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.

Happy 2011! May this year bring peace, harmony, and a six-year transportation reauthorization.

The best part about 2011 is that it’s not 2010. Last year was a tough one at the federal level: constant extensions of both the transportation bill and the general budget, no progress on an adequate funding source for infrastructure investment, and then a bruising election in November.

We asked you, Streetsblog readers, to vote for the bests and worsts of 2010 in our annual Streetsie awards poll. You took time out of singing carols and making snow angels to cast your vote. Here’s what you said.

You’ll miss Jim Oberstar. The architect of the half-trillion-dollar infrastructure proposal that reformers still dream about – Rep. Jim Oberstar, the Minnesota Democrat who chaired the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure – lost his re-election bid by a hair.

"We'll Miss You Jim Oberstar!" say 86 percent of Streetsblog readers. Image: Bike Portland

Oberstar secured funding for bicycle facilities when few on Capitol Hill wanted to talk about bikes. He told cyclists, “We’re going to convert America from the hydrocarbon economy to the carbohydrate economy.” He helped create the Safe Routes to School program and expand transit access to low-income communities. He helped level the playing field between transit and highway projects.

It’s not every day you find a champion like that on Capitol Hill.

Many of you are also sad to see Sen. Chris Dodd go. From his seat as chair of the Banking Committee, he fought for transit funding and for his Livable Communities bill, which is less likely to see action in the next Congress without his advocacy.

But the blow of losing Oberstar was made harder by the surprise of it: Dodd announced his resignation a year ago, but who really thought Oberstar would lose, after 18 easy election wins? Plus, the Senate is still controlled by Democrats, but a Republican-controlled House could have really used an Oberstar to keep transportation reform at the forefront.

So James Oberstar gets the Streetsie for the politician who will be missed most in the 112th Congress. Which brings us to the category:

Best Bet to Take Up Oberstar’s Mantle in the 112th: Oberstar was a good friend, but he wasn’t the only ally to reformers. Reps. Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio (both D-OR) will continue to be fervent supporters of sustainability, bicycling, and public transportation. And we know we can count on Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) to keep fighting for a National Infrastructure Bank.

But we’re going to give the Streetsie to Sen. Barbara Boxer, hoping she’ll step up her efforts to secure meaningful transportation reform and a robust funding source in the coming year. With Dodd gone, sustainable transportation supporters need her to be a hero in the Senate.

She should receive support from colleagues like Senators Tom Carper of Delaware and Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, who have stood up for transit, as well as the New York delegation. But as head of the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works – and having emerged stronger than expected from a tough re-election battle – she’s got some political capital to spend. We award her this Streetsie in hopes that she’ll spend that political capital on reducing carbon emissions through transportation reform.

Best Idea With a Million Supporters and Still No Chance of Going Anywhere Anytime Soon: A higher gas tax. The Deficit Commission came out in favor of it. So did former Transportation Secretaries Norm Mineta and Sam Skinner. Not to mention outgoing Republican Senator George Voinovich of Ohio and Democratic Senator Thomas Carper of Delaware. And a coalition of economic policy groups.

Still, politicians avoided it like the plague. No one was willing to stand up for a way to replenish the starved highway trust fund during the last election season. The only thing less popular than a hike in the gas tax is a shift to a VMT fee.

Most Important Action Congress Failed to Take in 2010: Of all the unfinished business of the 111th, Streetsblog readers were most bummed out by the failure to pass a transportation reauthorization. Indeed, that’s the centerpiece of nearly all federal-level efforts to reform the transportation system. Making matters worse is the fact that that task now shifts to the hands of Republicans who have announced their intention to cut spending (at a time of rousing cries for greater infrastructure funding) and to prioritize sprawl-spreading highway building over more efficient and sustainable forms of transportation.

But fully a third of you were even more disappointed by the inability to pass a climate bill that dealt with carbon emissions from transportation. The most recent iterations of the climate bill were getting weaker and weaker on that score, and now the bill is on the scrap heap.

Incidentally, that’s why we’re pulling for Sen. Boxer to pick up the transportation reform banner. She worked long and hard on the climate bill, and she could accomplish many of carbon reduction goals set out in that bill by focusing on transportation, which is responsible for a third of all carbon emissions. Which brings us back to that transportation bill…

In our next post: your votes for most short-sighted governor, and some reasons for optimism.

Outgoing Transpo Committee Chair Jim Oberstar got what he wanted: a yearlong extension. (Though he would have preferred a six-year reauthorization.) Image: Capitol Chatter

What the House passed last night, as part of the continuing resolution that will keep the government running at current spending levels through the end of the fiscal year, was no transformational piece of legislation. Instead, it was a “clean” extension of the transportation bill with very few changes to the current spending levels. The current extension was set to expire at the end of the year.

Rep. Oberstar has been advocating for a yearlong extension and he supported yesterday’s bill:

An extension of current programs and funding levels is a far cry from my preferred approach to addressing the nation’s growing surface transportation challenges.  Meeting the overall needs of the system and developing a 21st Century surface transportation network worthy of being passed on to future generations can only be accomplished through the passage of a robust and transformational long-term surface transportation authorization act.

However, extending these programs through the end of the fiscal year will provide States, localities, and public transit agencies with the degree of certainty necessary to move forward with their capital programs while Congress continues to work toward passage of a long-term surface transportation authorization bill.

The bill rescinds unobligated earmark money, saving, according to Oberstar, $600 million. And some earmarked funds that “disproportionately benefited” certain highway programs will be redistributed to others, including recreational trails, Safe Routes to School, and metropolitan planning programs.

Transportation for America expressed its support for the extension, saying it allows states and localities to move forward with pending projects and gives the House time to craft a long-term reauthorization. T4A did note, “We were disappointed to see the House stifle the development of high-speed rail by cutting of $1.5 billion. We urge the Senate to restore that funding.”

Committee officials say all funding levels are the same as last year.

An extension was clearly necessary to keep the system from grinding to a halt December 31. Rep. John Mica, incoming committee chair, wanted a shorter one. But this yearlong extension effectively takes the transportation authorization out of the hands of the Republicans, at least for now. By the time this extension expires, the presidential campaign season will be upon us, and a meaty, long-term bill will become less likely.

Looking at some of the Republican plans for infrastructure spending, kicking the can down the road a bit might not be such a bad idea.

Photo: MPR

He said the history of the committee – and his service to it – has been “the movement of people safely, efficiently, and effectively, for the betterment of the nation.”

He also imparted some final nuggets of wisdom for those who will follow him on the committee:

• Earmarks. Oberstar said a bill “devoid of the 27,000 earmarks like we had in 2006” would be a good thing. “That’s excess,” he said. But, he said, it was too simplistic to shut legislators out of the allocation process. “If you believe that, then the executive branch – at the national or state level – will make all those decisions.” He pointed to his own achievements in making the process more accountable and transparent.
• The reauthorization. He acknowledged that it was a “big hole in the legislative agenda.” He blamed the White House and the Senate for failing to come up with an agreement on a financing mechanism.
• An extension. He said that an answer on the length of the extension of the current authorization could come as early as tomorrow, when the newly elected House and Senate leadership meets. He even threw out the possibility that “if they come to some agreement, we could maybe even be doing a new authorization in the balance of this session. We’d be prepared to do that.” Assuming that won’t happen, however, he spoke strongly against doing short, month-to-month extensions as a forcing mechanism to “hold somebody’s feet to the fire.” He said that was not reasonable. He said if it wasn’t going to be a six-year bill, they should extend it for a year.
• John Mica. Oberstar spoke with fondness of the “close working relationship” he had with his ranking member and the accomplishments they’ve shared. “That’s a record, I submit, of cooperation, conciliation, that is taking the best of Mr. Mica’s ideas, the best of my ideas, what we can sell to our respective caucuses, and putting it together in a bill.” He says he hopes Mica can rebuild those structural relationships in the next Congress.
• The new class. He acknowledged the conservatism of the new freshmen and their inexperience with policy issues. “You’ll see, coming in, a lack of institutional understanding and also, it appears, a lack of willingness to follow seasoned leaders,” he said. He worries that the new members have “little appetite or appreciation for the broader policy questions the nation faces on transportation.”
• High speed rail. He cheered Ray LaHood’s decision that states have to “use it or lose it” when it comes to high speed rail dollars. “If the new governor of Wisconsin wants to build highways instead of high speed rail, increase your gas tax in Wisconsin,” he said. “Stop complaining and whining about wanting to build highways with rail dollars. Build highways with highway dollars.”
• A glass of rosé. He spoke at length – and in French! – about his recent experience riding the trains in France. He was impressed that you could travel the distance between Boston and Washington in 2 ½ hours, and that “you could put a glass of rosé on the table and it didn’t flutter. You could write notes and your pen didn’t quaver. It was interesting to come back to a third world country.”
• Gas tax. Financing is the “Gordian knot” of the surface transportation authorization, Oberstar said. He wishes the president would have taken his advice – and that of two national commissions – and increased the gas tax or user fees. “We’d have had a bill; it’d be law; we’d be moving ahead.” Recalling Europe again, he says high gas taxes are paying for a $1.3 trillion, 20 year infrastructure investment program. “We’re just sitting on the sidelines while they’re eating our lunch.”
• The looming highway trust fund crisis. Oberstar rejected the idea of passing a “barebones” reauthorization that didn’t adequately inject more money into the highway trust fund. He said it’s “on course to being $16 billion to $18 billion short of the authorization level” because of raiding to pay for disaster relief. He said states are now drawing down revenues more slowly than during stimulus because they’re now working on longer-term projects with a longer “spend-out time.” By his calculation, the chickens will come home to roost “sometime in July.”
• His successor. He wouldn’t speculate or opine on whether Nick Rahall or Peter DeFazio would – or should – be the next ranking member.
• His plans for the future. “You will not see my name on any lobbying firm,” he pledged. He said he remains committed to working on transportation policy, especially safety, as well as “the new rural view of America and the new urbanism.”

The new Republican majority could try to ban earmarks - including ones for bikes and transit. Photo: POLITICO

In a nod to the likely new House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor (R-VA), Obama singled out an earmark ban as an area of agreement for the two parties. Cantor has called earmarks “the poster child for Washington’s wasteful spending binges.”

Just about everyone agrees that earmark reform is needed to stop funding projects like the original bridge to nowhere — the $398 million bridge to connect 50 Alaska residents to the airport. Or Florida’s notorious $10 million road to nowhere, which ends at a chain link fence. Or the million dollars New York Senator Chuck Schumer secured to study widening Route 17 in rural Sullivan County.

Rep. Jim Oberstar, as head of the Transportation Committee, worked hard to make the earmark process transparent. He posted a spreadsheet of member requests on the committee website [PDF] and defined eligibility requirements [PDF].

While there are wasteful earmarks that go to projects without merit, an outright ban makes some transportation advocates nervous. “A portion of our program has been earmarked,” says Homer Carlisle, a legislative affairs specialist at the American Public Transportation Association. “It’s just one of many sources of funding.” If there’s a real need for a project, Carlisle says, the earmark process has been a way for lawmakers to get necessary federal support for local priorities.

Many lawmakers speak with pride about the funding they secure through earmarks for projects in their districts. Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY) told POLITICO that “there is obviously a need for a member to be able to come on out to the Congress for a particular need in his or her district that the regular order is not solving.”

Bike Portland notes that Rob Sadowsky, Board Member of the League of American Bicyclists and the Alliance for Biking and Walking, is concerned about the earmark ban too.

“While earmark funding on [the] surface appears to be a poor way of managing a democracy,” Sadowsky said, “our projects, particularly trail projects have historically done very well through earmarks.”

He went on to say that if we really want to usher in a new system where projects are evaluated based on merit, “we need a reform of the transportation bill, and with a split congress it will be difficult to get reform inside that bill… We may not do as well in project funding in the future.”

Ken Orski, who writes the transportation-focused newsletter Innovation Briefs, has concluded that a total elimination of congressional earmarks is politically unrealistic. But many lawmakers, like Rep. Cantor, have already stopped using them. Incoming Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) has never used them.

And President Obama said last month that Washington needs to reform the “patchwork approach of funding and maintaining our infrastructure.” He may view an earmark ban as a chance to direct transportation funding where it is most needed. “We’ve got to focus less on wasteful earmarks, outdated formulas,” he said. “We’ve got to focus more on competition and innovation.”

Indeed, top DOT officials have already been trying to make transportation funding more strategic and less scattershot. The TIGER program is a step in that direction, but the funding pot is a small fraction of what the feds disburse to state DOTs, and it hasn’t been sufficient to bring entire transportation networks into the 21st century. DOT officials have been looking for ways to connect different programs and shape regional transportation systems – something earmarks will never be able to do.

“Congress is going to face a decision,” said APTA’s Carlisle, “on whether to continue earmarking, turn over more spending decisions to the administration – or finish the transportation bill.”

Given the GOP ascension in the House, providing the administration with more funding leeway may be a politically unpopular choice. We’d have to agree that producing a long-term transportation bill is the best option for reforming the earmark process.

Oberstar gives his farewell speech. Photo: MPR

He said he wouldn’t change or take back any of his votes for transportation, especially improvements in his own district. He refused to apologize for the stimulus, saying the infrastructure it paid for will be there for a hundred years.

Meanwhile, John Mica, the top Republican on the Transportation Committee – and its presumptive next chair – said in a statement:

If selected by my peers to chair the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the next Congress, my primary focus will be improving employment and expanding economic opportunities, doing more with less, cutting red tape and removing impediments to creating jobs, speeding up the process by which infrastructure projects are approved, and freeing up any infrastructure funding that’s been sitting idle.

Among my top legislative priorities will be passing a long-term federal highways and transit reauthorization… I will also focus on major initiatives to find ways within the Committee’s jurisdiction to save taxpayer dollars. That includes better management and utilization of federal assets, including real property, and more efficient, cost effective passenger rail transportation, including a better directed high-speed rail program.

Some reformers saw visions of high speed rail go down the toilet with the flip in Congressional power. Mica seems to indicate otherwise. Certainly, he’ll be under pressure from his party – which reads yesterday’s victory as a mandate for smaller government – to cut spending. But Mica supported Oberstar’s $500 billion transportation bill, and he recognizes the benefits of transit. He’ll need solid backup from advocates — speaking with a fiscal-conservative message — to convince his colleagues that infrastructure investment makes economic sense.

It looks like he’s prepared to try.

The Wall Street Journal has put out some thoughts about who might take up Jim Oberstar’s mantle now that he’s lost his seat by the narrowest of margins. (He would have lost the chairmanship in any case, since control of Congress flipped to the Republicans, but he would have been the ranking Democrat on the committee.) Will the spirit of bipartisanship that governed Oberstar’s relationship with his ranking member, Rep. John Mica, continue now that Mica is in the chair? If so, the next ranking member could help shape the reauthorization.

Could Eleanor Holmes Norton be the next top Democrat on the Transportation Committee? Image: Express

Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia would be next in line to become ranking member in January, but he already chairs the Natural Resources Committee and it’s not clear he’d switch (setting off a chain of changes in that committee as well.) Rahall’s transportation priorities – for his own, very rural, district, at least – lean toward highway construction and expansion.

And it’s not clear that he’d have to drop out of one committee to become ranking member of another. House rules only allow a member to chair one full committee at a time. I’ve checked with the House Rules Committee and the Speaker’s office and so far no one knows if the same is true for ranking members. I’ll let you know once I hear.

If Rahall is out, then the games begin.

Next in line for the job behind Mr. Rahall is Rep. Peter DeFazio, a liberal Democrat from Oregon who favors increased spending on public-transit projects.

Another Democrat in the running is Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is the elected representative from Washington, D.C. Because Ms. Norton doesn’t represent a state, she isn’t a full-fledged members of Congress. She is permitted to vote on legislation in committees, but she does not have vote on the House floor.

If Ms. Norton becomes the top Democrat on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, she could draw the ire of tea party Republicans, who are already opposed to government spending — much less spending-bills promoted by a lawmaker who doesn’t have full voting rights in Congress.

The current governors map, before yesterday's winners are seated. Several blue states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, will turn red. California will flip from red to blue.

The biggest news from last night, of course, is that the GOP won control of the House of Representatives. That means Republicans now control all the House committees, and Ohio’s John Boehner — a believer in wider highways — will wield the Speaker’s gavel. The Democrats hung on to the Senate, though, and pundits are forecasting two years of gridlock.

Streetsblog has mainly been profiling races for governor where transportation issues had a high profile. Here are some results with big implications for smart growth and sustainable transportation.

Governor Results

California: Jerry Brown (D) 54 percent – Meg Whitman (R) 41 percent
Whitman would have said no to high speed rail, Brown has a record of curbing sprawl and fighting highway expansion.

Colorado: John Hickenlooper (D) 50 percent – Tom Tancredo (AMC) 37 percent – Dan Maes (R) 11 percent
The GOP hangs on to major party status by a hair after bike-paranoid Maes costs them the election. Hickenlooper is a bike and transit advocate who really gets it.

Florida: Rick Scott (R) 49 percent – Alex Sink (D) 48 percent
Scott has said he’ll kill high speed rail, giving back federal dollars. Sink is a transit supporter who said bike infrastructure could improve street safety.

Georgia: Nathan Deal (R) 53 percent – Roy Barnes (D) 43 percent
Barnes has environmental concerns about a highway expansion project Deal supports. Barnes wanted to “unclog Atlanta” through transit.

Maryland: Martin O’Malley (D) 56 percent – Bob Ehrlich (R) 42 percent
Incumbent O’Malley will move forward with building a light-rail Purple Line to complement the D.C. Metro. Ehrlich said he favored bus rapid transit but some thought he was just trying to cause delays.

Ohio: John Kasich (R) 49 percent – Ted Strickland (D) 47 percent
The winner says high speed rail is the dumbest idea he’s ever heard. Incumbent Strickland has tried to green the industrial state.

Tennessee: Bill Haslam (R) 65 percent – Mike McWherter (D) 33 percent
Haslam has gained some praise for his bike policy but he’s not friendly to transit, which McWherter supports.

Texas: Rick Perry (R) 55 percent – Bill White (D) 42 percent
Will the Trans-Texas Corridor mega-project go through? It’s likely, now that Perry won an unprecedented third term.

Wisconsin: Rick Scott (R) 52 percent – Tom Barrett (D) 47 percent
Another race where the Republican pledged to kill high speed rail projects underway. Barrett promoted transit as a way to reduce wear and tear on highways.

House Races

Minnesota: Chip Cravaack (R) 48 percent – Jim Oberstar 47 percent
This is a huge blow to transportation reform. Oberstar, the chair of the Transportation Committee and architect of the reauthorization bill, was a strong ally of reformers.

Oregon: Peter DeFazio (D) 54 percent – Art Robinson (R) 45 percent
After a closer-than-expected contest, transit supporter DeFazio stays to fight another day.

Senate Races

California: Barbara Boxer (D) 52 percent – Carly Fiorina (R) 42 percent
The Environment and Public Works Committee chair had the fight of her political life against the Hewlett Packard exec, but she’ll stick around. And with the Democrats keeping control of the Senate, EPW will remain under her leadership.

Stay tuned… later today we’ll be taking a look at how the 29 transportation-related ballot initiatives fared.

Oberstar, right, and DeFazio share a ride in a pedi-cab. Willamette River Bridge Project

As committee chair, Oberstar has been a strong advocate for transit investment and livability reforms. He’s also the architect and chief proponent of the six-year $500 billion transportation bill that’s been stalled in the House since last summer.

Oberstar has easily won 17 consecutive elections, but the 18th is proving to be a little sticky. The LA Times reports:

[R]ecently, American Crossroads, an independent group affiliated with GOP strategist Karl Rove, started running spots on the Duluth stations that blanket the area. A group formed by Democrat-turned-Republican Dick Morris also launched a spot against Oberstar.

Then a third group called 60 Plus, which bills itself as a conservative alternative to AARP, began broadcasting $100,000 worth of ads saying it was time for the 76-year-old incumbent to retire.

Now, Oberstar’s seat is in play.

According to polling by SurveyUSA, he’s currently just one point ahead of challenger Chip Cravaack, within the margin of error. And he’s not the only champion having to fight harder than usual to retain his seat.

It’s being portrayed as a testament to the power of anti-incumbent sentiment this year that Peter DeFazio (D-OR) finds himself in a surprisingly close race against Republican Art Robinson. DeFazio, as chair of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee, has strongly advocated for including livability measures in the transportation bill.

He won his last race with 82 percent, and no independent polls were even commissioned this time around — his chances were considered that good. Conservative money has helped Robinson close the funding gap, though. And the only poll that’s been conducted — admittedly, by a Republican polling firm — shows DeFazio just six points ahead. That’s a lot closer than he expected this race to be.

Meet John Mica (R-FL), the new Chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Rep. John Mica (R-FL) could chair the T&I Committee if the GOP wins back the House.

Will it happen? Depends which pundit you listen to or which polls you look at. It’s likely enough that some transportation advocates are concerned about what would happen to the six-year transportation reauthorization bill if Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN) is no longer Chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

With DOT Secretary Ray LaHood pushing lawmakers to move quickly on transportation, the reauthorization figures to be one of the first items on the agenda of the next Congress. A Republican majority would likely be less friendly to reform, and fiscal conservatives are likely to pull the purse strings tighter.

Now the good news: Ranking Republican John Mica (R-FL), who would almost certainly take over Oberstar’s seat, is about as transit-friendly a Republican as you can hope for. Check out this interview he did with PBS’ Blueprint America last year:

BLUEPRINT AMERICA: You are a Republican – and you support transportation and infrastructure spending?

REP. MICA: Well, I tell you though, if you’re on the Transportation Committee long enough, even if you’re a fiscal conservative, which I consider myself to be, you quickly see the benefits of transportation investment. Simply, I became a mass transit fan because it’s so much more cost effective than building a highway. Also, it’s good for energy, it’s good for the environment – and that’s why I like it.

BLUEPRINT AMERICA: If anything, you’d say that your time in Congress and on the Transportation Committee has brought you around to these ideas?

REP. MICA: Yes. And, seeing the cost of one person in one car. The cost for construction. The cost for the environment. The cost for energy. You can pretty quickly be convinced that there’s got to be a more cost effective way. It’s going to take a little time, but we have to have good projects, they have to make sense – whether it’s high-speed rail or commuter rail or light rail. We got to have some alternatives helping people – even in the rural areas – to get around.

Blogger Matt Yglesias has called Mica “a Republican worth listening to” and David Alpert of Greater Greater Washington has called him “the House’s leading pro-transit Republican.” Mica stood with Oberstar last year at the unveiling of the half-trillion dollar transportation reauthorization bill and didn’t flinch at the price tag. He fought for more transit capital funding to be added to the stimulus, saying transit infrastructure creates jobs.

Katie Drennan, Transportation for America’s legislative associate, said Mica deserves some of the credit for the cooperative nature of his committee. “He’s carried on the tradition in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee where there’s been a kind of bipartisanship you don’t see in a lot of other Congressional committees,” she said.

As for Mica’s strong support for transit and high-speed rail, Drennan said, “He sees how it’s working in the state of Florida.”

Drennan said a Mica-led committee would still be open to ideas from progressive transportation groups. But a majority-Republican committee would likely break from Oberstar’s model, despite Mica’s leanings.

“Because we’re in such a tough financial situation – with the Highway Trust Fund being broke, and folks needing to look at new revenue sources – there are conservative efforts to strip down the program to what they see as its core,” Drennan said. And to many GOP members, the core function of federal transportation investment doesn’t extend much beyond highways. “They don’t see transportation enhancements [biking and walking projects] or transit as being core to the program.”

The committee chair only controls so much, after all. With a Republican majority, even a good bill could be gutted by amendments added in committee and on the floor of the House.

(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."

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."

Fixing a disputed provision in the jobs bill that President Obama signed into law yesterday -- as Senate Democratic leaders promised House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) following complaints by several members of his panel -- would involve the redistribution of $932 million in funding for two major federal road and rail programs.

The end result of the transfers would leave California with $192 million less than it had in the Senate-passed version of the jobs measure, while Texas would gain the most with an influx of more than $76 million, according to data released by Oberstar's committee earlier this week.

The $932 million in grants became an issue last month after the jobs bill, which extends the 2005 transportation law until 2011, cleared the Senate with language that also extended 2009-level earmarks for the two programs, known as Projects of Regional and National Significance (PRNS) and the National Corridor Infrastructure Improvement (NCIIP).

That extension of previous earmarks would result in 58 percent of the $932 million going to four states: Illinois, Louisiana, California, and Washington. After lawmakers from other states raised alarms about the distribution, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) vowed to Oberstar [PDF] that if the House would approve the jobs bill without changing the provision, the Senate would move as quickly as possible on a fix.

"Although my preference would be to amend this [jobs bill] to reflect these compromises today, any further delays in enacting a surface transportation extension are unacceptable," Oberstar said two weeks ago, urging colleagues to take the upper chamber at its word.

The House passed legislation earlier this week that would redirect the $932 million to all 50 states based on existing road-funding formulas. It is that shift that would take PRNS and NCIIP money from California, Illinois ($119 million), Louisiana ($43 million), and Washington ($39 million), as well as Oregon ($29 million) and Virginia ($12 million).

States that would gain under the fix include Texas, Ohio ($25 million), Florida ($47 million), Georgia ($31 million), and New York ($16 million). It remains unclear when the Senate will act on the change.

Rep. John Mica (R-FL) opposes the White House safety plan, but he also wants to see it debated as part of broader transport legislation. (Photo: Orlando Sentinel)

Speaking to the American Public Transportation Association's (APTA) annual conference, aides to both House infrastructure committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) and Rep. John Mica (FL), the panel's top Republican, said they aim to make the White House's proposed transit safety legislation part of the broader debate over restructuring federal transport programs -- an issue that may not come before Congress until next year.

But an adviser to the Senate Banking Committee's senior Republican, Richard Shelby (AL), said he wants the transit safety bill to be "a free-standing piece of legislation and not wait until" lawmakers can agree on a long-term federal transport bill.

In remarks that touched on the continuing impasse over that six-year transport bill, Oberstar aide Amy Scarton asked APTA members to provide input on the White House transit safety proposal, which has gotten mixed reviews from transit officials. The safety legislation is set to move through the House "as part of the long-term surface transportation bill," she said.

Meanwhile, Mica remains opposed to the Obama team's strategy of asking state transit overseers (known as SSOs) to submit to federal supervision if their programs are deemed out of compliance with minimal safety standards, according to aide Joyce Rose. The Floridian would prefer to bolster individual SSOs with grant money to avoid "creating a new federal bureaucracy," she said.

But Rose agreed with Scarton that transit safety should move as part of the broader transport bill, a perspective that runs counter to the administration's hopes for quick passage of its proposed legislation.

After the House aides spoke, Shannon Hines -- who served as Shelby's chief of staff before moving to the Banking panel in 2007 -- expressed her boss' differing view on the transit safety debate.

It remains to be seen whether other senators share his view on the timing for safety legislation. An adviser to Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) did not mention the retiring Banking chairman's preferred approach yesterday, and a spokeswoman for Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), a leading voice on transit safety, told Streetsblog Capitol Hill that the Maryland senator is "looking at all the options" in order to approve the administration's safety plan "as quickly as possible."

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.

Sen. Jim Bunning's (R-KY) one-man filibuster kept U.S. DOT workers off the job for two days. (Photo: CNN)

"When you are taking home $900 over a two-week period, a $300 cut can be devastating," House transport committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN), the bill's sponsor, said in a speech before its approval. "These cuts would be difficult enough in good economic times. Amidst the current economic downturn, they would be particularly painful."

Bunning argued that the extension of existing transportation law, which came coupled with five weeks of stopgap funding for unemployment benefits, should be fully paid for -- despite his past support for similar unpaid extension measures. He ultimately relented after a tumult of media coverage began to give Democrats political momentum in their campaign against frequent Republican use of the filibuster.

The U.S. DOT compensation bill is fully paid for, Oberstar's office said in a statement, thanks to a shift in already-approved spending authority for the agency.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) (Photo: CNN)

But one GOP senator, the notoriously irascible Jim Bunning (KY), objected to the 30-day extension, which also would ensure continued payment of federal unemployment benefits. When Democrats pleaded with Bunning to drop his one-man filibuster effort, Politico heard the retiring Kentuckian offer a terse response: "Tough s--t."

If an extension cannot be passed before the 2005 transportation law officially expires at midnight on Sunday, the result would be a quasi-shutdown of operations at U.S. DOT. A source at the agency told Streetsblog Capitol Hill that all employees of the Federal Highway Administration, save for its chief, would be sent home and states would stop getting reimbursed for their spending on all road projects.

The Federal Transit Administration would see a freeze of its own, the U.S. DOT source said, with contract authority to fund local projects sitting in limbo until Congress acts. Perhaps the most untimely delay would occur at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), where regulators are ramping up their oversight efforts after the Toyota recall debacle.

"[I]t is simply unfair for one senator to attempt to hold the Senate hostage,” Dick Durbin (D-IL), the upper chamber's No. 2 leader, said last night in a statement.

Where does that leave Democrats? Working furiously to break through Bunning's roadblock, even as more House members join transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) in raising objections to the Senate jobs bill that would keep existing federal programs intact until 2011.

Oberstar and about two dozen members of his panel take issue with the Senate jobs bill's treatment of $932 million in grants that would be spent this year as part of a 10-month extension of existing transport law. Giving that money to states using the template of 2009 earmarks -- as the Senate jobs bill proposes -- would direct the majority of the money to four states, leaving 22 states with nothing.

A letter sent earlier this week by 23 members of the transportation committee asks for the grant money to be given out on a "discretionary, competitive" basis. However, Oberstar spokesman Jim Berard said in an interview that the chairman has offered a compromise that would allocate the funding based on existing federal transportation formulas.

Berard said that Oberstar would prefer to see the $932 million allocated competitively to projects rather than distributed by formula. But he acknowledged the reasoning behind the Senate's argument that applying for the funding would not facilitate quick job creation. "If we're not going to make it competitive," Berard said, "at least let's make it equitable."

At the moment, the House appears unlikely to act on the jobs legislation until at least next week, giving Oberstar and his panel more time to reach agreement with senators -- and heightening the drama of Bunning's Senate floor show.

Late Update: Congress and state DOTs are now preparing in earnest for a federal transportation shutdown come Monday. Oberstar told reporters this afternoon that the "astonishing" Senate gridlock would result in the loss of $153 million in reimbursements for highway projects and $31 million in transit reimbursements during each day that Congress goes without extending the existing law.

The ramifications were felt as early as yesterday in Missouri, where officials canceled a scheduled bid for road and bridge projects of all types, anticipating a possible loss of funding from Washington. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a statement warning that "thousands of jobs are at risk" due to Bunning's ongoing objections. Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters this afternoon that she expects the House to take up the Senate jobs bill next week, though she did not hint at how Oberstar and his panel's criticism of the plan would be resolved.

Rob Puentes of the Brookings Institution, writing on The New Republic's blog, sounded an ominous note about the shutdown's effect on the long-stalled transportation debate:

Despite earnest and sustained calls for a long term national commitment to infrastructure little progress is being made. Not to put too fine a point on it: but if Congress can dismiss the program in place today and risk a shutdown, it does not bode well for comprehensive reform.

Highways and transit, side by side in Berlin. (Photo: Streetsblog.net)

Lind focused on the themes of Moving Minds, a book he co-wrote with the late conservative icon Paul Weyrich to debunk many of the anti-transit, pro-roads myths trotted out by Randal O'Toole, Wendell Cox, and other pundits on the right.

"The way we got to America's national motto being 'drive or die' ... is not because of any sort of free market," Lind said today. "We got here because of massive government subsidization of one competitor and the taxing of another."

But the dialogue got interesting when Oberstar arrived, a cast on his arm after taking a spill on a sheet of ice. He shared an anecdote about former French President Charles de Gaulle's support for rail before hitting a familiar note, one best described as respectfully critical of the Obama administration.

"Political will -- that's what we're lacking today and have been lacking for a long time," Oberstar said, urging fellow policymakers "to reinvest in a system that moves great numbers of people at the lowest cost."

In a direct communication to Trottenberg, the White House's representative in the room, he added that he stands ready to take up a new federal transportation bill "whenever this administration can find its political will to support a financing mechanism."

Trottenberg took the floor next, acknowledging "frustration" on the part of U.S. DOT staff as they seek to build political support for the difficult choices needed to raise revenue for large-scale reform. Particularly in the Senate, she said, "a lot of members do the math [and conclude that] 'it's valuable for me to fight for every single dollar to go to highway funds'," regardless of the impact that choice would have on their constituents' future or the common good.

But the participants in today's event appeared to agree that the message in Lind's book, as well as the national revival of streetcar projects, would help smooth over the polarization that has come to characterize American transportation decision-making.

"There's a strong rural message in everything we're saying," noted Smith, the former Republican mayor of Meridian, Mississippi. "When gas gets to be four dollars a gallon, our people have no other options."

(After hearing Smith speak about the small-town potential of transit, Oberstar extended a most congressional compliment: "Could you be on loan to our committee? Or to the Senate ...")

And Lind made perhaps the most cogent argument in favor of abandoning transportation dichotomies such as urban versus suburban. "The rural-urban split is something that anti-transit forces try to exploit on the state legislature level" to defeat transit funding proposals, he observed.

House transportation chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) (Photo: STLToday)

For weeks, we've heard senior Democrats and the transit industry make the case for more transportation spending as a potent job creator, but the lack of funding for a full six-year bill has kept the conversation stalled.

But two things have happened in the week since Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) floated the idea of a "front-loaded" infrastructure plan that would concentrate investment in the first two years:

• The defeat of two Democratic candidates in Tuesday's off-year elections reinforced that job creation and economic worries are the No. 1 concerns for voters.
• Gross domestic product may be rebounding, but unemployment decidedly is not.

This adds up to renewed interest in fast-tracking a new transportation bill, perhaps with a two-year window. As House transport committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) told David Rogers of Politico, "The concrete is cracking."

But even if the White House is prepared to abandon its insistence on an 18-month extension of current law, how to pay for new transportation legislation remains a very open question. House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), for his part, told Rogers that he likes the sound of Rep. Pete DeFazio's (D-OR) proposed tax on Wall Street oil speculators:

There are some painless ways to fund the highway bill. Transaction taxes, that’s a painless way ... Where are the shared contributions to all this? If you’re sitting there on Wall Street, if you’re Goldman Sachs, if you’re making all this money, if you got all this federal money [in a] bailout, and you are paying all these big bonuses to your folks, where is your contribution to this recovery? That’s why it’s painless.

Clyburn's reference to the "highway" bill brings up another lingering mystery about the type of transportation spending being envisioned by senior Democrats. If the White House does agree to support a new infrastructure bill after health care is finished, will it include policy changes or just new money?

Because, as Clyburn inadvertently acknowledges, simply adding more money to the framework of the 2005 infrastructure law would help highways but do little to move the nation towards a more rational mix of transit and roads. Oberstar's pending six-year bill, by contrast, would institute an array of reforms, cutting 75 funding categories from the current system and allowing more "flex-ing" of road money for use on transit.

If a front-loaded bill is passed with some of the policy changes offered by Oberstar, job creation and a more accountable national transportation system could start moving hand-in-hand. If a front-loaded bill is passed but scrubbed of any substantive reform, jobs may be created but voters will still be sitting in traffic.

Late Update: House Republicans are making noise about using unspent money from this winter's economic stimulus law to bolster infrastructure projects, which comprised just 6 percent of the stimulus' $787 billion price tag. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said at a press conference today:

And so I'd like to see us go to the back end of where the stimulus is going, to be inflating more government programs ... scrape that money out and put it into infrastructure, which we know [is] the job creator.

The concept of tapping the stimulus is one that Republicans have floated for months, including in legislative form when the nation's highway trust fund was nearing insolvency over the summer. The problem, then as now, is that senior Democrats such as House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-WI) are staunchly opposed to diverting funds from the massive recovery bill.

Later Update: Politico's article cites Oberstar as arguing for "an upfront investment of $80 billion over two years" in transportation. But it's worth noting that the transportation chairman has not formally endorsed that figure, according to his office.