$500 Billion stimulus plan to upgrade railroads, mass transit, highways hits federal pothole

[Better Believe It]

An earlier article and an update on the transportation bill. Now this is serious and useful job stimulus! 6 million jobs! Unfortunately the links to the first two stories are no longer working.

--------------------------


500 billion plan to upgrade U.S. transportation hits federal pothole
By SCOTT SMITH
Scott Smith is director of strategic initiatives for HNTB Corporation
KansasCity.com
July 13, 2009

Our roads, highways and bridges are crumbling under the strain of overuse and old age.

But a comprehensive solution may have encountered a bottleneck that will postpone for 18 months or longer a push to correct the sorry state of our surface transportation system. Delay is something we can no longer afford ....

We find ourselves in this predicament because we have not had a national transportation plan since the interstate highway system was launched in 1956.

U.S. Rep. James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat and chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, addressed these huge needs by introducing the Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009. Oberstar proposes spending $500 billion over the next six years to transform our antiquated system into the reliable, sophisticated network we need to safely and efficiently move people and goods.

The legislation would provide approximately:

•$337 billion for highway construction, including at least $100 billion to begin long-awaited repairs to our national highway system and bridges.

•$100 billion for mass transit, including $12 billion for repairs.

•$50 billion to fund 11 high-speed rail corridors linking major metropolitan areas.

The total investment would create or sustain about 6 million family-wage jobs, many here in the Midwest as our region continues to grow in importance as a transportation hub.

Unfortunately, Oberstar’s bill has collided with a proposal put forth by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. The secretary wants Congress to pass an 18-month highway authorization bill that would put off a comprehensive, long-term solution and instead perpetuate a piecemeal mix of half-measures and temporary remedies for our nation’s transportation woes.

This collision need not turn into a pileup — if we make the right choice. Oberstar’s approach is the right way to go.

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/1322647.html


-------------------------------

Will Oberstar’s Grand Highway Plan Stall?
By Colby Itkowitz, CQ Staff
June 27, 2009

Oberstar recently made public the outline of an authorization bill for the government’s highway and transit programs that he hopes will be the capstone of his long legislative career: a six-year, $450 billion package he describes as rivaling President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s creation of the Interstate Highway System more than a half-century ago.

The approximately 800-page draft measure that Oberstar has been refining for months envisions an ambitious overhaul, consolidating more than 100 individual federal programs into four broad categories, while pumping billions of dollars into new highway and high-speed rail projects. Most significant, it would require that federal money be spent to achieve specific goals and measures — cutting congestion in a city by a particular amount, for example — rather than distributing it only by formula among states or through congressional earmarks.

This moment, which is the apex of his political career, could not have come at a worse time for a chairman who puts such a high value on policy purity and such a relatively low value on political posturing. It’s been clear for months that President Obama and Oberstar’s fellow Democrats who are higher up in the congressional power structure are in no hurry to tackle a multi-year highway and transit bill, because they would have to find a way to pay for it — and the White House has said a flat “no” to the notion of raising the gasoline tax, even temporarily, as Oberstar has proposed.

In fact, no sooner had Oberstar arranged to release an outline of his proposal than Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood went to Capitol Hill to reveal the administration’s own plan: an 18-month extension of current programs combined with a few of Obama’s favorite ideas — nothing like the full-blown overhaul of which Oberstar dreams.

“They cut the legs out from under him,” said the top Republican on Oberstar’s committee, John L. Mica of Florida.

It’s not that Oberstar wasn’t warned about how difficult it would be. At the very outset of this Congress, his party’s leaders sharply limited his role in assembling the economic stimulus bill (PL 111-5), which Oberstar and others thought was tailor-made for financing transportation projects that could quickly put people to work. He had written his own proposal and held hearings, gathering testimony from economists and from state and local leaders who vowed that investments in transportation infrastructure were the greatest short-term stimulus. But as the measure grew, Oberstar was edged out, and transportation became just a sliver in the overall package.

Obama, congressional leaders and governors no doubt agree with Oberstar that the nation’s road and rail networks are in desperate need of repair and expansion. But persuading them to pay for it is another matter.

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/1322647.html

------------------------------------------

W.H. feels pressure on jobs, spending
By David Rogers
November 6, 2009

Caught between Tuesday’s election results and Friday’s unemployment numbers, the White House faces increased pressure to slow spending next year but also to produce more Main Street jobs to match Wall Street’s recovery.

.... the future of the highway program, hurt by a drop-off in gasoline tax revenues, remains a bone of contention.

The White House has said it wants to extend the current program only through the 2010 elections and then address increased funding. But 15 states are already so short of cash they can’t meet their 20 percent matching requirement. And that number could double next year — greatly reducing the chance to let contracts and create jobs.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) has argued for an upfront investment of $80 billion over two years to get over this hurdle.

“The concrete is cracking,” Oberstar said, laughing, hinting that the administration’s resistance is weakening. And though he denies any role in the discussions, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel keeps popping up in conversations, drawn into the fray through his ties to old House colleagues, seen in the gym or at dinner.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn is most insistent on action requiring some give from the White House.

“I’ve told the administration, I don’t care who says it, that is absolutely wrongheaded,” the South Carolina Democrat told POLITICO. “We have to reauthorize that highway bill for at least four years. I would prefer five or six,” Clyburn said, even if it meant imposing a securities transaction tax on the financial community to cover the costs.

“There are some painless ways to fund the highway bill,” Clyburn said. “Transaction taxes, that’s a painless way; 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 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.”

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29225.html

-------------------------------------------------

‘The Concrete is Cracking’: Front-Loaded New Transport Bill Gains Steam
By Elana Schor
November 6, 2009

With the U.S. unemployment rate hitting 10.2 percent today, its highest level in 26 years, a palpable shift is occurring on Capitol Hill.

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:

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.

Read the complete article at:

http://dc.streetsblog.org/2009/11/06/the-concrete-is-cracking-front-loaded-new-transport-bill-gains-steam/

--------------------------------------------

Earlier this year, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James L. Oberstar drafted six-year, $500 billion bill introduced as a successor to SAFETEA-LU. Oberstar's plan-with a vision for a National Transportation Strategic Plan that is international in nature and national in scope-is at a standstill due to lack of sufficient funding mechanisms.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Spokesman Jim Berard told LM that between now and the second continuing resolution deadline of December 18, a few different things may happen. One may be moving to a long-term bill and another may be coming to an agreement on another extension on an indeterminate amount of time.

"Chairman Oberstar would like to see the long-term bill move and be on the House floor by Christmas, but we are still in a holding pattern to due health care," said Berard. "And the Ways and Means Committee on the House side has to mark up the revenue title of the bill before we can even bring it to the House floor."

http://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/367098-Transportation_infrastructure_Surface_transportation_funding_gets_another_extension.php