Oberstar’s Road Bill Faces Survival Test

This story appears in the July 6 print edition of Transport Topics.

With the White House standing in his path and a pair of well-placed senators lining up with the administration, the guessing game in Washington is how long House Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar can keep his six-year highway reauthorization bill alive in Congress.

Oberstar (D-Minn.) unveiled his proposal late last month, but the Obama administration stole his thunder, announcing that it wants the reauthorization process shelved for 18 months.

“Oberstar is not going to win this game,” said Joshua Schank, director of transportation research for the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

“He’s up against the Senate and the administration, and there’s only so much he can do,” said Schank, who co-wrote a book, “All Roads Lead to Congress,” about the previous reauthorization struggle. That conflict in 2005 produced the $286.5 billion SAFETEA-LU measure — the Safe, Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users — after more than two years of congressional maneuvering.

In the House, Oberstar’s bill has support from both sides of the aisle, but in the Senate, it is a different story.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has backed the White House’s desire to delay reauthorization and is writing a transportation bill of her own. Boxer is chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, through which any transportation bill would have to pass on its way to the Senate floor.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Finance Committee, is also backing the administration on the delay.

Oberstar, however, has allies outside Congress, as well as in the House, who oppose the administration’s bid to extend the existing transportation law beyond its Sept. 30 expiration date.

“Putting this off for another day is not going to make the decision any easier,” said Matt Jeanneret, spokesman for the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, which is running ads in Capitol Hill publications touting Oberstar’s bill.

“It’s about political will, and it’s about leadership,” Jeanneret said. “They know what the issue is here. It’s a revenue fight, and they’re going to have to have the fight at some point.”

The Oberstar bill calls for $500 billion in transportation spending but contains no recommendations on how to raise revenue, either through higher fuel taxes or something more novel, such as a tax on vehicle miles traveled.

“It’s an interesting puzzle, isn’t it?” said David Goldberg, one of many transportation experts watching the situation.

Goldberg is the spokesman for Transportation for America, a coalition of 300 groups that includes AARP and a host of public transit and environmental advocacy groups.

The White House “dropped this perfectly timed to pre-empt or take the air out of Oberstar’s balloon, so you clearly can’t read this as an endorsement of what Oberstar wants to do,” Goldberg said.

“It’s not necessarily a critique either, but it’s clearly, ‘Listen, fella, we’re not ready to talk about this right now, whatever your ideas are,’ ” Goldberg said.

Oberstar’s bill has won praise from groups such as the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

“We like a lot of what we see in Oberstar’s blueprint,” said ASHTO spokesman Tony Dorsey, adding that parts of the bill match a recent ASHTO policy paper on reauthorization.

ASHTO’s immediate concern, however, is the shortfall of $5 billion to $7 billion in the Highway Trust Fund, which will run out of cash before September, imperiling projects already under way, Dorsey said.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has asked for a $20 billion replenishment to carry the trust fund through September and into 2011. (click here for previous story)

The American Association of Port Authorities also praised Oberstar’s bill. In past highway bills, there were few avenues for ports to seek money for such things as intermodal connectors, said Susan Monteverde, the association’s vice president for government relations.

“We really like to see that freight is a priority in the bill,” Monteverde said. “We are glad that Mr. Oberstar has done that,” she said. The bill would require states to write freight plans and contains grant programs for freight projects.

Oberstar’s bill incorporates changes backed by several advocacy groups. Among the bill’s proposals is one that transportation funding be performance-based: Proposed projects would be evaluated on how well they promote national goals such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“Oberstar, to me, is a guy who usually puts his cards on the table,” said Stephen Van Beek, president of the Eno Transportation Foundation, another Washington think tank. “Frankly, I think he does want reform.

“Everybody’s sort of staking out their little piece of the turf . . . and saying what their bottom lines are and, as [with] everything else in this town, will meet somewhere inside the 40-yard lines and everybody will get it together,” Van Beek said.

Schank, of the Bipartisan Policy Center, was not as sanguine about a peaceful resolution to the reauthorization battle.

The Obama administration wants an 18-month delay to find more than just a stable revenue stream, Schank said. He said the administration also wants to take the lead in overhauling transportation policy.

As Schank put it, over the past decade, a bipartisan consensus outside of Congress has gelled on most transportation issues. “But Congress is what matters at the end of the day and . . . despite what everyone might say about reform, including Oberstar, there is a strong desire to . . . bring home enough money for their districts.”

Current funding formulas allow members of Congress to funnel money to specific local road and bridge projects.

“And once you start talking about really linking funding to performance, then you’re going to mess up everyone’s plans for how much they bring home to their districts, because the guy who’s been waiting to be the ranking member on the subcommittee wants his loot,” Schank said.