Streetsblog Capitol Hill

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In another desperate attempt to push forward their fossil fuel agenda, House Republicans have indicated that even though they’ve been incapable of passing a transportation bill, they’re willing to go to conference committee and pass the Senate bill. All the Senate Democrats have to do in return is approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

Our sources had predicted the House GOP would pull something like this. This is the “shell” bill that the House was expected to present as a sort of placeholder to conference with the Senate bill, just to get something moving.

The House doesn’t have a prayer of passing a real bill to conference with the Senate bill, so they’re bringing an extension. That’s right — they’re bringing a 90-day extension to the Senate and saying, now we have to reconcile the differences between these bills. One of those bills is real legislation that includes real policy changes, and one is just a shell. But Republicans still hope they can negotiate changes in conference, even though they don’t have a bill showing the will of the House.

The Transportation Committee is drafting the extension/pipeline bill now. Sources say it will come to the floor the week of April 23.

It’s a mix of the best case scenario — getting to conference, one way or another, with the Senate bill — and the worst case scenario – holding the transportation program as ransom to get the pipeline rammed through. It’s the sort of nasty politics this Congress is known for.

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The shift in driving habits has exposed the inadequacy of the federal gas tax to fund national transportation programs, and the need to shift away from road building. Graph adapted from the FHWA

It’s a new era for federal transportation policy, say the top New York City Department of Transportation officials tracking action on Capitol Hill. We just don’t know what kind of era it’s going to be.

“If this was 1996 or 1985 it would be pretty clear where we would go with federal transportation policy, with a few tweaks,” said DOT Director of Policy Jon Orcutt during a presentation at NYU’s Wagner School last night. “That’s not true today.”

Two changes are forcing a shift in transportation politics and policy at the federal level. The amount Americans drive has started to stall out. And earmarks have been transformed from political windfalls for powerful Congressmen to untouchable liabilities.

Linda Bailey, the federal programs advisor for NYC DOT, said that working for New York City has given her a new appreciation for the policy drawbacks of transportation earmarks for the localities receiving them. “You typically get $1 million for a $10 million project,” she said. “Somehow now you’re supposed to come up with $9 million to fund the rest of the project.” The city still has earmarked money from the last transportation bill, passed in 2005, sitting on the table, Bailey said.

But at the same time, the lack of a new transportation bill — Congress recently passed its ninth extension of that 2005 law, which expired in 2009 — is in part due to Congress members’ newfound opposition to directing federal dollars back to their districts.

“It’s thrown the whole formula out of the window, in terms of what you do politically,” said Orcutt. In particular, the end of earmarks has forced federal transportation policy to become more sharply ideological, whereas horse trading could paper over divides in the past. This year, for example, suburban Republicans helped kill the House of Representatives’ radical transportation bill, which would have eliminated dedicated funding for transit entirely. With earmarks, argued Orcutt, those same representatives might have been able to bring big projects to their districts even while cutting transit in the rest of their regions, and safely voted yes on the overall bill.

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General Contractors Association Managing Director Denise Richardson. Photo: GCA

Transportation infrastructure is big business. With tens of billions of dollars at stake, nobody tracks the financial health of the nation’s transit and road systems more closely than the construction industry. And right now, the future of transportation funding nationwide is hazy indeed.

To get some perspective on the state of transportation funding, we sat down with Denise Richardson, the managing director of the General Contractors Association. Representing the New York region’s heavy construction contractors, Richardson is a major voice for transportation investments. With experience in city and state government, she’s a leading authority on the ins and outs of infrastructure. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation. [Click here for a fuller version of the interview, with a greater focus on New York.]

“All this short-term thinking plays into what ultimately becomes a series of bad planning decisions, because everything is left until it’s a crisis.”

When asked if she was worried that some version of the House GOP transportation proposal “coming back to life,” Richardson said:

DR: I think that the House never expected the amount of pushback nationwide, and from cities that you would not think of as being heavily transit dependent.

NK: It was something to watch.

DR: It was. I enjoyed it for a couple of reasons. First of all, I enjoyed it because the GCA was among the first to jump on the issue and talk to congressmen around the country. A lot of our members are national and international firms.

And you saw other places around the country that have primarily bus networks look at this and say, “Wait a minute, if we want to build a new depot and we want to apply for federal funding, we’re not going to get it.” So you saw this real grassroots movement.

From a democracy perspective, the House leadership, wrapping themselves in their Tea Party flag, said, “This is not what we want the federal government to stand for.” To see another group of people from all around the country say, “Well wait a minute, yes we do,” was a really effective use of government, because you had two very different views of what government is. And in the end, the House was forced to withdraw their proposal.

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The conservative wing of the Republican Party had their way yesterday in the House of Representatives, refusing to bring up for a vote the moderate, two-year transportation bill passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the Senate, going instead with a 90-day extension, the 9th in a row.

Some construction interests are reducing their financial support for the Republican Party after this week's transportation bill fiasco, according to the New York Times. Photo: MSNBC

Now some of the groups that have traditionally been the party’s biggest supporters are crying foul. An article in yesterday’s New York Times featured several major Republican campaign donors who feel burned by a number of recent actions advanced by the party’s right wing — the most painful of which was the failure to pass a transportation bill.

“The majority of the work is supposed to go out in spring and get done by the fall,” Jeff Shoaf, a government relations official at Associated General Contractors, told the paper. The group donated $1 million to candidates in 2010, according to the report, and about 80 percent of that to Republicans. “Instead of spending 60 or 70 percent of their budgets, they’re going to cut back to 50 or 40 percent to make sure they have some cash in the fall,” he said.

Reporter Jonathan Weisman writes:

There could be real-world consequences to the conservative rebellion. The 90-day extension of the highway trust fund that House Republican leaders [passed yesterday] in lieu of a broad highway bill would keep existing projects moving for now. But business groups say few new government-funded infrastructure projects can get under way without longer-range certainty about federal backing.

Barney Keller, spokesman for the conservative political action committee the Club for Growth, was unapologetic. “Free market is not always the same as pro-business,” he told the Times.

Yesterday, before taking off for a two-week recess, Congress passed a three-month extension of SAFETEA-LU, the ninth since it first expired on September 30, 2009. It now only needs the president’s signature sometime before midnight on Saturday to become law.

That means that on June 26, 2012, current transportation policy will have been operating under temporary extensions for 1,000 days. Four days later, it will be due to expire yet again.

One thousand days. Think about how much more could have been accomplished if in September of 2009, Congress had simply approved a 3-year, $150 billion extension rather than piecing one together three or six months at a time. Cities and transit agencies, for instance, would have had the funding guarantees to support investment in infrastructure while they ride out the recession.

The political dynamics at work are complex. But at the most basic level, no one in Washington has mustered the will to tell Americans the truth: “Transportation isn’t free.”

Take the Senate’s two-year bill. Its loudest critics complain that it doesn’t offer the funding guarantees of a five-year bill. And that’s true — even the bill’s supporters would agree. But the whole rationale behind the decision to cap the bill at two years was that the gas tax could just barely get them to the end of 2013.

At some point, Congress and the president will have to clear this hurdle. Whether by raising the gas tax and indexing it to inflation, implementing a mileage tax, or simply letting existing highways be tolled, the money has to come from somewhere.

You won’t hear anyone in Washington say that these days. Instead, the more conservative representatives will talk about how the federal government is exceeding its authority in paying for transit and bike lanes because they don’t cross state lines. Or the believers in private financing will say they need more time to develop “innovative” (read: magic) funding schemes that’ll saddle later generations — my generation — with the cost of the transportation fantasy they’ve sold to their constituents.

“The money just isn’t there!” cried House Majority Leader Eric Cantor this week, apparently forgetting the option of raising the gas tax. To which his (Republican!) colleague in the House Walter Jones responded, “Then why are we spending $10 billion a month in Afghanistan?” Because freedom isn’t free, as they say.

Senators Barbara Boxer and Ben Cardin stand in front of the "Emergency Bridge Repair Team" -- a giant roll of duct tape -- to mock House Republicans' reluctance to pass a multi-year transportation bill. Photo: Nathan McCray/Office of Senator Boxer

The House of Representatives passed a 90-day extension of transportation programs by a vote of 266-158 shortly before noon today. The Senate passed it soon after by an unrecorded voice vote, but only after several Democrats tried (unsuccessfully) to replace the extension’s text with that of their own two-year reauthorization bill. The extension is now on its way to the President’s desk to be signed into law, averting a shutdown. Live updates from the full Senate debate are below.

2:40 Boxer: “It’s a sad day for America today. But we’re never going to give up over here.” Reset the game clock to 93 days.

2:37 Senate passes H.R. 4281 by voice vote. Landrieu asks to have her “no” vote recorded. Reid: “I appreciate my colleagues’ patience with the situation we find ourselves in, which is not a good one.”

2:35 Landrieu objects, McConnell counter-objects. No more objections. H.R. 4281 is now being read at the desk.

2:29 Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) “I object. I’m not going to object, but…” Just a formality at this point. Democratic Senators will continue to object to Reid’s motion to call up the extension, just to bash the house. McConnell will not consent to replace extension with Senate bill.

2:28 Sens. Cardin, Whitehouse continuing to object to Reid’s motion, still asking to amend H.R. 4281 with the text of S. 1813. McConnell continues to object to objections.

2:22 Boxer asks to modify/amend extension with text of S.1813. Minority Leader McConnell objects to Boxer’s objection.

2:21 Majority Leader Harry Reid asks unanimous consent to proceed to House’s 90-day extension (H.R. 4281). Boxer reserves right to object. Here we go, folks!

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After a long night’s wrangling over the budget, the House convened early (for them) at 9 this morning to tackle a 90-day 60-day 90-day extension of the transportation bill. Despite some fierce opposition from House Democrats who wanted to vote on the bipartisan Senate bill instead of another extension, the measure passed. We’re brought you the fireworks as they happened. See below for the gory details.

11:54 Final vote is 266-158.

11:48 90-day extension passed. They’re still voting, but they got their 218 votes. They have 245 yeas now, actually, including 26 Democrats. Now it goes to the Senate.

11:46: Time’s up but they’re still voting. Vote count so far: 205 yeas, 123 nays.

11:31: Reminder: this vote only requires a simple majority, not a 2/3 majority as the previous vote would have needed. That vote was canceled because they couldn’t get it. There’s a vote on a 60-day extension still scheduled for today in case this doesn’t pass.

11:27: Speaker John Boehner is talking to reporters now. Called the Senate bill’s pay-fors a “gimmick that will run down the Highway Trust Fund.” Says the pay-fors “don’t pass the straight-face test.”

11:26: Third reading of the bill, voice vote done. “In the opinion of the chair, the no’s have it.” Moving to a 15-minute recorded vote.

11:22 Mica says they need to call the House physician to the floor of the house because there’s a “mass case of loss of memory on the other side.” Reminds them that President Obama “cut the knees right out from under the Democrats” when Oberstar tried to pass a long-term bill. “The other side would have been the majority and I would be the ranking member if they had done what they should have done.”

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Another day, another another twist in the House’s efforts to pass a transportation bill.

John Mica and John Boehner have repeatedly stumbled this week in their efforts to pass a stopgap measure . Photo: Zimbio

Yesterday’s postponed vote on a 60-day extension had initially been rescheduled for tonight, but that too will be scrapped, making it the third time the House has punted a vote on an extension in as many days. House transportation committee chairman John Mica told reporters today that he was still planning to bring a two-month stopgap to a vote, but then changed his tune according to Transportation Nation:

Minutes later, Mica returned to say he was “recalculating,” and that he would also file a 90-day straight extension to the existing highway bill. Mica had talked it over with GOP leaders and said the 90-day extension is what he “was told to do.” Republican aides said part of the issue was that a 60-day extension would likely expire while Congress was out of town on the Memorial Day recess, complicating efforts to get a House-Senate agreement on a final Highway bill.

The House Rules Committee will meet today at 5:30 to set rules for tomorrow’s debate and vote, which in all likelihood will only require 218 votes to pass. It would then go to the Senate, whose members are understandably bitter that their own two-year bill, which passed 74-22 in bipartisan fashion, will not be voted on in the House — but not so bitter as to close the door on an extension.

Transportation funding, as well as the federal gas tax, are due to expire at the stroke of midnight Sunday if no agreement can be reached on an extension. The House leaves for Easter recess on Friday, making tomorrow the last chance to vote on anything.

In the Senate, many swing states and some solid GOP strongholds produced votes in favor of a two-year transportation bill. The House GOP leadership hasn't budged. Image: T4A

The U.S. Conference of Mayors, Congressional Democrats, some Congressional Republicans, unions, politicians from New Jersey, Chicago and Louisiana — they all have one message for the House of Representatives: Pass the Senate transportation bill.

President Obama made it a key part of his weekly address this Sunday, pointing out that the economy would “take a hit” without a full reauthorization. The Transportation Trades Department, a coalition of 32 labor unions, said it is “an outrage” that the House is delaying taking up the Senate’s bipartisan two-year bill. The National League of Cities urged the House to act in time for the spring construction season.

It’s widely considered a longshot that the House will pass the Senate bill, but if the momentum is shifting at all, it seems to be moving in that direction. On Monday three House Republicans — Reps. Charlie Bass (NH), Judy Biggert (IL), and Robert Dold (IL) — joined Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) in a letter to Speaker Boehner [PDF], pleading with the House to pass the Senate bill.

Meanwhile, the House GOP leadership appears to be floundering. With movement conservatives taking cues from groups like the Heritage Foundation, which is firmly opposed the Senate bill, the Republican base hasn’t budged. But the stubborn refusal to go in a bipartisan direction is starting to call to mind fights — the debt ceiling fiasco, the payroll tax brinkmanship — that damaged the House GOP’s standing. Earlier this month Politico called the House’s inability to move a reauthorization proposal out of its own chamber “Exhibit A” in “Republican Dysfunction.”

Since then, the chamber hasn’t looked much more functional. Boehner pulled a 60-day extension off the table yesterday when he failed to get the necessary votes. House Democrats were trying to force a vote on the Senate bill, but observers predict the House will cobble together a majority along partisan lines before the buzzer at week’s end. After that, it’s anyone’s guess how the end game will play out.

It’s like Congressional Whack-a-Mole: Transportation bills pop up just long enough to offer a fleeting glimpse before they retract back into oblivion.

Yesterday’s vote on a 90-day extension of federal transportation funding was pulled at the last second, then replaced by a vote today on a 60-day extension. That extension even made it to the floor for debate (though out of sequence with the Majority Leader’s schedule) before it, too, was postponed.

House debated 60-day extension this afternoon but did not vote on it. They’re postponing until later in the week.

— Transport. 4 America (@T4America) March 27, 2012

Remember, Republicans first failed to get 218 out of 244 Republicans to vote for their five-year transportation bill in the six weeks since it was approved in committee. Then, they tried to get 290 votes for a short-term stopgap, but they couldn’t. So today, they thought they could hit 290 votes with an even shorter-term stopgap.

“What do they expect to achieve over the next eight weeks that they were unable to do in the last six weeks?” asked Rep. Nick Rahall, top Democrat on the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, during floor debate. Democrats invoked Eisenhower and Jefferson in their attacks on the stopgap, instead urging a vote on the two-year Senate bill that passed with bipartisan support, but that is currently collecting dust on the House clerk’s desk.

With the House GOP seemingly unwilling to take up the Senate bill, they will likely wait until they only need a simple majority to pass an extension, and in all probability they will pass it along party lines. But the Senate still has to pass an extension of their own to keep transportation funding from expiring at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday.

“There may be more twists and turns,” Larry Ehl writes at Transportation Issues Daily, “but it’s safe to assume an extension of some length WILL be enacted by the end of the week.”