Search Results for: reauthorization

Rail Transit and Reauthorization

The Cato Institute will publish a new report tomorrow looking at the inequities of federal transit funding. Antiplanner readers can download a preview copy today; many of the results in the paper have previously been reported here.

The Antiplanner has argued for years that federal transit funding was inefficient because it encouraged transit agencies to choose high-cost alternatives in any transit corridor. The new paper shows the results of this inefficiency: transit agencies that have persuaded local politicians to go along with these high-cost alternatives have ended up with as much as eight times more federal transit dollars per transit rider than agencies that settled for low-cost alternatives.
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Reauthorization or Gridlock in 2012?

Speaker of the House John Boehner announced last week that House Republicans will soon introduce a surface transportation reauthorization bill called the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act. The good news is that the plan (now available only in outline form) would eliminate New Starts and other slush funds that encourage cities to waste money. The bad news is that the plan would create a new slush fund that will encourage states to waste money on highways and bridges.

As Antiplanner readers know, Congress was scheduled to reauthorize surface transportation–meaning spending of gas taxes and other federal highway user fees–in 2009. But recently Congress has been gridlocked between Tea Party Republicans, who oppose new taxes and wasteful spending, and Senate Democrats, who want to increase spending to “create jobs” but don’t know where the money would come from.

Boehner proposes to resolve this by increasing production of oil & gas on federal lands, including Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and dedicating the revenues from such production to highways and bridges. Boehner’s plan continues to include no more earmarks; ending or consolidating nearly 70 transportation funds such as New Starts; removing requirements that gas taxes be spent on non-highway projects; and streamlining transportation planning.

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Republicans Caving on Reauthorization

It would seem like Republicans hold all the cards in the debate over transportation reauthorization. It seems most likely that they will gain seats in both House and Senate next fall if not capture the Senate majority.

House Republicans have said they want to spend no more money than is flowing into the Highway Trust Fund, less than $40 billion a year. Senate Democrats say they want to keep spending at current levels, which is closer to $55 billion a year, for two years, then start the debate all over again. To make this work, says transportation observer Ken Orski, the Senate plan would completely drain the $19 billion in the Highway Trust Fund and then find another $12 billion somewhere.

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It is time for the Tea Parties to take some action. I hope that Republicans who support the Democratic plan will face some opposition in their next primary elections.

Senate Reauthorization Proposal

Bipartisan leaders of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee have reached an agreement on a broad outline for surface transportation reauthorization. This agreement includes:

  • Fund programs at current levels to maintain and modernize our critical transportation infrastructure;
  • Eliminate earmarks;
  • Consolidate numerous programs to focus resources on key national goals and reduce duplicative and wasteful programs;
  • Consolidate numerous programs into a more focused freight program that will improve the movement of goods;
  • Create a new section called America Fast Forward, which strengthens the TIFIA program to stretch federal dollars further than they have been stretched before; and
  • Expedite project delivery without sacrificing the environment or the rights of people to be heard.

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Obama’s Reauthorization Proposal

Over the next six years, the Obama administration proposes to spend $253 billion on highways; $119 billion on mass transit; $53 billion on “high-performance” passenger trains; $28 billion on “livability”; and $25 billion on an infrastructure bank. At least, those are the numbers that can be found in a copy of an undated bill representing the Obama administration’s proposal for reauthorizing federal surface transportation spending that was recently distributed by a publication called Transportation Weekly. The publication also released a section-by-section analysis of the bill.

Under the bill, total spending over the next six years (2012 through 2017) would be about $480 billion, which is roughly twice as much as the federal government expects to collect in gas taxes and other existing highway user fees. The bill makes several references to a “new energy tax” that might make up some of the difference.

Currently, almost all federal spending on surface transportation comes from federal taxes on motor fuel, heavy trucks and trailers, and truck tires. When Congress created the Interstate Highway System in 1956, it also created the Highway Trust Fund and dedicated these taxes to that fund. This fund sunsets every six years unless reauthorized, and each reauthorization gives Congress a chance to tinker with the fund.

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Heritage: Postpone Reauthorization

Congress is scheduled to reauthorize federal surface transportation funding this year, but faithful Antiplanner ally Ron Utt of the Heritage Foundation recommends that it postpone reauthorization for two years. In the meantime, Utt would suspend all earmarks and grant programs (such as New Starts) and just give that portion of the money to the states and let them spend it on transportation as they see fit. In the parlance of transportation funding, such funds would be “flexible,” meaning they could go for either highways or transit.

Utt also says the states should get no more money than is actually coming into the highway trust fund from gas taxes and other federal user fees (mainly truck taxes). This doesn’t sound earth-shattering, but the last reauthorization required Congress to appropriate a specified level of funds to the states even if revenues failed to cover those funds.

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Guide to Reauthorization

Congress plans to reauthorize federal transportation spending some time in the next 18 months, and to help people understand the issues, the American Dream Coalition has published a Citizens’ Guide to Transportation Reauthorization. For those who want to print the guide on a black-and-white printer, a color-free version is also available.


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The eight-page guide includes twenty charts explaining such issues as where gas taxes are spent, highways vs. rail, and the best ways to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The paper suggests a variety of questions people should ask about any proposal for federal reauthorization, and presents its own recommendations for what Congress should do.
The text is documented with numerous citations, and the guide also lists a dozen other papers for further information.

Reauthorization Next Year — Maybe

Reauthorization of federal transportation funding, scheduled for 2009, will probably be delayed until 2010, says Senator Mark Warner. Apparently, Congress has too many higher priorities to take care of this year.

Congress historically authorizes transportation funding (most of which comes out of federal gas taxes) for six years. This gives it an opportunity to change direction and gives members of Congress opportunities to raise campaign funds from interest groups whose businesses depend on federal funding.

One reason for the delay, as reported in Congressional Quarterly (on-line version not available), is that the House Transportation Committee’s computer can’t handle all of the earmarks that members want to put into the bill. The computer keeps crashing.

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Why U.S. Infrastructure Is So Expensive

Now that Congress has passed an infrastructure bill, major media outlets are beginning to ask questions about how the money will be spent. Using the Honolulu rail project as an example, the New York Times wants to know why so many infrastructure projects suffer from such large cost overruns. Bloomberg asks similar questions using Boston’s Green Line extension as an example.

Click image to download a four-page PDF of this policy brief.

The Eno Transportation Foundation and Manhattan Institute wonder why projects cost more than in other countries even before the cost overruns. These are all good questions that should have been asked before the bill was passed. Continue reading

White House Reveals How It Will Waste Money

The White House has issued a series of updated fact sheets bragging about how much money the infrastructure bill will spend in each state (see table below). The fact sheets are based on formulas in the bill that account for a little more than three-fourths of the “new” spending in the bill, with the other 22 percent coming from grant programs. The “new” spending, in turn, accounts for $550 billion, while the other $650 billion is a reauthorization of existing spending programs.

It’s hard to look at these numbers without getting the impression that most of the money will be wasted. For example, every state gets a minimum of $100 million to expand broadband access to its residents. Residents of the District of Columbia currently have access to 38 different broadband providers, with 11 of them providing service to residences. Yet DC, like the states, will get the $100 million minimum. What’s the point? (For that matter, everyone in the country has access to at least two satellite providers, but the bill pretends that anything short of a land-line provider is inadequate.)

The excuse for the infrastructure bill is that America’s infrastructure is crumbling, and that may be true for city streets and city- and county-owned bridges. But the tens of billions of dollars going for highways will almost all go to the states, whose infrastructure is in good shape and improving every year. Continue reading