Streetsblog Capitol Hill

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee ranking member John Mica knew the value of good transit.

As chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, John Mica hasn't looked like much of a "transit fan." Photo: C-SPAN

“I became a mass transit fan because it’s so much more cost effective than building a highway,” he told PBS in 2009. “Also, it’s good for energy, it’s good for the environment – and that’s why I like it.”

Flash forward to February 2012. Mica is now chair of the committee, and he and his colleagues in the House have delivered a transportation bill that is bad for the environment and very bad for transit. Instead of receiving a dedicated share of the federal gas tax, as has been the case for three decades, transit would be expected to survive with an infusion from the treasury — with no guarantee of anything after that.

Mica defended the proposal vigorously. “The transit community, who has no source of revenue, is demanding that they stay and get a share of the trust fund, which, one, they don’t contribute to, and two, the trust fund is not going anywhere,” Mica told reporters. “If anything, it’s going to go down in its revenue as vehicles switch out to alternative fuels.”

Sure doesn’t sound like the words of a “transit fan.”

Mica used to be the premier pro-transit Republican in the House. Not anymore. That title now belongs to Ohio’s Steve LaTourette or Illinois’s Robert Dold, who have voiced the most resistance within their party to anti-transit measures in the House transportation bill. So how did ranking member Mica, who was one of his Democratic Chairman’s closest allies and biggest supporters, turn into Chairman Mica, enemy of transit?

We approached Mica’s office for this story and have yet to hear back. But it’s easy to see how the shifting landscape of transportation politics would affect a pro-transit Republican in a leadership position, like Mica. The T & I chair is now stuck between a rock (the intransigent GOP base) and a hard place (the declining power of the federal gas tax).

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It looks like everyone who bet on “extension” can collect their winnings.

Chairman John Mica is still trying to write a five-year transportation bill, and the House is on course to buy time for him to do it. Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland

As expected, the House will not vote on the Senate’s transportation bill before the current transportation law expires on March 31, opting instead to buy more time with a stopgap measure. They will likely use that time to try whip up support for a five-year bill that funnels money toward highways and away from city streets and transit systems.

John Mica, chairman of the House transportation committee, told reporters after today’s Rally for Roads that “a decision will be made on the length of an extension hopefully in the next 24 hours and it will be up next week,” according to The Hill.

Politico caught up with a few members and heard much the same:

Bill Shuster, a top House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee member, thought it likely the House first goes for a clean extension of perhaps 45-60 days. “I think we’d get Democratic votes for it,” he said, adding, it “will give us some time to continue working toward a five-year bill, which we think is the key to passing it in the House.”

The move is not particularly surprising, given how the House has ground to a halt over the last few weeks.

Almost this exact same situation unfolded last summer with the federal aviation bill — then, too, the Senate approved a bill long before the House, who opted for a short-term extension rather than a long-term bill. At that point, however, the Senate refused to play ball, and federal aviation programs went into shutdown.

So far, all parties have voiced their unwillingness to see another shutdown. But the Senate may still try to write some of their reforms into any extension the House brings forward, and then it would be the House’s turn to play ball.

So much for bipartisanship.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is just waiting to pounce on Speaker Boehner for taking up Democratic legislation like the Senate transportation bill. Photo: Plain Dealer

Even though his efforts to whip his party into passing a five-year transportation bill that attacks transit, biking, and walking have been fruitless, House Speaker John Boehner isn’t about to follow through on his threat to take up the Senate’s two-year bill. That bill passed with 22 GOP ayes (and 22 nays) in the Senate earlier this week.

Politico reported this morning that the House Transportation Committee still plans to take up something resembling Boehner’s disastrous HR 7, but not before the eighth extension of SAFETEA-LU expires at the end of this month. The earliest the House plans to take up their bill is April 16, after the Easter recess – and it could be long after that.

While a Boehner spokesperson said no final decision had been reached, Joshua Schank of the Eno Center for Transportation said the speaker’s threat to take up the Senate bill was always an empty one. “The Republican caucus would have revolted against it and Boehner would have lost this job,” Schank said. “If [the Senate bill] passed [in the House], it would have passed because Democrats had voted for it. [House Majority Leader Eric] Cantor is breathing down his neck. If that happens, he’ll just say, ‘Look, you passed a bill that was a Democratic bill; it wasn’t a Republican bill. So he should be out; what kind of Republican leader is that?’”

Politico says the House will introduce a measure to extend SAFETEA-LU yet again the week of March 26, to give them time to pass their own bill. But there are several ways this plan could fail.

First, the Senate could very well obstruct the extension. Everyone involved has been pledging for many months now that there would be no more extensions. The Senate has done its job. Rather than enable the House to take up more and more time pushing its unpopular five-year bill, the Senate could play hardball and force the House’s hand. At that point, the House would either have to take up the Senate bill or let the nation’s transportation program lapse – at the cost of an estimated 847,294 jobs.

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CQ and AmericaBikes are reporting that Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-FL) has received a rebuke from House leadership, and will play a lesser role as the House reworks its foundering transportation bill. Mica will retain his chairmanship, but he will take a back seat to Railroad Subcommittee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-PA).

According to CQ’s Richard Cohen and Nathan Hurst (link forthcoming):

The Speaker’s move shows uncharacteristic willingness by [Speaker John] Boehner to publicly rebuke a chairman and turn to other leaders on a panel when that chairman does not draft a bill that can gain the support of a majority of Republicans.

Even before becoming Speaker, Boehner warned he would have little patience for committee chairmen who do not do their homework. “Chairmen shouldn’t be content to churn out flawed bills and then rely on their leadership to bail them out,” he said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in fall 2010.

Shuster’s go-between role is unusual in part because he ranks 10th in the party seniority on the panel. But GOP leaders needed someone to help tap the panel’s technical expertise, and Shuster has unusual cachet for a junior lawmaker because his father, Bud Shuster, R-Pa., reigned as the panel’s powerful chairman from 1995 to 2000.

Shuster talks a hard line in favor of giving states a blank check to dictate transportation policy, and told an audience at this year’s TRB annual meeting that “when you start getting into the inner city, the federal government has less of a role to play. It’s up to the local community and state to decide [their transportation priorities].” Presumably it was this philosophy that guided the house’s evisceration of transit, bicycle, and pedestrian funding the first time around.

The House Republicans are meeting privately today and tomorrow to formulate a strategy for their transportation bill, according to CQ. Stay tuned for more on Mica and Shuster as it becomes available.

UPDATE (3:45 p.m.): Citing a lack of support from his colleagues, Speaker John Boehner has dropped his 18-month transportation proposal and has not yet offered an alternative, according to Politico. “A five-year bill is the best way to do this,” he said.

We’ve known for a few days now that the House, in the wake of Republican party infighting, was not likely to pursue a long-term transportation bill after all. It turns out, they’re not even pursuing a bill any longer than the Senate’s. But the House bill remains a drastic attack on programs for safer walking and biking while favoring highway construction and oil drilling.

Chairman John Mica has watched his bill get dismantled and delayed by House leadership, yet gets blamed for its failures. Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland

Todd Zwillich at Transportation Nation broke the story last night that the House’s revamped transportation proposal will only authorize federal transportation programs for 18 months, running out in mid-2013. The Senate, meanwhile, has been working on a two-year bill.

The House leadership had to go back to the drawing board after factions within the Republican party came out against Chairman John Mica’s initial five-year, $260 billion bill, though for different reasons.

Moderates in transit-heavy districts opposed the elimination of dedicated funding streams for transit, and super-conservatives opposed what they saw as irresponsible deficit spending — even more so when one of their supposed funding sources, federal pension reform, wound up funding a tax cut extension instead, leaving an even bigger gap.

In its place, the House is proposing an 18-month bill that raises no additional revenue and continues to fund transit from the Highway Trust Fund. (There is no word yet on how much funding an 18-month bill would authorize.)

However, it still consolidates bike-ped funding out of existence, still gives states more authority to direct their transportation dollars towards highways, still rolls back environmental safeguards, and still ties infrastructure funding to expanded oil drilling. So while the changes may win over some undecided Republicans, they certainly haven’t made a decent piece of legislation.

Steve LaTourette, the moderate Republican and friend of Speaker John Boehner who has been a voice for multi-modalism, told Zwillich that the GOP leadership is still intent on taking the bill in an extreme direction. “They’re going to try to jam it,” he said. “They went backward because that’s what the conservatives said they wanted.”

House leadership has tried to pin the blame on Mica for the bill’s failures, prompting colleagues to rush to his defense. As Politico reported this morning:

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Democrats in the Senate Finance Committee have been working to find $12 billion to fund the transportation bill for the next two years. All their proposals have met with rejection from the committee’s Republicans. Here’s why: The Republicans have been holding out for a funding mix that would include their favorite Christmas presents — oil drilling and attacks on conservation.

Orrin Hatch, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has some ideas about how to fund the transportation bill. Photo: Mediaite

Seven of the 11 GOP members of the Finance Committee sent a letter to Chair Max Baucus late last week with their suggestions. Here they are:

• $3.5 billion rescission from the Advanced Vehicle Technology Manufacturing Loan Program
• $3 billion transfer from the Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund
• reclaiming $2.5 billion in transfers over the next 10 years from the Highway Trust Fund to the Land and Water Conservation Fund
• expanded oil and gas production in Alaska and the Outer Continental Shelf ($5.2 billion over 10 years)
• rescission of other unspent federal funds

The GOP members say the first three rescissions wouldn’t be felt much, especially for the programs that routinely bring in more than they spend out.

And then, of course, there’s the oil drilling. They’ve been trying to sneak Alaska oil drilling into just about everything these days, it seems — and here it is, showing up in this proposal to find $12 billion. Despite the fact that it could take years to earn a dime from oil drilling, the GOP acts like it’s the money spigot for everything the government wants to spend — if only the Democrats would stop being so sanctimonious about caribou babies.

So there you have it: spending cuts and oil drilling, the cure for all that ails the country (and, in this case, the solution for the transportation funding shortfall).

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LaHood is spending his birthday defending the administration's high-speed rail plan. Photo: Christian Science Monitor

It’s Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s birthday, and he’s spending it testifying before the House Transportation Committee. The hearing is on “Mistakes & Lessons Learned” from the high-speed rail program, but — no surprise here — LaHood and House Republicans have differing ideas about what “mistakes” have been made.

Here are some highlights.

Chair John Mica said he’s a “strong, committed advocate to high-speed rail service in the United States” but he’s been “very disappointed” in the progress so far. “We have hit an impasse,” he said.

Mica pointed to the ballooning cost estimates for HSR in California and reiterated his long-held position that it’s the wrong place to build high-speed rail. LaHood agreed that “this is an expensive project, but all of the money is going to American workers to build American infrastructure.” Mica stood firm that the Northeast Corridor, not California, is the place to build.

“We’re taking our cues from you,” LaHood said. “We’re investing in the Northeast Corridor.” Mica said they’re still waiting for the money to be awarded.

Rep. Bill Shuster, who chairs the rail subcommittee, said the president’s vision to bring high-speed rail access to 80 percent of the American people isn’t realistic. He said there’s no money for it — and no need. “I don’t hear people all around the country clamoring for high-speed rail,” he said.

When LaHood said that the HSR vision isn’t “Ray LaHood’s vision” — it comes from the states themselves — Shuster said yes, but his daughter wants a luxury SUV and he don’t have the money for it, so she’s not getting it. “I’m glad you didn’t think that about the Keystone Line,” LaHood shot back. He said Shuster asked for the money for that line and the DOT gave it. “Right,” Shuster said, I believe in rail investment “where it makes sense.” But, Shuster noted, he didn’t ask for help funding rail improvements between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh – and that line goes right through his district. But it’s not a strategic investment priority for the country.

Shuster suggested actually taking money from the California project and putting it toward the NEC — not likely to be a popular suggestion, when federal funding is already just $3.6 billion of California’s $98.5 billion total bill.

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Just this morning, Politico was reporting that the House would introduce the legislative text of its transportation proposal on Monday, but just a few short hours ago, House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica gave a speech at the University of Virginia in which he said there would be no movement on the bill until next year. He also sent some encouraging signals that his committee won’t draft a bill that’s all about highways.

Committee staffers say that “these things hinge on when we can get floor action,” and leadership isn’t promising to bring the bill to the floor until January. Congress is taking a long holiday break this year, not coming back into session until January 17, after which it will immediately be interrupted by party conferences [PDF]. Unless this calendar changes, there won’t be significant time to devote to consideration of a major bill until February.

Attention has shifted in recent days from the House T&I Committee to Natural Resources, where lawmakers have considered three bills to open up oil drilling, with the idea that the revenues from that drilling would somehow fund infrastructure. Of the three bills, only one says anything at all about infrastructure, and that one doesn’t say much.

During his speech, Mica also reportedly called himself a “knuckle dragging conservative” but said you can’t “pave over the entire country” and said he has no plans to “do away” with Transportation Enhancements funding of bicycle and pedestrian projects (though his original proposal did eliminate dedicated funding for it).

UPDATE 12:00: Leaders did not introduce a bill, but outlined their plan in rather vague terms. More to come.

At 11:15 this morning, House Speaker John Boehner, House Transportation Chair John Mica, Natural Resources Chair Doc Hastings (R-WA) and Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH) will take the podium to unveil their transportation and energy bill. It’s likely to take the basic outline of the bill Mica announced in the summer, add enough money (about $15 billion a year) to maintain current spending levels (though not necessarily accounting for inflation, as Sen. Barbara Boxer’s bill does) and give some sense, at least, of how they’ll pay for that extra $15 billion.

According to Transportation Nation‘s Todd Zwillich, the leaders will introduce a five-year bill — not a six-year bill, which Mica had militantly supported, but still much longer than the two-year life span of the Senate bill. Industry officials from trucking, construction, and other sectors have generally supported the longer time horizon in the House bill and the more robust funding levels in the Senate bill. If the House matches those funding levels, that could swing industry support squarely over to the House bill. The major roadblock, of course, is the controversial and unproven way the GOP plans to pay for it.

Democrats will surely balk at the plan to raise transportation money by expanding energy production, but the fossil fuel industry is sure to throw its full weight behind it.

Stivers’ presence at the press conference settles speculation as to which oil-drilling-for-infrastructure-money bill the Republicans would choose. It seems Stivers’ bill has won out. A Natural Resources subcommittee will hold a hearing on his bill tomorrow.

The plan the GOP leaders announce this morning will set their agenda for the rest of the year. Boehner has already said he wants the bill passed by the end of the year.

“I want to congratulate you on your Committee’s approval of the ‘Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act,” begins House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica’s letter yesterday to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Rep. John Mica says Boxer's bill will bankrupt the Highway Trust Fund. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

From there, the letter changes tone:

However, I am concerned that the Senate two-year proposal does not address the fundamental problem of the long-term insolvency of our Highway Trust Fund. Your proposal will essentially bankrupt the Highway Trust Fund and make it impossible to provide any funding for fiscal year 2014.

The letter continues the debate between Mica and Boxer over how to supplement revenue from the national gas tax to fund transportation spending. It’s Mica’s response to a letter he received from Boxer three weeks ago, in which she questioned whether or not his plan truly maintained current funding levels.

Mica agrees with Boxer that current funding levels should be maintained (though her bill calls for current spending plus inflation, which Mica hasn’t bought into yet). But he has a problem with the fact that the Senate hasn’t identified the new sources of revenue necessary to do that. (He says he’s working on that himself.)

Mica attached a CBO report showing Highway Trust Fund deficits beginning in 2014 under Boxer’s scenario. Boxer has said that with the additional $12 billion from some other, yet-unidentified source, her bill will keep the HTF afloat. Current levels of spending, funded only with Trust Fund receipts, would start creating deficits even sooner – the Highway Account would run into red ink this fiscal year and the Transit Account in the next fiscal year.

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