meeting of FRA and Federal Transit Administration, Maritime Administration, and all the rest. But they haven’t done that, regardless of administration.

So do it by law! You will develop a safety plan. What can highways learn from aviation and safety? What can waterways learn? What can highways learn from waterways? All of these need to be done intermodally.

So you give the public a sense of accomplishment, of simplicity and clarity, transparency of the program. And then you have freight corridors to deal with the farm-to-market movement of goods and inter-city goods movement, which is a segment of that bill, and then the metropolitan mobility and access provision that addresses the fact that 50 percent of vehicle miles traveled in this country are in urban areas and we are wasting $110 billion a year just sitting in traffic.

And then requiring states to develop plans, and defend them, and be accountable to them. It’s doable; we did that. I had a hearing every month on the stimulus investments and made state DOTs and USDOT and the wastewater treatment agencies and the aviation authority all come and say, what did they do with their money, how did you invest it, what are the benefits from it? So you include that accountability, clarity, and performance.

And then project delivery – in the current law it’s not widely understood. But I crafted 42 pages of legislative language to expedite project delivery. The result: 47 projects – these are big ones, these are $100 million-and-above-sized projects – have had a 36 month reduction in permitting, which means you’re almost cutting in half the time it’s taking for permitting — without denigrating the environment, without denigrating historical preservation, without overriding local permitting interests and requirements.

So, you require better performance, better project delivery, and then you can ask the public. If I were still there, I’d be saying, now we go to the public and say, “We have funded our surface transportation system with the user fee, so you have a claim on the future investments, by which you pay at the pump and now you have something in which you can have confidence that it will be used effectively.” There will be much greater accountability.

Then you can appeal for an increase in the user fee or a combination of funding mechanisms, which we provided for in the metropolitan access and mobility provisions.

U.S. DOT Deputy Assistant Secretary Beth Osborne. Photo: Adam Voiland

Federal lawmakers usually set transportation policy by authorizing a major spending bill every five or six years.  The last of these bills — known as SAFETEA-LU — expired in 2009, but lawmakers’ efforts to agree on a reauthorization bill have languished in Congressional committees due to disagreements about how to pay for it.

Since SAFETEA-LU expired, Congress has passed stopgap spending measures to keep the system functioning; however, the lack of a coherent, long-term vision has left state and city transportation departments adrift and has made it challenging for them to plan strategically.

On Labor Day, President Obama put transportation near the top of his agenda by calling on Congress to tackle stagnant job growth by repairing and upgrading infrastructure. He asked Congress to ramp up investment in roads and rail, create a federal infrastructure bank that would help fund large and complex projects, reform the Balkanized structure of federal transportation spending programs, and make the nation’s transportation system safer and more livable. Advocates for shifting away from the highway-centric effects of current federal policy were encouraged by Obama’s use of the word “reform,” and the lack of any mention of expanding highways.

However, in many ways, Obama’s Labor Day proposal lacked specificity. Most notably, it offered little insight into how the administration expects Congress to pay for the next reauthorization. At yesterday’s event, the deputy assistant secretary for transportation policy at U.S. DOT, Beth Osborne, made clear the lack of specificity was by design. “I’ll be very honest. There aren’t a lot of details beneath what we put out to the public,” she said. “We really want to go at this in cooperation with Congress.”

And that process, she warned, won’t necessarily be a smooth one. While the last several authorizations have had plenty of funding, the program is broke this time around due to the dwindling power of the gas tax. “It’s not going to be as easy, but just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing,” she said.

One of the administration’s priorities, she noted, will be to improve the livability of the nation’s cities and towns. Critics in Washington, she said, have told her that livability is hard to define, but that the concept has proven easy enough to grasp for people outside of politics:

Interestingly, I really only hear that inside the Beltway. When you travel with the Secretary nobody thinks it’s hard to define and nobody needs it defined. They know exactly what we’re talking about. And it is remarkable. This is not a regional thing, this is not a big community versus small community thing. People really get what you’re talking about. What we’re talking about with livability is a community that has transportation choices, different types of housing, and destinations close to your home. That’s it. Not a terribly complex concept.

Maryland Senator Ben Cardin addresses the crowd yesterday. Photo: Adam Voiland

The head of the District Department of Transportation, Gabe Klein, called the current moment one of the scariest times in transportation history. He warned that lawmakers have difficult and uncomfortable decisions ahead about how to pay for the reauthorization bill.

Klein emphasized the need for diversified sources of funding for transportation investment, despite the political challenges. He noted, for example, that local jurisdictions, like DC, should have the latitude to explore congestion pricing as a way to raise revenue.

During the same panel, Richard Sarles, the interim general manager of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) explained that his agency is spending much of its funding on efforts to improve the safety of its system after a catastrophic Metro collision last summer. With little clarity about what the future holds, Sarles warned that there simply aren’t funds available to address large expected increases in ridership on city transit systems in the coming years.

Reform-minded lawmakers, most notably House Transportation and Infrastructure Chair Jim Oberstar (D-MN), have made it an urgent priority to reauthorize the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible Efficient Transportation Equity Act (SAFETEA-LU, or, more commonly, the transportation bill). But with revenues from the stagnant gas tax flagging, lawmakers can’t agree on how to raise the funds needed for the bill, and they’ve postponed dealing with the problem by passing a series of emergency extensions.

The frustration was evident among attendees at yesterday's conference. "There’s no innovation right now," said Faramarz Mokhtari, a planner at the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. "The status quo is continuing."

U.S. DOT’s top leaders (save Secretary Ray LaHood) fielded questions about the next long-term transportation bill this morning as part of a “town hall” session at agency headquarters. The conference, the sixth and final stop on a national listening tour, was billed as a chance to give feedback about how the transportation bill should take shape. While senior department staff adhered to the listening session format, divulging few specifics about their current thinking, they did provide a glimpse of the frustration over the ongoing lack of certainty for transportation funding.

One piece of news to come out of the session concerned the agency’s popular Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program. Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy Polly Trottenberg reported that Congress will likely authorize a third year of the TIGER competitive grant program, which is seen as a model for allocating infrastructure investment based on strategic goals and criteria.

During the Q&A, DOT leadership made two points clear. The department wants and needs a long-term funding authorization, and they want to cut the time it takes to approve and finish projects.

“The series of short term authorizations is frustrating to us,” Deputy Secretary John Porcari said, pointing out that the department has gone through some weekend construction shutdowns caused by reauthorization delays. The most desirable outcome for DOT, Porcari said, is a long-term authorization with predictable funding.

The other frustrating point for DOT is the length of time it takes for a project to move from authorization to construction. “We simply take too long to deliver our projects,” Federal Highway Administrator Victor Mendez said. One of his policy priorities is to cut project times in half.

Beyond those two priorities, officials made few specific comments, returning to themes they've sounded previously.

Transit and rail freight issues were the hottest topic of the morning. Responding to a question about the upward creep of gas prices, Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff said that DOT cannot simply allow existing transit systems to “limp along.” Without getting into specifics, he implied that transit systems -- many of which have been pummeled by financial shortfalls and service cuts -- should be in a position to handle surges in demand. “We saw a considerable spike in ridership when gas hit $4 a gallon,” he said.

The panel also reinforced DOT’s commitment to interagency partnerships, exemplified by the partnership between DOT, HUD, and the EPA that seeks to promote smart growth and sustainability by building housing convenient to transit. “This interagency cooperation is central to where we are heading,” Porcari said.

Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), center, and John Kerry (D-MA), right, with onetime climate bill cosponsor Lindsey Graham (R-SC) at left. (Photo: CSM)

"This is one of those cases where we really can't even talk about the merits of any portion of the bill because the fundamental position is flawed," Millar said.

Referring to the legislation's promise of funding for the clean transport and land-use grants known as "CLEAN TEA" and TIGER, he added, "Many of those are very good ideas … but you can't make those ideas work if there's no significant funding to make them work, and this bill would aggravate the funding situation for public transit."

John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), was more direct in outlining where state DOTs want to see the Senate climate bill's fuel revenues directed. "Channel[ing] every dollar through the highway trust fund," he said, would help the industry break through a congressional stalemate and win passage of a new six-year federal transport bill.

Stephen Sandherr, CEO of the Associated General Contractors, and Pete Ruane, president of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, echoed Horsley's interpretation of the new fuel fees in the climate bill -- which are imposed on oil companies and refiners but are likely to be passed along through higher gas prices -- as a de facto "user fee" on drivers.

The climate proposal, Ruane said, does "nothing more than finance a lot of goals, which are enviable in part, on the backs of transportation users."

It remains to be seen whether the transportation industry's combative stance against the partial diversion of the bill's transportation revenue, billed as a "call for a rewrite" of the climate legislation, will help force senators into restructuring the measure. Ruane said he "like[s] the odds" facing the four groups.

But a spokesman for Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said that APTA, AASHTO, and 25 other industry groups mis-estimated the amount of revenue set aside for transportation in a letter outlining their concerns that was sent today to Kerry and his chief climate bill co-sponsor, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT).

“Let’s get the facts straight," Kerry spokesman Whitney Smith said via email. "This bill invests more than $6 billion annually in transportation infrastructure, which is more than any other comprehensive energy and climate bill and more than twice what's claimed in this letter. In effect, the letter advocates a policy that would accelerate emissions from the transportation sector and increase our dependence on foreign oil. That's not good for anyone, especially consumers."

One congressional source was befuddled by APTA's move to "bit[e] the hand that feeds them" by criticizing a climate bill that stands to give broad, lasting benefits to rail and bus systems.

“Perhaps these groups are confused about the purpose of the climate bill: It’s to reduce emissions, not increase them," the source told Streetsblog Capitol Hill. "The Kerry-Lieberman bill invests more money in transportation than any of the previous climate bills. Instead of working constructively to increase that investment, they are biting the hand that feeds them. Why is APTA advocating for a strategy that will decrease the amount of climate money going to transit? Transit makes out like a bandit in the Kerry-Lieberman bill.”

APTA's alignment with AASHTO and the construction industry groups marks a split of sorts from the Transportation for America (T4A) infrastructure reform coalition, which has praised the upper-chamber climate bill's focus on investing in clean transport projects while taking no official position on the legislation as a whole.

The Senate climate plan provides "a new source of revenue" for transportation, T4A spokesman David Goldberg said in an interview. "This is not a gas tax, and it's not conceived of as a supplement to the highway trust fund, for whatever the business-as-usual, run-of-the-mill highway trust fund projects are."

How big would that new source of transportation revenue be, relative to the total amount raised by the Senate climate bill's new fuel fees? APTA and AASHTO claim in their letter that more than three-quarters of total fuel fees would be used for non-infrastructure purposes:

In 2013, fees from on-road fuel consumption [under the climate proposal] would generate at least $19.5 billion.  Instead of returning revenue from these fees to improving the transportation system, the bill diverts at least 77 percent of the funds away from transportation infrastructure investment. As carbon prices increase, the bill diverts as much as 91 percent of fuel revenues.  Of particular concern, the bill limits new investment in the Highway Trust Fund to $2.5 billion per year, far below the amount the bill raises from system users. 

As Kerry's office pointed out, however, the industry groups' math appears to lowball the amount of funding set aside for transportation. The 77 percent estimate would yield an annual pot of less than $4 billion, while Kerry and Lieberman have estimated that transport would receive upwards of $6 billion during the first several years after their legislation takes effect.

(ed. note. This post was updated to add comment from Kerry's office.)

Anti-tax protesters. (Photo: Tribune)

But that outcome assumes that Congress and the White House can reach an agreement by early 2011 on how to find as much as $200 billion to pay for a significant six-year investment in infrastructure.

Right now there remains only two practical options on the table: paying for a new transport bill with general Treasury money, which would amount to deficit spending at a time when White House aides profess mounting concerns about the nation's red ink; and raising the federal gas tax, which the president has flatly ruled out.

What would the worst-case scenario look like? It is rarely mentioned on the record by Washington infrastructure watchers, but former Transportation Secretary James Burnley IV outlined it neatly in an interview this week with D.C. Velocity:

I started saying a year ago that we were facing four years of short-term extensions of existing [federal transport funding] programs, and I'm sorry to say this is a prediction that I believe will come true. It will be especially difficult for the Obama administration and Congress to agree on a solution to the [highway] trust fund crisis if the political environment holds in November and we have more Republicans occupying both Houses who are skeptical of higher taxes of any kind.

What worries me is that the whole concept of the trust fund is breaking down. You can't make the argument with a straight face that the trust fund should be spent just on transportation programs and that it should be walled off from the appropriations process while at the same time getting huge sums of money from general revenues. That is a corrosive process. By 2013, we could find the whole notion of the trust fund obsolete.

What Burnley does not mention is that extending the 2005 transportation law past the current fiscal year would require continued transfers from the Treasury (what he calls "general revenues") to the highway trust fund, which belies its name by providing a regular source of funding for transit as well as roads.

The jobs bill that President Obama signed last month shifts $19.5 billion into the trust fund, a sum expected to keep it solvent until the end of fiscal year 2010, but preserving even the inadequate existing levels of maintenance for roads and rails would require extra money this fall unless Congress passes a new transportation bill.

Still, Burnley's assessment of the political reality rings true. With the rise of the anti-tax Tea Party movement drawing media and public attention to the prospect of future tax hikes to help shrink the deficit, Democrats are already taking great care to reinforce the president's campaign pledge not to raise taxes for households earning less than $250,000 a year. Anyone predicting a more hospitable environment on the Hill next year for raising gas taxes to pay for infrastructure would be safely accused of wishful thinking.

And the more that Democrats shrink from the T-word, the stronger the likelihood that the 2005 transport law would be extended until after the 2012 presidential race -- barring a breakthrough on new financing tactics, that is.

(Photo: SCnow.com)

At transport safety hearing in the environment panel -- which is working on a new six-year infrastructure bill that could see action in the upper chamber this year -- Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) ruled out any attempt to use federal money as leverage in encouraging stronger state safety rules.

"What I oppose is forcing a one-size-fits-all Washington solution on all states ... that withholds highway funds from states that do not enact specific laws," Inhofe said.

In response to environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer's (D-CA) assertion that "we have seen tremendous cooperation on the safety part of this bill," Inhofe added that "if there's any division up here ...  it's going to be over the role of the states."

Inhofe's comments follow questions raised by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX), the commerce committee's senior GOP member and co-sponsor of a competing bill that uses federal grants as an incentive to coax states into passing new distracted driving laws.

"I don't think we should get into states rights," Hutchison said in November.

The concept of yanking federal funds from states that fail to rein in drivers' texting and cell phone use is modeled after seat-belt and drunk-driving laws passed in recent decades. Guarding against drunk driving is far from a moribund issue, however; Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) used yesterday's hearing to press the Obama administration on his proposal to require the installation of ignition interlocks for six months in the cars of convicted drunk drivers.

The interlocks are small sensors that test a driver's breath for alcohol before permitting them to start their vehicle. After Lautenberg cited Centers for Disease Contol (CDC) research that found rearrests of convicted drunk drivers dropped by 73 percent after the installation of interlocks in their cars, U.S. DOT No. 2 John Porcari agreed that the devices could soon be in wider use as a road safety tool.

Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-OR), at left, joined Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) to introduce a Wall Street transaction tax in December. (Photo: AP/Oregonian)

But the tax proposal has since lost steam in Washington transportation debate, getting little notice from lawmakers who strongly support taking up a new six-year infrastructure bill in 2010 even as it remains a magnet for progressives looking to rein in financial industry excesses.

What happened to the idea of using an oil futures transaction fee -- set at 0.02 percent in a December bill offered by Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-OR) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) -- to fund long-term federal transportation projects?

Jim Berard, spokesman for the House infrastructure panel, explained in an interview late last week that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had conducted a preliminary analysis that found the transaction tax would raise less money than lawmakers had initially hoped. The reason for the lower-than-expected revenue, Berard said, was the rationale hinted at by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in November: a tax levied only on domestic futures would end up pushing trades overseas.

"What sounded like a really good solution six months ago turned out to be not as good as we thought, and just not as viable," Berard told Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

That leaves federal transportation policymakers essentially where they were at this time last year, searching for a politically feasible stand-in for a gas tax increase that the White House and congressional Democratic leaders have both ruled out for now.

Even as raising the gas tax to pay for transport legislation remains unpopular, senators are preparing to release a new climate change bill later this month that would impose a new "linked fee" on motor fuel. Such a fee could be used in part to fund new infrastructure projects, but Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of the architects of the new climate measure, told The Hill last month that most of the resulting revenue would be sent back to drivers in the form of rebates.

The infrastructure panel's highways and transit subcommittee, chaired by DeFazio, plans a hearing next week on "innovative financing" strategies, and Berard said panel chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) continues to search for a revenue plan that can unify the capital's disparate transportation players -- House and Senate leaders, the U.S. DOT, the White House, state DOTs, reform groups, and transit advocates.

(Photo: Pop and Politics)

In order to repay the Treasury for its up-front bond issue, Congress would ultimately need to raise the gas tax -- a step lawmakers have been unwilling to take since 1993, and one that the White House has ruled out for the time being.

"The idea of waiting three or four years for the economy to recover would be an appealing part of" the idea, Iowa state DOT chief Nancy Richardson told Oberstar when he sought her reaction to the plan at a Friday House hearing. "[That] would allow it to appeal to some of the dissenters in terms of increasing funding."

Delaying for three or four years, however, also would assume that future Congresses would be more open to voting on a gas-tax hike that few lawmakers are eager to debate, even in rosy economic times. The evidence of success for such kick-the-can-down-the-road moves is few and far between: both parties, for example, have habitually voted to postpone previously scheduled cuts in Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors rather than fix the long-term formula.

In addition, the growing production boom in semi- and fully electric cars casts doubt on the gas tax's ability to raise sustainable revenue for transportation going forward. Depending on how popular highly fuel-efficient cars become by the time Congress considers a future gas tax change, the cents-per-gallon increase needed to repay the Treasury may be much higher than any current predictions.

The gas-tax bonding plan has a third potential hiccup. Oberstar suggested that $130 billion in Treasury bonds would be sufficient to close the gap between the cost of his six-year transport bill and anticipated gas-tax revenue. Yet that total would not appear to cover the estimated $50 billion that Oberstar's legislation would set aside for high-speed rail.

Securing sufficient votes from fiscally conservative Democrats and Senate Republicans for deficit spending on high-speed rail would be difficult on its own, and adding the bonding proposal could add complications.

Oberstar spokesman Jim Berard cautioned that the bonding idea is among several "proposals that have been floating around" for financing a new transport bill, adding: "There isn't a magic bullet out there that seems to have captured everybody's imagination. So we don't want to get too far out in front of this thing because we don't want to give the impression that we've found the answer."

Despite the frequent reluctance of rural lawmakers to support more federal investment in transit, a majority of rural and urban voters alike believe their home towns would gain from a local transit expansion, according to a new poll released today by the infrastructure reform group Transportation for America (T4A) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

When asked if increased transit investment would help their community, 69 percent of poll respondents answered in the affirmative, including 74 percent of suburbanites and 55 percent of rural residents. Those numbers decreased for a separate question that asked whether transit should get more federal funding, but a majority of voters from both suburban (59 percent) and rural (50 percent) areas remained supportive.

The survey, conducted four weeks ago by pollsters from both GOP- and Democratic-aligned firms, also sought to gauge public consciousness of U.S. transportation spending patterns. When respondents were asked what share of federal transport dollars they thought should go to transit, the mean answer was 37 percent. Transit's actual share is about 19 percent.

David Metz of Fairbank Maslin Maullin Metz & Associates, one of two pollsters who worked on the survey, told reporters that its conclusion was clear: "Americans want more transportation options than they have today," he said. "The vast majority of Americans say they have no choice but to drive as much as they do and that they would like to drive less."

Lawmakers in the House and Senate have made positive predictions recently about the fate of the six-year transportation bill offered last June in the lower chamber. Indeed, T4A depicted its poll as a valuable messaging tool in the wake of Sen. George Voinovich's (R-OH) extraction of a vow from Democratic leaders to take up long-term infrastructure legislation before 2011.

But the lack of a sustainable revenue source to pay for that long-term bill, expected to cost upwards of $450 billion, continues to hamstring the effort. Few if any observers of the Washington transportation debate view a new bill as politically feasible in 2010, particularly given the opposition of both the White House and Congress to increasing the gas tax while the recession still looms.

Should this month's stirrings of possible momentum for a new bill grow stronger in recent months, the T4A poll offers green groups, social-equity advocates, and other pro-reform interests valuable insights on how to sell voters on a more transit-focused six-year bill.

Given the option of endorsing several arguments in favor of spending more on transit and bike-ped infrastructure, survey respondents were most strongly swayed by a narrative that the pollsters billed as "Accountability," which was associated with the following statement: "Government officials must be held accountable for how our transportation tax dollars are spent. We cannot afford to build more roads while existing roads are in disrepair."

More than half of polled voters found the "Accountability" argument very convincing, with three other narratives -- focusing on greater access for lower-income populations, the public health upside of bike-ped spending, and the absence of a 21st-century transportation network -- running behind.

The poll also suggested that voters would be receptive to a greater reliance on local taxes and fees to leverage federal transportation funding.

Asked if they would support a transit expansion in their community that required tax increases, 51 percent of poll respondents expressed either strong or moderate support, with 46 percent either strongly or moderately opposed. The share of voters strongly opposed to local taxation for transit (32 percent), however, topped the share that strongly supported those taxes (24 percent).

The margin of error for the poll, which surveyed 800 registered voters, was about 3.5 percent.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) (Photo: LV City Life)

Oberstar's proposed fix also would amend language in that jobs bill that disproportionately under-funded seven federal transportation programs, including Safe Routes to School, Metropolitan Planning, and Recreational Trails.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had vowed to the House chairman that upper chamber would approve his fix as part of a future jobs bill, but objections from several senators prevented it from hitching a ride on the aviation bill.

CQ identified one of the objecting senators in its story on the issue (sub. req'd.):

An aide to Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., one of the senators who whose state stands to lose under the Oberstar formulation, said he was one of "a dozen or so" senators who had concerns.

"The last 11 FAA bills we've passed were clean, and a number of members objected to adding a controversial highway change to that bill," the aide said. "It's an issue that needs to be addressed, but this FAA [bill] simply wasn't the place."

Republicans preferred Oberstar's solution, in part because their states by and large would do better under his plan.

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

The Minnesotan, who clashed openly with the White House this year over its preference to delay new transport legislation until 2011, said he was "encouraged that we will be able to complete the bill in this session of Congress."

One unspoken source of urgency for Oberstar and fellow House members: waiting until next year to take up a new transport bill would mean starting from scratch after the midterm elections, which could significantly shrink the size of the Democrats' majority. A more conservative transport committee would complicate the path to passage for the new transit spending envisioned in Oberstar's current bill.

Oberstar was the dominant force at today's stimulus hearing, scheduled for a Friday afternoon when many members were in the process of returning home for Congress' Easter recess. The chairman took the opportunity to press witnesses on unresolved policy controversies, including the debate over allowing transit agencies to spend federal aid on operating -- a representative for the transit industry's lobbying group called for extending the 10-percent flexibility approved last year -- and the need for Senate movement on the "second stimulus" that cleared the House in December.

"We have to sustain those existing jobs and investments so the private sector can catch up -- one more summer of stimulus will set the stage and move the country forward," Oberstar said, deeming the Senate's progress on infrastructure job creation "not sufficient."

During a discussion on the massive financing gap that is bogging down the next transport bill, Oberstar also pooh-poohed the prospects of tolling interstate highways built during the road program's postwar heyday. Pennsylvania is currently pushing for federal approval to add tolls to an existing interstate.

"We're not going to allow tolling of the interstate highway system," Oberstar said. "It's already been built and paid for."

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), center, with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) at right. (Photo: NWF via Flickr)

Gina McCarthy, the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) senior air-quality official, did get to outline the results of an report her agency released last month [PDF] at the request of Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). The senator had asked the EPA to determine the maximum achievable reduction in pollution from the transportation sector -- which currently accounts for about 30 percent of total U.S. emissions -- by the year 2030.

For its emissions model, the EPA assumed that auto fuel-efficiency standards would continue rising in concert with the Obama administration's plan to reach an average of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. Other assumptions included a 60-percent improvement in the fuel efficiency of new freight trucks and the transit and land use reforms outlined in last year's Moving Cooler report.

What did the EPA find? Per McCarthy's testimony:

[B]y 2030, greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector could be reduced by 600 to 1000 million metric tons annually, which would be the equivalent of taking 120 to 200 million cars off the road. The projected oil savings are 4 to 7 million barrels per day, representing one-third to over one-half of our current oil imports. These greenhouse gas emissions and oil savings represent a 25 to 40 percent reduction in the transportation sector relative to the Energy Information Administration’s 2009 Annual Energy Outlook baseline.

McCarthy emphasized that the report does not represent an official EPA recommendation on transport emissions cuts, but its release comes at an auspicious time, as Kerry bids to revive the prospects for a Senate climate bill by partnering with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) on a new approach to curbing pollution.

That Senate trio reportedly plans to make a revenue-neutral fuel tax part of its climate proposal, a concept that could hinder lawmakers' ability to use the existing federal gas tax as a tool to raise revenue for the next transportation bill. The stated goal on all sides is the same -- bringing America towards "energy independence" -- but major questions remain over how to define that state.

NGV America president Richard Kolodziej, who leads a coalition of energy firms and utilities seeking more support for natural gas-powered autos, told senators that "we will not be independent" of foreign oil within the next two decades. "But we will be much less dependent if we can have a system where our commercial infrastructure cannot be affected because of an embargo" by oil-exporting nations, he added.

Deron Lovaas, transport policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, countered that a better term to define the national ideal should be "energy-secure." That state would be possible by 2030, he said, by combining policies that decrease demand (e.g. more investment in transit) with more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Lovaas also cited his membership in the new Mobility Choice lobbying alliance, members of which include conservatives Clifford May and Kenneth Green. lllustrating the competing political interest in new fuel fees, Lovaas said the new group "favors an oil security fee to pay for inter-city passenger rail."

Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-OH) (Photo: Cleveland.com)

But the devil is in the details, as one Republican revealed to the newspaper (emphasis mine):

[The earmark removal] means that if a highway bill or water resources bill does move through Congress this year, House Republicans may be the only Members who can’t get a road widened or a drainage ditch dug in their district. ...

Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio), who submitted four dozen project requests for the highway bill, said Friday, “The [GOP] Conference, for the reason that they think the current system is broken, they’ve decided to take a little rest” from earmarks. But LaTourette said it seems unlikely the highway bill or the WRDA bill is going to pass this year anyway, and “next year we are going to put in place something that makes the people who think that earmarks in general are bad feel better ... and we will be back to earmarks with transparency.”

Few in the capital would dispute LaTourette's prediction that lawmakers' opposition to a gas tax hike and reluctance to pursue alternative financing options spell further delays in new federal legislation.

But if the GOP reinstates its earmark requests after this fall's midterm elections, just in time for the next transportation bill to come to a vote in spring 2011, the party's time-limited ban may well backfire by alienating its conservative base.

Inhofe's concerns, raised at the latest in the environment committee's series of hearings aimed at marshaling consensus for a new long-term transport bill, suggest that the increased transit, bike-ped, and urban policy investments envisioned by the House measure could face resistance from rural senators who fear less of a federal emphasis on roads.

"We cannot grow the program in urban areas while ignoring the rural component," Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) said, describing rail and bike usage as "geographically and climatically prohibitive" in his state, currently the nation's least-populated.

Environment committee chief Barbara Boxer (D-CA) assured Barrasso that "I don't look at writing this bill as rural versus urban." Yet the House legislation offered by transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) would direct significant funding to urban infrastructure needs through a new metropolitan mobility program, a prospect that appeared to unsettle rural lawmakers.

"I don't feel like transit is a great option in our rural areas," said Oklahoma state senator Bryce Marlatt, an invited witness. After Inhofe questioned the Oberstar framework's emphasis on bike-ped and transit spending, Marlatt warned that the House plan could prevent rural areas from joining "the global economy" by boosting road spending.

Alternative perspectives were offered by John Robert Smith, president of the transit advocacy group Reconnecting America, and Scott Haggerty, a supervisor in California's Alameda County who appeared on behalf of the National Association of Counties (NACo).

Smith told senators that the green-transport and land-use grants offered by the Obama administration's multi-agency sustainability office should be open to cities with populations of 50,000 or below, giving rural areas more of an opportunity to compete for federal aid.

Haggerty, for his part, noted that the "overwhelming majority of congestion comes in metro areas" and advised that any project getting funding from Oberstar's proposed urban mobility program should be able to document its benefits for commuters.

Even as the rural-urban debate unfolded, senators sought to steer the hearing towards the fundamental issue stalling progress on a replacement for the 2005 federal transportation law: how to pay for it.

"In terms of infrastructure, our roads and bridges are not getting any better if we neglect them," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said. "We're going to have to address this problem one way or another; we might as well do it and create jobs."

Asked for their thoughts on transportation financing, Haggerty said NACo would back a gas-tax increase -- an option ruled out by the White House for the foreseeable future -- and Smith cited a poll commissioned by Transportation for America that found public support for more infrastructure spending, provided that it was approved in a transparent fashion.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus. (Photo: NYT)

Laughlin's phrasing was aimed at stoking cyclists' appetite for lobbying Congress in favor of pro-bike legislation, such as Rep. Earl Blumenauer's Active Community Transportation Act. But his caution also reflected the ongoing uncertainty surrounding how lawmakers plan to pay for a new long-term infrastructure bill expected to cost at least $450 billion.

Even if bipartisan support can bring the White House on board for a new bill this year, it remains to be seen whether bike advocates can secure the $2 billion in competitive federal grants that Blumenauer has proposed.

Tyler Frisbee, an aide to the Portland lawmaker who spoke to the Summit on her personal time, was careful to praise House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) as a friend of bicyclists. But Oberstar's transport legislation, Frisbee said, is "not the bill we want for another eight years ... cycling will be light years behind Europe [if it passes]."

Frisbee warned fellow bike advocates that Oberstar views the Blumenauer bill as an expansion of the Non-Motorized Pilot Program that directed $25 million to four trail projects in the 2005 transportation law. Describing her boss' legislation as separate from that spending, Frisbee said a Senate version would be introduced soon by Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley.

Despite the hazy outlook for congressional action on transportation reform, Rails-to-Trails is continuing to push ahead with its long-term agenda. Laughlin said the group's 10-year goal is to help pay for bike trails within three miles of 90 percent of American residences, while doubling existing federal bike spending to $9 billion over six years.

"If the bill comes up for a vote, we have a fighting chance, but to win" requires sustained and increased focus on grassroots lobbying of lawmakers, he said.

Antonio Villaraigosa is seeking a bridge loan from Washington to speed up L.A.'s 30/10 initiative. (Photo: LAist)

The star witness at the Senate environment committee's hearing was Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who sought congressional support for federal loans to expedite his city's ambitious 30/10 transit expansion project.

Environment panel chief Barbara Boxer (D-CA) threw her weight behind the 30/10 plan as the mayor pitched his approach -- reliant on voters' approval of higher sales taxes to pay for new infrastructure -- as a model for the rest of the nation.

"This is the third time the Los Angeles electorate has voted to tax itself for a better tomorrow," Villaraigosa said. "As a result, Los Angeles has been been able to make massive investments in public transit and our highway system."

But Villaraigosa's secondary message exposed the ongoing lack of Hill consensus on the way to pay for new investments that both Democrats and Republicans support. "Making sure that large metro areas get the majority of [federal transport] money makes a lot of sense," the mayor said, lamenting language in last year's stimulus law that routed most transportation aid through state capitals.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) echoed Villaraigosa, remarking that he could not "see a governmental apparatus" in place to effectively divert transportation funding to pressing local needs.

Whitehouse asked the Angeleno, who currently serves as vice president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, to work with his colleagues on "a truly transparent local mechanism to say, 'these are the projects we really need,' to get around the concern that this is earmarking, special dealing, but also get around the bureaucracy."

Before the mayor's testimony, U.S. DOT undersecretary Roy Kienitz admitted to senators that he is "not sure" if the Obama administration's planned list of principles for a new long-term transportation bill will include ideas for filling the  nation's massive funding gap. Congress envisions new legislation with a price tag of at least $450 billion over six years, but the federal gas tax is estimated to fall short of that mark by upwards of $200 billion.

Sen. George Voinovich urged Kienitz and fellow White House aides to reconsider their opposition to raising the gas tax during an economic downturn, warning that no amount of innovative new financing mechanisms would be enough to fund a new bill.

Chief among those new financing ideas is the National Infrastructure Innovation and Finance Fund (dubbed the "I-Fund"), which the Obama team believes can use federal funding to attract private investment in new transport projects.

Other options for extending credit to local planners include the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA), which guarantees loans for new projects.

Another witness at today's hearing, Max Inman, a 33-year veteran financing specialist at the Federal Highway Administration, lauded the institutional support provided for local planners who use traditional U.S. DOT-directed programs such as TIFIA. He questioned whether the White House's proposed I-Fund would be able to provide that level of guidance for local sponsors, given that its structure has yet to be fully envisioned.

But Inman also advocated several changes long sought by infrastructure reformers, calling for relaxed limits on tolling interstate highways and a consolidation of the 100-plus categories that currently exist for federal transport spending.  

Reps. Tom Latham (R-IA), at right, and Steven LaTourette (R-OH). (Photo: AP)

During a hearing today on the White House sustainability effort, which aims to combine federal transport, housing, and environmental resources in support of walkable, transit-oriented local development, Reps. Tom Latham (R-IA) and Steven LaTourette (R-OH) questioned the wisdom of spending money and attention on new programs when the nation's infrastructure funding shortfall remains unresolved.

"Unless you change the tax incentives from where they've been since the Second World War, [encouraging Americans] to live in single-family homes, you're not going to be successful," LaTourette said. The giant mortgage guarantors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, he noted, effectively require the continued popularity of suburban sprawl in order to keep the government's investment in them viable.

If the White House would tackle the problem of the highway trust fund's insolvency -- which affects bike-ped and road repair projects -- "I would not have a problem with" spending new money on sustainable development, added LaTourette. The Ohioan has vowed to "bring Republicans to the table" if the administration decides to pursue a new federal transport bill this year.

Latham, the senior GOP member of the House's transportation appropriations panel, was more cutting in his criticism of federal involvement in local land-use practices.

Referring to a "crisis" in federal transportation financing, Latham marveled at the administration's decision to focus on a "new boutique program" rather than crafting a replacement for the increasingly obsolete gas tax.

Roy Kienitz, the U.S. DOT's undersecretary for policy, did not dispute the two Republicans' assessment of a financing vacuum. "It was a great run for 45, 50 years, when you had a system whereby the amount of driving and gas people used grew along with the economy," Kienitz told the lawmakers. Now that relationship has unraveled, he explained, making the gas tax a poor revenue-raiser for transport projects.

But Kienitz had no answer for how the White House should solve the problem.

"The elephant in the room here is tax increases," he said. "I don't see the politics for that right now." Instead, the former adviser to Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA) suggested that Congress should see the economic recession as a reason to "innovate" its transportation and housing policies.

Criticism from minority-party members such as Latham and LaTourette ultimately could have little effect on the White House' 2011 budget request of nearly $530 million for its sustainability work. The appropriations panel's chairman, Rep. John Olver (D-MA), is a longtime champion of walkable development who secured $150 million for the effort last year.

"We've had a whole generation when we've spent to subsidize sprawl into the suburbs," Olver said today. "The time has long since passed for sustainability."

Still, coming on the heels of bipartisan rural skepticism of the White House's move toward more competitive transport funding, the Republicans' comments could portend more political blowback for the idea of a yearlong delay in drafting new long-term infrastructure legislation.

Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA), at right, with ranking Republican Jim Inhofe (OK). (Photo: Politico)

Such willingness to consider a new infrastructure bill before the Obama administration's preferred timeframe of next spring could help thaw the frosty relations between Boxer's panel and the House transportation committee, where chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) has raged against upper-chamber inaction for months.

But lawmakers and industry lobbies have a long way to go before they can sing from the same hymnal on the next transportation bill. Boxer asked representatives of the four lobbies appearing today -- the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), the National Construction Alliance (NCA) and the Associated General Contractors (AGC) -- to parse Oberstar's bill "literally, with a pen" and let senators know which provisions they favored or disliked.

"We're going to take their bill and work from it," Boxer said of the House, which has proposed a $500 billion plan that streamlines 108 categories of formula-based federal transportation spending into four and includes dedicated funding for metropolitan area priorities.

Neither the transit industry nor transportation reform advocacy groups had a representative at the hearing. The four witnesses largely limited their comments to the economic need for a new long-term federal bill, with former AASHTO president Pete Rahn endorsing the price tag of the House bill but suggesting that he viewed it as overly solicitous to transit.

"We need a balanced bill that increases funding for both highways and transit," said Rahn, who leads the Missouri state DOT.

And though the biggest stumbling block facing the next federal transport bill -- namely, the lack of sufficient gas tax revenue to pay for it -- was lamented widely, few offered concrete solutions that would help Congress move forward more quickly.

"The problem we have in infrastructure is not ways to borrow more money," Rahn replied to a question about Build America Bonds, a successful if occasionally controversial infrastructure financing tool established in last year's stimulus law. "We need to find a way to pay for improvements ... We've now topped out the credit card."

Rahn urged lawmakers to address the declining utility of the gas tax, pointing to a "conflict" between its continued role as Washington's transportation revenue-raiser and the growing acknowledgment that oil consumption needs to decrease for environmental and national security reasons.

Griffith Company president Tom Foss, speaking for the AGC, said that industry groups are open to other options, such as increased tolling or an eventual transition to a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax. Still, he added, "the gas tax is still best way to fund" federal transportation law because "we can advertise [it] to the general population."

The hearing took place as the House prepares to vote as soon as tomorrow on a $15 billion jobs bill, already cleared by the Senate, that would extend the 2005 transport law until year's end. Boxer and fellow senators asked the witnesses to underscore the importance of that 10-month extension in conversations with the House, where some Democrats remain reluctant to embrace the upper chamber's jobs package.