Reauthorization

On our walk down the memory lane of 2011 so far, we’ve talked about some downers, some inspirations, some triumphs, and some struggles. Check out our first two installments of year-end Streetsie award nostalgia. Here’s some more.

When the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee unanimously passed a two-year transportation reauthorization bill last month, it quickly became clear that bipartisan support was coming at a price. First, we learned that the Transportation Enhancements bike/ped programs would lose their dedicated funding. Now, we learn that Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loans will no longer hold applicants to as high an environmental standard -- or any standard, really.

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.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) and his Finance Committee have been looking high and low for a $12 billion patch to fund the transportation reauthorization bill that passed the Senate EPW Committee a few weeks ago. According to Politico’s transportation reporters, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, Sen. Orrin Hatch, has already rejected several of Baucus’s ideas.

Last week, the Ridesharing Institute sent out its first press release. Based in New Zealand (at least, that’s where the Executive Director is, though the group did recently incorporate in Delaware), the organization doesn’t yet have a website, though it does have a Facebook page and a wiki. As its first foray into U.S. politics, the Institute took on the Senate transportation bill, MAP-21. "Where is ridesharing in the bill?" the institute wondered.

SAFETEA-LU has been extended eight times over more than two years. Legislators on both sides are tired of delays and see the need for a new reauthorization bill that sets new policy and does something about the Highway Trust Fund before it runs clean out of cash.

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.

Though the House Republicans are stealing the show these days with their endeavor to tie infrastructure funding to oil drilling, let’s not forget there’s a serious, bipartisan transportation reauthorization bill out there that actually has a chance of passage: the Senate’s MAP-21. On its path toward a full Senate vote, that two-year bill is paused at its latest checkpoint: the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. The committee is now busy tackling the transit title of the “MAP-21” legislation, following unanimous approval of the "highway" portion two weeks ago by the EPW Committee. (Quick reminder: the funding in the highway title can be spent on many things that are not highways, like transit systems and bike lanes.)

From an environmental perspective, the House GOP proposal to fund infrastructure with fees on fossil fuel extraction is clearly a disaster. But does it even pass the smell test from a dollars-and-cents perspective?