Streetsblog Capitol Hill

President Obama released a blueprint for his second term yesterday, a 20-page booklet focused on job creation [PDF]. Let’s be clear: This came from his campaign machine, not the White House.

In the booklet, called “The New Economic Patriotism: A Plan For Jobs and Middle-Class Security,” Obama touts his success at keeping the American auto industry alive through government life support, saying the bailout brought back the nearly-extinct manufacturing sector in the United States.

He also commits to drilling in the Arctic and the Gulf of Mexico. Yes, it’s part of Obama’s “all of the above” strategy that includes renewable energy sources, but it’s also got a lot of oil and gas, not to mention “clean” coal.

While about 70 percent of U.S. oil consumption is used for transportation, there’s not much in the document about investing in smarter, more efficient ways to get around.

The President mentions the doubling of fuel economy standards to 54.5 mpg by 2025, but that’s all he has to say about how to reduce fuel consumption. It would be refreshing to see a mention of transit and active transportation, freight rail, or even his apparently abandoned signature initiative around high-speed passenger rail. Reducing the appetite for drilling in the Arctic could be a more inspiring rallying cry than this surrender to our oil overlords.

At the end of the section on energy, in boldface, Obama says, “And by growing American energy, we can keep our young men and women working here at home, not fighting wars on foreign soil.” If he’d replaced — or at least supplemented – ”growing American energy” with “building American transit,” he could have made a more convincing and coherent argument.

Later in the document, in a section on deficit reduction, Obama proposes to “commit half of the money saved from responsibly ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to reducing the deficit and the other half to putting Americans back to work rebuilding roads, bridges, runways, and schools here in the United States.” Still no mention of “transit” amidst the roads and bridges. No hint that we can fund transportation projects that use space and energy more efficiently, so that perhaps we can avoid the next war over oil.

At last night’s presidential debate in Nassau County, the best opening for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to talk about transportation policy came when undecided voter Phillip Tricolla asked the following question of the President:

QUESTION: Your energy secretary, Steven Chu, has now been on record three times stating it’s not policy of his department to help lower gas prices. Do you agree with Secretary Chu that this is not the job of the Energy Department?

Let’s imagine the contours of the straightforward, leveling-with-America response that never came:

OBAMA: Yes, I do agree with Secretary Chu that it is not the job of the Energy Department to lower gas prices, any more than it’s the job of the Commerce Department to lower the price of tin or cotton.

But there’s a lot we can do to become more resilient in the face of oil price shocks. We can give people real transportation choices — invest more in transit, and in making our streets safer – so you aren’t forced to burn a gallon of gas every time you need to pick up some groceries.

My administration has started us down a smarter path with the Sustainable Communities Initiative and the Department of Transportation’s TIGER program. These programs are laying the groundwork for a 21st Century transportation system that makes our communities more productive and efficient while reducing our addiction to oil. If we make these investments, not only will we free ourselves from constantly worrying about prices at the pump, we’ll also stave off the disaster of climate change and prevent the kind of droughts and other extreme weather events that are battering America.

Feel free to add your own embellishments in the comments.

Maybe in an electoral system where the most valuable votes aren’t highly concentrated in the suburbs of swing states, you would see at least some part of that answer aired in a national debate. But here’s what the candidates actually said — apart from a few references to efficiency and the global oil market from Obama, it was basically a contest to see who could convince America that he would open up more land for fossil fuel extraction:

OBAMA: The most important thing we can do is to make sure we control our own energy. So here’s what I’ve done since I’ve been president. We have increased oil production to the highest levels in 16 years.

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Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney unveiled his energy plan today [PDF]. The idea is to break our addiction to foreign oil — by increasing our addiction to domestic oil. If by “domestic” we mean Canada, Mexico, and the U.S.

Essentially, the plan is to go bananas on oil drilling. States would have the right to drill off their own shores, with merely a federal rubber stamp. Grist’s Philip Bump explains why oil drilling isn’t something that should be left to the states:

There’s a reason that the federal government has a legitimate role in monitoring extraction and resource development: Pollution and impacts don’t stop at state lines. It’s why the EPA is trying to figure out how to regulate cross-state air pollution. Air doesn’t care about borders.

And then there’s the obvious problem: Do residents of Florida want Georgia to build a series of unsafe oil derricks off its coast? Will any state still want to border Texas? Hard to see how this doesn’t result in a production boom — of complaints and lawsuits filed in federal courts.

There’s nothing in the document about reducing fossil fuel consumption. That just doesn’t figure in. No examination of how the nation uses energy and how it could use less. ”By 2025, [Obama's] increased CAFE standards are expected to reduce U.S. oil consumption by about 2.2 million barrels per day,” Brad Plumer writes in the Washington Post. “Without those rules, energy independence looks nearly impossible. And Romney, for his part, has pledged to overturn those fuel-economy rules.” To say nothing of Paul Ryan’s plan to continue outdated policies that enable sprawl and eliminate federal transportation programs that don’t involve highways.

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When it comes to transportation and energy policy, it’s tough to tell exactly where Mitt Romney stands, but there’s a lot to be learned by watching whom he’s keeping close.

Yesterday we covered how his VP choice, Paul Ryan, looks to be a policy disaster for sustainable transportation. Ryan indicated in his attention-grabbing but largely symbolic 2012 budget proposal that he would eliminate “dozens of separate highway programs,” presumably TIGER, high-speed rail, safe routes to school and other “highway programs” that build other things besides highways.

Here’s another interesting figure in the Romney camp. The Washington Post reports that one of his big financial backers is the CEO of Continental Resources, an oil exploration company based in Oklahoma best known for its leading role in extracting fossil fuels from the Bakken formation, which stretches across parts of Montana, North Dakota, and Saskatchewan.

Harold Hamm, the world’s 76th richest man, has some interesting thoughts, one might say, about energy policy. He makes no secret that he thinks more environmentally intensive oil drilling practices should be actively promoted and subsidized by the government. And he’s not a fan of the Obama administration’s policies to support renewable energy sources and reduced reliance on fossil fuels. On a website Hamm calls “CEO Insights,” the 66-year-old multi-billionaire has this to say:

Since President Obama’s election three and a half years ago, he and his administration have done everything in their power to stop fossil fuel usage, including a carbon tax, increased federal regulations, delays in federal permitting, infrastructure permitting denials for the Keystone XL Pipeline, capital starvation for drilling by the elimination of intangible drilling costs, and depletion allowance. All of these actions are designed to result in higher costs at the pump for the consumer. At the same time, there are billions of dollars in subsidies being given to solar, wind and all other alternative sources of energy.

In short, the President is opposed to drilling for oil and gas to supply America’s needs and future. I have been in this business for over 45 years and I can assure you there just isn’t any way to coax oil and gas from the rocks they are in to bring them to the surface for consumption without drilling a well! The President is faced with a situation today which even he doesn’t have the power to stop. I will just call it the modern-day American Energy Renaissance.

He goes on to explain how fracking and horizontal drilling technology could be used to drastically expand domestic fossil fuel production.

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In a seven-hour markup session today, the House Natural Resources Committee approved three bills that would expand oil and natural gas exploration in Alaska and the outer continental shelf, all without bipartisan support.

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.

President Obama has proposed a plan to pay for the American Jobs Act, the $447 billion bill to create 1.9 million jobs, including $50 billion for infrastructure. His “pay-for” plan includes limitations on itemized deductions for the wealthy and the elimination of some tax loopholes for oil and gas companies.

Republicans have a different idea, though: oil drilling. Several GOP representatives have introduced bills to expand fossil fuel extraction and use the proceeds to fund transportation infrastructure.

Somehow, whatever the problem is in Washington, Democrats want to solve it by raising taxes on the wealthy, and Republicans want to solve it with oil drilling.

When it comes to funding a quick jolt to the economy, it’s pretty clear that oil drilling won’t really cut it. “Any royalties from any new energy development wouldn’t start flowing to the Treasury for years,” said Erich Zimmermann of Taxpayers for Common Sense. “Essentially this would be like spending money now to be paid for with revenues that may or may not be realized at some future time. Sounds like a recipe for a doubling down on our current deficit mess.”

Some speculate that a GOP oil drilling plan would explain the recent news that House transportation leader John Mica, with permission from his party’s leadership, is looking to raise transportation funding levels by an extra $15 billion a year in his proposed six-year reauthorization bill. After all, they’ve said that raising the gas tax is off the table.

A plan to pay for transportation and infrastructure through oil drilling would erode the entire basis of the transportation funding system, which historically rests with the Highway Trust Fund, paid for with fuel taxes and a smattering of other fees on driving and vehicles. In fact, Congress requires that at least 90 percent of what the Highway Trust Fund spends must be generated from taxes “related to the purposes for which such outlays are or will be made.”

“Generating additional revenues from an increase in energy production, therefore, would likely violate this requirement and at the very least result in an override of the Budget Act,” Zimmermann said, “but would also call into some question the importance of the ‘user pays’ principle itself as it relates to paying for the transportation system.”

Whether or not Mica is planning on paying for his transportation bill with oil drilling is a matter of speculation at this point. But several other Republicans have already introduced bills to that effect.

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House Republicans are calling for offshore oil drilling as an answer to foreign oil dependency and high gas prices — and they’re not the only ones. President Obama recently announced his intention to cut oil imports by one-third by 2025, partly by increasing domestic production was the answer to the country’s energy woes. In his speech announcing the plan, Obama barely mentioned transit and land use, even though more and more evidence points to these as real solutions for high gas prices.

The Natural Resources Defense Council has provided this neat graphic illustrating how demand side solutions — like better land use planning, transit access and more fuel efficient vehicles — match up against the tired “drill, baby, drill” mentality that has made the country so fossil-fuel dependent in the first place. The graphic is based on an NRDC analysis examining how much fuel could be saved using a variety of smart conservation policies, given the limits of our existing technology. Then the group compared the savings with the best available information about the country’s remaining domestic oil resources.

The result is a stark demonstration of the inadequacy of oil drilling as a solution. The analysis indicates that the United States could cut oil imports by 44 percent by focusing on clean energy technologies — about eight times what could be produced by domestic drilling. Previous studies have documented that better transit and community planning alone could reduce vehicle miles traveled in the country by 20 percent.

The implications for political leaders should be clear, says Luke Tonachel, writing for NRDC’s Switchboard blog. Unfortunately, the budget proposal introduced by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan last week only affirms the oil subsidies and transit cuts that have led to our current predicament.

“As our analysis demonstrates, we have the know-how to break our oil addiction and meet the President’s goal of reducing oil imports by one-third,” he said. “The real question is whether we have the political will.”

Where we live has an enormous impact on energy use, according to new research commissioned by the EPA. The report, “Location Efficiency and Housing Type — Boiling It Down to BTUs” finds that Americans use far less energy if they live in an apartment building in a transit-oriented neighborhood than if they live in a detached suburban house, even if that house has green building features and sports fuel-efficient cars in the driveway.

When it comes to this report, a picture’s worth a thousand words. As the graph above shows, the biggest energy efficiency gains come from living in transit-oriented neighborhoods.

A household living in a single family detached house located in a typical sprawl development uses an average of 240 million BTU (British Thermal Units, a unit of energy output) of energy a year, while the same household would only use 147 million BTU if the exact same house were located in a compact neighborhood. Make that single family house an apartment and energy use is down to 93 million BTU.

“While energy efficiency measures in homes and vehicles can make a notable improvement in consumption, the impact is considerably less dramatic than the gains possible offered by housing type and location efficiency,” the authors write. The ideal solution, of course, is to combine smart growth with green technology.

The report serves as a high-level rebuke to those who dismiss the importance of smart growth for curbing energy use, a point of view that was reinforced by a recent report from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. While putting a stop to the country’s many sprawl-inducing policies may not be easy, the EPA’s numbers show it’s necessary.

Editor's note: Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) sent us this commentary on the the BP oil spill, climate change and the need for transportation reform.

Last week, President Obama delivered his first speech from the Oval Office on the single greatest challenge our nation faces: how we supply and consume energy.

The searing images we’re seeing from the Gulf Coast -- of the families who lost loved ones, of people out of work and of oil-coated birds and dolphins -- are daily reminders of what’s at stake when we drill, baby, drill.

The truth is that we are drilling 150 miles offshore and one mile below the earth’s surface because we have run out of accessible oil. Most shocking is how small a difference this oil makes to our energy needs. The 35-60,000 barrels spewing daily from the Gulf floor would be enough to power our nation’s cars for just four minutes.

Whether from the Gulf of Mexico or Persian Gulf, we cannot meet our nation’s energy needs by drilling. We are at a precipice, and I stand firmly with President Obama when it comes to Congress passing legislation that arms the nation with clean energy.

But frankly, we need to do more on these issues, especially by addressing transportation and how we build in our communities.

The transportation sector accounts for almost three-quarters of U.S. oil consumption and one-third of our carbon emissions. If we really want to break our dependence on oil and improve our global competitiveness, we must focus on the way people commute and move goods.

Being truly aggressive about where and how we build can save even more money and energy -- with the potential to cut carbon pollution 12-16 percent by 2030 and save more than a million barrels of oil a day.

This is not the first thing that comes to mind for most people, but to ensure our energy security, we need a comprehensive approach. I hope this becomes part of the future message and, more importantly, a key focus of Congressional action.

The nation's transportation planning process fails to account for more than $200 billion per year in "hidden health costs" imposed by traffic and air pollution, according to a new report from the American Public Health Association (APHA) that maps the nexus between infrastructure and health care.

The APHA's report (available for download here) echoes many of the policy recommendations issued by the Centers for Disease Control last month: stronger incentives to expand bicycle and pedestrian networks, as well as more frequent measurement of the health impacts of new transport projects.

But the APHA, a trade association representing public health workers, went further than the government by adding up the estimated costs imposed by the absence of any mandatory evaluation of the health consequences of transportation decisions.

Citing U.S. DOT and American Automobile Association studies, respectively, the APHA pegged the annual price of congested roads at between $50 billion and $80 billion, with the health toll of traffic crashes -- including the treatment of fatalities, the resulting court costs, and lost wages -- reaching $180 billion per year.

The majority of those bills are paid indirectly by the transportation system users they affect, not factored in advance into local planning, as the APHA writes:

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