On Election Eve, Reading the Transpo Tea Leaves

Perhaps more than any national campaign in recent history, the majorcandidates have staked out very clear and decidedly different stanceson transportation infrastructure investment.

McCain has made criticism of earmarks something of a crusade in hiscampaign, and says he wants to send more decisions on spendingpriorities to the states.

“I believe that a higher share of the taxes collected at the gaspump should go back to the state where those taxes were paid,” theArizona Republican told the American Automobile Association, “and I’ve co-sponsored legislation thatwould allow states to keep almost all of their gas tax revenues fortheir own transportation projects without interference fromWashington.”

“We’ve got a problem,” Mortimer Downey, a former deputy secretary oftransportation in the Clinton administration and an adviser to theObama campaign, told a public forum in Washington last week ontransportation policy. “Infrastructure needs more investment. It isimportant, it is crumbling, and other countries are doing more than weare. We’ve got national issues we need to deal with, and transportationis the critical tool for doing that.”

He said the Obama camp has “a vision” for the next highway bill. “Itshould be a much better bill than the last couple. It shouldn’t have somany earmarks in it,” Downey said.

At the same forum, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, chief economic adviser tothe McCain campaign, said the spending priorities are critical. “Thereis no area where earmarking has been more visible than in highwaybills. We have to get more bang for the buck.”

Downey said the economy will make transportation programs moreimportant. Obama favors, he said, “an economic recovery measure thatwould have infrastructure and get people working on, hopefully, smallprojects that would roll out quickly.”

How either administration would pay for a highway bill remains an open question.

Obama has endorsed a $60 billion National Infrastructure Bank to invest in projects of a national priority.

McCain dismisses that idea. “The notion that there is a need for aninfrastructure bank is not something the senator supports,” Holtz-Eakinsaid. He called the plan “reminiscent of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

At the agency level, industry observers believe the two would offer starkly different approaches to regulation.

Industry officials believe an Obama White House would work closelywith the Democratic Congress on such agency-level issues, and a strongmajority in the Senate would clear the way for broader actions in areassuch as “card check” legislation to make it easier for labor unions toorganize workers.

A McCain Department of Transportation, meanwhile, likely would look much like the last eight years under President Bush.

“I think a McCain DOT is going to be very similar to what we havenow,” said the U.S. Chamber’s Kavinoky. “There has been speculationabout Mary Peters staying on as DOT secretary. In that case, I thinkyou would see a lot of consistency between a Bush and a McCainadministration.”

“An Obama administration is starting over; they have to put all newpeople in place, develop reauthorization proposals, that could delaythe process,” she said. “It’s not an easy task to develop legislativeconcepts that could get through (the Office of Management and Budget).”