Streetsblog Capitol Hill

If the Transportation Research Board annual meeting were a music festival, the headline act would have been yesterday’s panel of six secretaries of transportation, including Ray LaHood (the incumbent) and Alan Boyd (the first to ever hold the post). As headliners go, they were a bit of a downer: They told a standing-room-only crowd that they’re all pretty worried about America’s ability to deliver the transportation policy the country needs.

By comparison, their opening act was a little more upbeat. Congressmen Bill Shuster, a Pennsylvania Republican and chairman of the Railroads Subcommittee in the House, and Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat and former member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, held forth on ”The Future Federal Role in Transportation.” They demonstrated a little more reason for optimism than the secretaries did.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR). Photo: ThinkProgress

For one thing, Shuster defended the explicit constitutional responsibilities of the federal government to provide for infrastructure. And when asked about transportation’s relationship to global trade, Shuster said, “When you’re talking about trade, you’re talking about transportation,” since goods need to be shipped from factory to port to overseas. “Sometimes, my party doesn’t link the two.” It was a display of nonpartisanship that hearkened back to the days when, in Blumenauer’s words, “Congress had three parties: Democrats, Republicans, and the T&I Committee.” (Bill Shuster’s father Bud chaired that committee from 1995 to 2001.)

But Shuster also opened his remarks with the announcement that his party’s five-year surface transportation bill would be unveiled on Friday. And, less than 12 hours removed from a State of the Union address that stressed an “all-out, all-of-the-above” energy policy, he was all too happy to suggest the inclusion of gas and oil drilling revenue to pay for it. Blumenauer, on the other hand, pointed out that oil and gas drilling doesn’t represent “anything near what’s necessary” to fund transportation spending at current levels, given the declining power of the gas tax. Blumenauer expressed his hope that “sometime in the coming decade, we can move away from the gas and diesel fuel tax, and to something more stable, fair, and efficient” in the form of a mileage-based fee system. Blumenauer’s home state of Oregon, which he pointed out was the first state to institute a gas tax dedicated to transportation funding, is in the midst of an experiment to implement VMT fees.

Read more…

At Rail~Volution yesterday, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) — also known as the godfather of the “rail~volution” — said even he wouldn’t raise the gas tax right now.

Earl Blumenauer takes the podium at Rail~Volution, while moderator Grace Crunican of BART, APTA President Bill Millar, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood (not pictured) stand by. Photo by Clarence Eckerson, Jr.

“We should make some adjustments to a gas tax that hasn’t increased since 1993,” Blumenauer said. “Half the people think the gas tax goes up every year.”

He said he’d like to see it indexed to inflation:

In an ideal world, I would not raise the gas tax this year or next year. Come out of this recession, but put in place increases that are going to occur over the next 10 years; have that revenue stream. I would borrow against the revenue stream to take advantage of record low interest rates and a bidding climate like we’ve never seen, fund the president’s infrastructure bank to help move some of these forward, and work toward replacing the gas tax.

He reminded the audience that his state was the first to institute a gas tax, and now Oregon is working to get rid of it and replace it with a vehicle miles traveled fee.

Bill Millar, the outgoing president of the American Public Transit Association (“on Halloween, I turn into a pumpkin!”), said that before switching to a VMT fee, Congress needs to eliminate the federal guarantee, called “equity bonus,” that states will get back at least a certain percentage of what they pay in gas tax receipts. (The GAO recently found that every state actually gets back more than it puts in, thanks to infusions from the general fund, but that hasn’t stopped a lot of states from complaining that they don’t get their fair share.)

“States that encourage more travel get more money back [under the equity bonus system],” Millar said, “so we’ve got to break that cycle too, to make sure instead it’s an inverse relationship and states that give people more choice, more ways to travel, get more federal aid, not less federal aid.”

Read more…

A small but bipartisan group of lawmakers today sent a letter to the leaders of the House Transportation Committee, urging them to act quickly to pass a bill with adequate funding to meet the country’s needs — “higher than or at least equal to the current funding level.”

Bike-commuting Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) calls transpo funding levels in Paul Ryan's budget proposal "disastrously stingy." Photo: SF Gate

Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Steven LaTourette (R-OH), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Mike Simpson (R-ID) signed on to the letter [PDF]. Twenty-five senators sent a similar letter two weeks ago.

“Congress’ inability to pass a new authorization in the last 20 months has created great uncertainty in the transportation community, resulting in a slowdown of transportation activities across the nation,” the House members wrote in today’s letter.

They added that transportation infrastructure is one of the most cost-efficient and effective ways to reduce unemployment and stimulate the economy.

In a statement, Blumenauer called the funding levels proposed in Paul Ryan’s budget “disastrously stingy.” He said they “do not meet the minimum levels required to keep America’s transportation network safe and our economy competitive.”

LaTourette played it safer in his comment, focusing not on funding levels but timing. “We can’t keep putting this bill on the back burner and leave states in limbo,” he said. “We need a robust bill if we’re truly serious about rebuilding America, and creating jobs.”

Republican Simpson followed LaTourette’s lead, adding, “If we intend to remain competitive on the world stage, we must maintain a system that transports goods and people safely and efficiently.”

Their focus on jobs is timely, as the Senate EPW Committee today released new numbers quantifying state-by-state job losses if transportation is underfunded.

Members of Congress of all stripes are trying to show that they’re concerned and responsive to the financial strain caused by high gas prices. Some are recommending more oil drilling. Some want to end subsidies to oil companies. Today, members of the Congressional Livable Communities Task Force suggested that providing more diverse transportation options to more people might help.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer leads the Congressional Livable Communities Task Force. Photo: Bike Portland / Jonathan Maus

“Here in Washington, DC, when gas prices spike, people have choices,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), chair of the Task Force. “They can take a bus, Metro, bike, Capital Bike-share, walk, cab, drive. It’s a wide range of [choices] and it actually minimizes some of the sticker shock. But unfortunately, about half the American population doesn’t have an environment they live in that provides those choices. Too much of America is dependent on a pattern that imagines that we will always have an unlimited supply of inexpensive gasoline, and government policies in housing and road transportation reinforce that.”

Blumenauer and other members of the Task Force introduced a report this morning called “Freedom From Oil: Policy Solutions From the Livable Communities Task Force.” It’s an impressive product from a Congressional task force, many of which exist in name only. The more than two dozen members of the Livable Communities Task Force, all House Democrats, strive to make the federal government a better partner with communities to promote “cost-effective, environmentally friendly solutions to infrastructure problems” and “coordinate transportation, housing, and environmental policies and investments.”

The lawmakers of the Task Force said increasing oil drilling in the U.S. will never have an appreciable effect on world oil prices, because the price of oil is determined globally and the U.S. supply won’t be sufficient to make a significant difference.

“Here’s the harsh reality: The United States is never going to have control over world oil supplies or gas prices through drilling,” said Task Force member Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA). “We simply don’t have the oil supplies, no matter how much we drill. What we do have is the ability to control prices by lowering our consumption and giving American families new transportation choices.”

Rep. Jim Moran, a Democrat from Northern Virginia, boasted about Arlington’s livability program, including contiguous bike trails, bike racks, and transit-oriented development. “It’s the only way to effectively work against this monopolistic control that for too long the oil companies have had over America’s policies and priorities,” Moran said.

The Freedom From Oil policy recommendations are:

Read more…

Source: Donald Shoup

If you drive to work, you can get a $230 monthly parking benefit, subsidized by the federal government and paid through your employer. If you take transit, right now you can get up to $230 per month, but the cap may revert to $120 when the current transit benefit law expires this fall. And if you ride a bike? If your employer can even figure out how the bike benefit works, you get twenty bucks. Don’t spend that all in one place, kiddo. (Full disclosure: even Streetsblog hasn’t worked through the confusing bureaucracy enough to give its bike-commuting staff this benefit.)

Rep. Earl Blumenauer announces the introduction of the Commuter Relief Act outside a metro station. Photo: Meghan Cahill/League of American Bicyclists

The privileged position of cars in the employer-benefits paradigm could soon change. As Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) said today, “We need to take away subsidies that incentivize people to do just the opposite of what we ought to be doing.” As a congressman representing the second most congested part of the country, Moran said it was “stunning” that the tax code “is designed to subsidize congestion.”

Moran is a co-sponsor of Rep. Earl Blumenauer’s (D-OR) Commuter Relief Act, introduced today as a way to bring some equity to different transportation modes. Why should drivers get up to $230 a month to foster oil dependency, greenhouse gas emissions, and congestion when everyone else gets so much less?

Blumenauer’s proposal contains a menu of options that lawmakers can choose among – or they can choose all of them. They are:

• Transit equity: sets the cap for all transportation benefits at $200 a month – parking and transit.
• Self-employed extension of transportation benefits: gives self-employed workers transit benefits for their work travel.
• Parking cash-out: requires employers who offer a parking benefit to also offer the option to take cash instead (reducing the incentive to drive).
• Van-pool credit: creates a 10 percent tax credit for spending on vanpool services.
• Bike benefit: raises the cap for the bike benefit from $20 to $40 and makes the procedures easier for employers. It also allows commuters to combine the bike benefit with transit or parking benefits, which they’re now not allowed to do.

Read more…

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson doesn't have to worry about getting hamstrung by theatrical House GOP legislating.

With budget talks reaching a critical pass to avert a government shutdown, House Republicans have been busy passing an ideological wishlist, including an attempt to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from “raising taxes.” H.R. 910, which they are calling the “Energy Tax Prevention Act” would undermine the EPA’s ability to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from industrial and manufacturing plants and gut the Clean Air Act.

Democrats offered a few amendments to the bill which made for some good political theater, including a gem from Representative Earl Blumenauer. Stating that “I, too, am opposed to any attempts by the EPA to impose taxes,” Blumenauer offered an amendment that struck the provisions of the bill and replaced them with a measure to “help us find out whether Republicans are truly concerned about the Environmental Protection Agency imposing an energy tax on America.” The amendment text continued: “During its 40 year history, the Clean Air Act has prevented millions of hospital visits, asthma attacks and cases of lung cancer while strengthening our economy. A record like that deserves support, not partisan attacks.”

Blumenauer’s amendment didn’t get far but environmental and public health groups can rest easy, for now. The bill, and a few others attempting to curb the EPA’s regulatory powers, didn’t make it through the Senate. President Obama had also stated that he would veto any bills that did not reflect “scientific consensus on global warming.”

Meanwhile, budget talks have continued behind closed doors. Billions for transit, rail, and green transportation are still at stake in the negotiations. Read more…

While House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan grabbed headlines with the release of a fiscal plan that would severely constrain the federal transportation program (more on that later), the theme of the day at the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee was the desperate need to invest in infrastructure, as members of Congress provided their own proposals to the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit.

Committee members noticed that Rep. Blumenauer did not mention bicycling infrastructure in his testimony. "But I am silently advertising before you," he quipped.

In his opening remarks, Chairman John Duncan (R-TN) attempted to lay a framework for discussion that underscored his official stance that no new revenue streams for transportation should be considered. He asked representatives to present proposals that first considered the “more than 100 highway safety programs, many of which are duplicative or don’t serve a need” and provide ideas that “review and reform what we already have.” However, ranking member Peter DeFazio (D-OR) cut straight to the revenue problem, calling American infrastructure “fourth-world in terms of the percentage of GDP that we are investing.” DeFazio was not optimistic that real solutions to the nation’s infrastructure funding crisis could exclude new funding sources.

About 20 representatives from both parties testified, and their recommendations ran the gamut from returning to a more earmark-centric funding scheme to selecting projects based on concrete performance measures. While not everyone mentioned pedestrian, bicycling and transit infrastructure, many did.

Members frequently made the case for specific projects in their districts, but rarely did this rise above a call to simply invest Congress with more power to allocate funding. (Alaska Republican Don Young took this stance to the extreme, calling for the elimination of state DOTs and a renewed priority on Congressional earmarks.)

One exception was California Democrat Judy Chu, who endorsed beefing up the TIFIA loan program, as outlined in the America Fast Forward [PDF] proposal. Such a proposal would specifically benefit Los Angeles’s 30/10 transit plan, but could also be generalized to help any metro region that passes a local tax measure to fund transportation. “Our region is too congested and polluted to wait 30 years for a 21st century transportation system,” said Chu. “We can do this in just a decade by boosting TIFIA by reforming six provisions.”

Another was Oregon Democrat Earl Blumenauer, who focused on picking projects based on their outcomes and switching the federal funding mechanism from the gas tax to a mileage-based model. He asked the committee to “reframe the regulatory debate [by asking] what is actually the outcome? Can we make this more performance driven?” The gas tax, he said, isn’t going to cut it anymore, because “using a fee based on consumption puts us on a downward spiral that cannot support our transportation needs.”

Read more…

Hasn’t it felt lately like Capitol Hill is in some kind of bizarre vortex?

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, is one of four signers of a letter speaking out against "disastrous" spending cuts. Photo: LA Sentinel

On one hand, everyone acknowledges the November election was all about “jobs, jobs, jobs.” And President Obama is pushing for some serious government investment in passenger rail and other infrastructure projects to create jobs and build the foundation for economic growth.

And on the other hand, Republicans are single-mindedly focused on cutting spending, even where thousands of jobs depend on government funding. And Democrats have been going along with the deficit-reduction mantra.

Now four Democrats are standing up to expose the contradiction and push for infrastructure spending. Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), James Moran (D-VA), Albio Sires (D-NJ) and Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) sent a Dear Colleague letter to the rest of the House on Monday, asking lawmakers to resist GOP pressure to cut recklessly.

They point to the damage that could be caused by the Republican Study Committee’s proposal to bring spending levels back to 2008 levels by cutting everything from USAID to Amtrak to public media. The four lawmakers call the plan “a recipe for economic disaster.” They focus on the proposed cuts to Amtrak and the New Starts transit program, saying:

Our nation’s infrastructure is crumbling and Americans are hungry for work. During a time of record deficits, it’s more important than ever to invest wisely and spend money efficiently. The current Republican proposals not only fail to do that, they strip away important resources that keep our nation moving and keep people employed.

These days, many advocates are trying to re-frame their message to appeal to the new Republican class, and in their way, these four lawmakers are no different. Rather than focus on the densely urban Northeast Corridor, they call attention to the potential harm the cuts would cause to rural areas.
Read more…

Streetfilms was out in Portland at this year’s Rail~Volution conference, putting our finger on the pulse of the sustainable transportation world. We spoke to a healthy dose of this year’s attendees, including advocates, bloggers, planners, transit industry reps and members of transportation agencies across the country. Among those we heard from was Congressman Earl Blumenauer, who helped push Rail~Volution — now in its twentieth year — to national prominence in 1995. Well over a thousand folks attended the four-day event.

In addition, almost 500 people came to Portland’s famous Bagdad Theater to watch a program of short films on the big screen, eight of which were Streetfilms! Our fan base continues to grow, and an event like Rail~Volution brings home how much people look to Streetfilms as an inspiration and educational tool. It’s a great feeling.

Earl Blumenauer, Portland’s representative in Congress, gets credited with being one of the founding fathers of the movement for livable communities. He helped start the annual Rail~volution gathering nearly 20 years ago, and this morning he kicked off the conference, telling attendees about his effort to move Congress in a more “bikepartisan” direction – and what we all can do to make that happen.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) (Photo: Airdye.com)

Blumenauer said Rail~volution has gone from being about “good ideas” to being at the forefront of some of the most urgent public policy priorities of our time. “We have seen how sustainable, well-planned communities with balanced transportation choices can avoid being hollowed out shells in the aftermath of real estate bubbles,” he said.

With his ever-present bike label pin on, he sang the praises of the bicycle, “the most efficient form of urban transportation ever designed.” He joked that Portland’s livable urbanism is indirectly the culprit for its high unemployment rate as “young people continue to move here – without jobs” just because Portland is such a good place to live. (It also might have something to do, he admits, with the fact that Portland also has more breweries – not just per capita, but simply a greater number – than any other city in the world.) It’s this walkable urbanism that he credits with people’s willingness to “invest more in the broccoli they buy at the farmers’ market, or spend more to buy a book at the local bookstore than buying it online.”

Shifting from the city to the nation, he said it was exciting to watch the federal government adopt some of the vision and values for which he and the other Railvolutionaries in the room “have been crusading for most of this new century.” From the interagency collaboration on livability to TIGER grants and intercity rail funding, he’s feeling hopeful. (And that’s despite having a reauthorization of the transportation bill be more than year overdue.)

Still, frustration creeps in. He called the Senate “the hospice where good House bills go to die,” then backpedaled, saying “but a hospice is where they treat you nicely.”

Then there’s the Tea Partiers. Without naming them, Blumenauer talked about his “near-death-panel experience,” learning first-hand how the truth can get twisted if a distortion gets repeated enough. (He was the author of the provision in the health care bill that Sarah Palin ended up calling “death panels” – his idea being that families should understand “the circumstances they were facing as they approached the end of life of a loved one, and that they had the capacity to make sure that their wishes were honored.”)

But the biggest threat to the push for livability, he said, are the deficit hawks who say there’s no money to pay for a different way of building towns and cities. He agreed that the country faces financial problems but said:

Read more…